Assembly lines, constant scratching, and uncomfortableness in the body. Sore muscles, scabbed legs, and panicked looks of desperation. Countless hours spent ankle or knee deep in a river collecting rocks, nights spent scratching legs raw while sleeping, and too much toilet paper being used due to everyone getting some funky bowel movements (TMI?). This month has been completely different than last month, but through the tedious work and constant pain there has been joy.
I told myself not to have any expectations before I left and I thought I succeeded, but apparently not. Like in Haiti, I thought we would be visiting with people and talking with the kids that attended the camp, but that was not the case.
Bolivia consisted of maintenance work at a camp, bugs that ate us alive, and lots and lots of rocks. The first few days were spent in the river and in assembly lines collecting rocks and tossing them over the wall to be placed along all the dirt paths throughout the camp. It was tedious work and we were attacked by horse flies and these tiny but mighty yellow bugs that left us bleeding. After just a few days our legs were full of bruises and scabs from scratching.
The following week we began maintenance on the paths. Our host, Hermano Lucho, and his helper, Hermano Teo, had started lining the dirt paths with rocks while we were in the river. All 40 of us were on our hands and knees laying rocks for a path or shoving sand into the nooks and crannies between the rocks. Our clothing attire was a sight to see! You would have thought we were freezing cold in the mountains instead of sweating bullets in the jungle. Most of us wore tall socks, leggings with pants over them, a shirt and then a jacket over top so the bugs wouldn’t get us. Wrong! They went after our face instead! Luckily not many of us have scabs all over our face like our legs do.
We weren’t able to finish all the paths but we made a dent. If you know me, you know that I’m a relational person. If you know the other five people on my team you know they are more relational people than labor. From knowing that, you can imagine how difficult this month was for us, especially coming from Haiti where we communicated with people outside of our squad every day.
All that tedious work and no communication with the campers made it difficult to see how we were furthering the Kingdom. But with every sore muscle and dirty hands we realized that Hermano Lucho and Teo could not have done any of the work on their own.
The last Sunday we realized we were an answer to their prayers.
During church Hermano Lucho explained he was wanting rock paths throughout the camp for a long time but he did not have enough man power or money to hire people. A few days later he received a phone call wondering if he would like to host a group of forty Americans and if he had enough work for them to do. Of course! He hung up the phone and jumped for joy over his answered prayer.
All that work didn’t seem tedious anymore.
Aside from the physical pain, God also brought internal pain that ended in JOY. There will be another blog about this pain turning into joy this month, but to give you a sneak peak, God gave me a clearer image of what my identity is in Him.
Until next time,
Grace and Peace,
Hannah
PS: TDP is currently in Pucallpa, Peru safe and sound. We’ll be here all month which means we have been thinking about and planning food for our Thanksgiving dinner!
