Caranavi, Bolivia
Another month in the books and once again the Lord has blessed me. I spent the month of March in Caranavi, Bolivia and right from the get go it was pretty crazy. We flew into the city of La Paz, which is roughly 13,000 ft above sea level. I had never experienced anything like this before and neither had most of my squad mates. It was hard to breath and many of us became ill from elevation sickness. As we left the airport, the first statue we saw was a giant Bolivian man stomping on a bald eagle so of course it made us feel right at home. 🙂
Our trip to Caranavi was an interesting one. We traveled 5 hours in a bus on what they call death road. The meaning of this name became very clear after the first 5 minutes. The road was extremely narrow and it appeared as if it only had room to be a one way street, but there were cars going both directions. This however was not the scariest part. On each side of the road there was no guard rail and when traveling on an elevated bus roughly 6 inches to a foot away from the edge, you could look out the window directly down about 300 yards to what would be certain death. With lots of screaming from the girls and much prayer, we did however arrive to our destination safely.
With a few people sick and everyone exhausted from travel, we were expecting a day off, but the Lord had other plans for us. 3 days prior to our arrival they had non stop rain that caused a landslide, which took out half the road that was needed for us to travel up the mountain to our host family’s house. So our first 3 days in Caranavi we busted our tails, and even my finger accidentally, to create a new pathway for the locals to travel on. Even with tired bodies, we had a blast and met an awesome man of God named Gregorio, or as we called him, Jefe Toro. He was a hard working man who truly lived his life to the verse in 1st Corinthians that says,”Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” What a blessing it was to meet this man and I know without a doubt that he will be rewarded on the day that he stands face to face with our creator.
After we finished up with the road, a few teammates and I decided to head to town and check out the festival that was going on. Lets just say we were completely unprepared. Within the first minute of walking downtown I got pelted with a water balloon in the side of the head. From that moment on we decided we had to pair up and get supplies. We met back up with bags of water balloons and soap spray. On to the center of town we went, dodging balloons, throwing balloons, and trying to make it through town unnoticed. We were very unsuccessful. By the time we made it to the center of town we were running for our lives. Roughly 50 kids with paint filled super soakers were chasing us yelling, “GRINGOS!! GRINGOS!!” By the time we made it back up the mountain we were covered in paint, but we had smiles on our faces. Not because of the paint, but because the whole town now knew the crazy gringos and the door was open to began ministry around town.
The 2nd and 3rd week in Bolivia we spent our days doing hard labor for the radio station the family owned and preparing kids programs. We would work during the week on things such as making a parking lot, changing out a damaged sewer pipe, washing walls, washing windows, sanding and varnishing chairs, and any other miscellaneous things that came up. Then on saturday we would do our kids programs. The best part was that they advertised for the programs so my team was on the radio and T.V. all the time. I never thought the day would come that I would be sitting down watching T.V. and a commercial would come on with me dancing around in a clown costume….but it did! And the advertisements paid off because we had some really good showings at the programs. Everyone wanted to know what these crazy gringos on T.V. and running through the town during the festival were all about. We would sing songs, dance, play games, and so some skits that all related to the love of Christ and the forgiveness that He offers us.
Needless to say its been another awesome month, but I must give a shout out to Paul and J (our host family) who have treated us like family and made us feel right at home with J’s amazing meals that she cooks for us each day. It was truly a blessing being in Caranavi and getting to see the great things that the Lord is doing here through you and is going to continue to do through you.
Also would just like to say to my family back home, I love and miss you all and I know its a long way away, but see you all at Christmas!!! Love You Gramcracker!!!! God Bless 🙂
