Not only does this month have all of the stories, this month was by far the hardest I had been through on the race thus far. There are so many things that made Bolivia a nightmare in moments, but this is a lot of what I learned through it.
We started off the month with a brand new team. Which initially makes things a little harder just because you aren’t acclimated to each other. You haven’t had months of learning how to live with each other, so starting that over to a point is challenging.
Our ministry initially looked super awesome. It seemed as though we were going to be breaking ground for AIM, “setting new trails” as some would say, traveling from village to village preaching the gospel. So initially we were extremely excited about it! Until we got into it…
We had our “tour guide” and our translator, ready to spread the gospel and have a great time doing it. Except it turns out that our translator doesn’t speak English and we went from having a few days to prep our sermons for ministry to about half a day. So the month got hard quickly.
We finally make it to our first village. There, we go to our “hostel” to sleep and it looked like it came from an old horror film. Then the pastor of the church we were supposed to be working with was MIA. That just makes everything so much fun, you have no host and no sleep.
This in turn creates four very already emotional girls to become much more emotional. Yes, I had one of the biggest meltdowns I have had in a long time, that night. There was no specific reason for it other than I had no clue why I was there. It got to the point that evening where I decided it would be easier for me to just go home. That since I had no “obvious reason” for being there, I no longer needed to be there.
The next day turns into an “on call day” awaiting the arrival of our MIA pastor. When he finally shows up at like 7pm he informs us not only are we preaching for 2 hours that night, but the next 2 days we would be preaching for 3 hours twice a day. So of course, another emotional breakdown ensues. (the month was full of them)
After that emotional breakdown I finally pulled myself together and started writing sermons. I started flipping open the Bible looking for things to preach about. Because 6 hours a day for two days is a lot of material, especially when you are preaching to the exact same choir every time. It turns out that the village people actually have jobs, so no one showed up. So all of our initial stress of needing things prepared was totally not worth it. (first thing re-learned)
So #teachingtour2016 is off again! We head to our next village which is across the river. This village was pretty great! The people were so happy to have us that they fed us each and every meal while we were there and showed nothing but love and complete joy in what we had to share with them. This village was definitely a light for the month, since it was complete opposite of the first village.
So we are half way through the month and had done about 6 days of ministry so far. Which made most of my team disappointed because it hadn’t felt like we had done anything so far. Half way through and we are off to our final destination, Apollo, Bolivia. I wouldn’t say that ghost town is the correct word, I would say that dirt town is. There was so much dirt in the air the city looked like the dust bowl. This adventure was a little different because our team was splitting up. Half of the team stayed in Apollo to work at a day care while the other half hiked 65 miles into a tiny village of 14 families.
I was on the team that stayed in Apollo, with just 3 other teammates and our translator. Man did we have the hardest time with our translator. For the majority of the month our translator would run off and disappear for hours. In times that we needed him to translate he would decide to do something else and leave us to our own devices. There was a huge need this month for patience, which was big lesson number two.
Apollo was basically a big flop because our host seemed a little sexist and wouldn’t let us girls build anything, and our translator would still run off for hours to do his own thing. We spent the majority of our time deep frying things for fun and watching movies. Great ministry isn’t it. By the end of the month we had maybe done about 8 hours of ministry collectively. Between visiting some families and going to church everyday, we managed to each preach 1 sermon. From the ministry side we did nothing, in two and a half weeks that’s all we did.
So the craziness of the month ended. Finally, I was so thankful for the month to be over. But then the Lord sat me down and asked why? Of course I answered with, Uh because this was an awful month. Duh? We maybe did about 8 hours of ministry the entire month. We sat in a car for about 6 of the days just to drive from village to village. And the entire time the team was in the slumps emotionally due to the hardships of the month. So of course I wanted to leave.
It took me about three hours of questioning the Lord for me to realize that it wasn’t about the ministry this month. Our month wasn’t about how many people we saved or how many churches we preached at. This month was about us learning to be content in him.
It had nothing to do with how much time was devoted to our “ministries.” It was about how much time we devoted to Him to pull us through it.
I need to learn to find the beauties in the hardships when they are happening. I know that now. I realized that you can’t sit and mumble and grumble through the hard times to then see the rainbow at the end of it. I need to learn to be content IN the hard times and find the beauties around me. Bolivia was by far one of the most beautiful countries we had been in. Landscape alone, Bolivia blows all the past countries out of the water, but for most of it I was unable to see it. All I saw were the flies, the hay mattresses, and all the bad stuff in between.
We did some amazing things that I know most people would never in their life get the chance to do. We crossed rivers on sketchy canoes, we climbed mountains, saw some of the best views there are, and got to spend a month in Bolivia showing people God’s love. There are views and moments that I loved beyond belief after I left the country, once I wasn’t miserable. But it’s not about finding the beauties after. Its about realizing life isn’t about you and what is “going wrong” but about what the Lord has for you in them.
I learned so much about myself this month, it’s ridiculous. I learned that I am still very selfish, materialistic, and stubborn. That if things aren’t going right then they just shouldn’t be going anymore. I realized that there are so many things that I am needing to check myself on. There is ALWAYS a reason for what happens. The Lord has so many plans and so many beauties in life for us, but unless we learn to be okay in the hard times we will miss those beauties. And trust me its not worth the worry anyways. What he has for us is 10 times better than anything we have planned for ourselves.
So I’m sorry Bolivia that I was unable to fully appreciate all that you had to offer me because of me being caught up in myself. But thank you for the opportunity to grow and still be beautiful even if I couldn’t see it in the moment.
