Yesterday was my favorite day of the race thus far. Before I tell you about it, let me give a description of the days before. We left Trujillo, Peru, Saturday night around 11 and finally got to the Bolivian border around 1 pm on Monday. Thankfully, we had chartered a bus so we had access to a bathroom and were able to stop a few times for food. It took a few hours to get everything at the border worked out and we arrived in La Paz Monday night around 9pm. We stayed at a hostel that night but then my team had to be at the bus station at 7 the next morning to start our trek south. We rode 8 hours to Cochabamba and then got on another bus for 18 hours to Santa Cruz. We bought our tickets at 3:35pm and the bus left at 3:45pm so we were in the very back of bus. For at least two or three hours of this bus ride, we were in a cloud of sand, dirt, and dust. All of our things were covered in dirt. I’ve been blowing black dirt out of my nose for the past 24 hours after getting off the bus and I can feel the build up of dirt in my lungs from that bus ride. I sat on the middle seat of the back row, right above the engine, so I was feeling the heat. It was definitely the worst bus ride I have ever been on. To make matters worse, we never stopped to eat and only stopped to use the bathroom when I went to the front of the bus to ask the driver if we could stop at 1 am. All the Bolivians on the bus had my back and wouldn’t even let me go back to my seat until the driver pulled over. Using the bathroom in the middle of the Bolivian countryside is an experience I will never forget. We finally slept for a few hours once the dust storm was over and we had been to the bathroom. We arrived in Santa Cruz Wednesday morning around 9 and were taken to a 5-star hotel where we would be staying with a medical mission team from Chicago for a night. After almost 70 hours on buses and covered in sand, we were overjoyed to be staying at any kind of hotel. I knew we were supposed to be going with the medical mission team that afternoon but honestly, all I wanted to do was sleep. And then God turned my weariness into joy.
Even though it was long, the views through Peru and Bolivia were beautiful! Photo Credit: Dustin Mick Dills
Four of my teammates and I went with a group of about 30 doctors, nurses, paramedics, and translators to a rural town on the outskirts of Santa Cruz. While they were running the clinic, my team was told to do crowd control. We had no idea what that meant but we saw some kids hanging outside the school so we just started talking to them. That turned into us starting a game of “Down by the Banks”. By the time we finished the first game, there was a group of at least 30 Bolivian kids surrounding us. We played again and again, with new kids joining each time. We played Red light, Green light and taught them Tootie Ta and had competitions screaming the song “Glory to God” in Spanish. Basically we just played in the street with kids for 4 hours and I have never had so much fun.
When I met Nayeli, she was crying because her brother broke her necklace. Thank you, Jesus, for things that can be fixed!
I met a boy named Sergio and as soon as I saw him, I felt the Spirit moving and telling me that I needed to love on him specifically. Sergio is ten and has several handicaps that I think all come from the huge hump on his back. He cannot run like normal children and one arm works fairly well and the other just kind of hangs. He had a soccer ball so I asked if he wanted to play. We kicked the ball back and forth for a long time and some other kids joined us but I always tried to kick it to Sergio just to see him smile and hear his beautiful laugh. I even got to share the gospel with him and several boys. They were more interested in asking questions about where I lived but maybe what I said planted a seed. Nancy and I got the opportunity to pray over the boys and for healing for Sergio. Even though we didn’t see any physical healing, I am confident that the Lord started to heal him beyond just the physical.
The group of boys I played soccer with and shared with. Sergio is the one at the end on the left.
I loved yesterday so much because there was so much freedom and we had no agenda of what we were going to do. We shared the love of Jesus just by having fun and being silly. The Lord has really blessed me with a love for children and being able to love them in the way they need it and my prayer is that it would extend beyond children. That I would love my team and youth and adults with no reservations and see them with the eyes of the Father and love them in the same way.
We are leaving in just a few minutes to go to Lagunillas, Bolivia which is our actual ministry site for the month. Sounds like we will be doing church encouragement, similar to our ministry in Ecuador. Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers!
