Hola! Welcome to Bolivia! After 40+ hrs on a bus ride I have finally made it to Cochabamba, Bolivia. Cochabamba has 500,000+ people and is set in the valley of Cochabamba, in the Andes Mountains. Our contacts have been here for over 9 years and have started an organization entitled International Orphanage Union (IOU), as well as a restaurant called Cafe Ole, which helps fund the orphanages.
IOU’s main goal is to provide Christian homes for orphans. Each orphanage will be a family setting with 8 to 10 children raise by Christian house parents. Each orphanage will be associated with a local church to sponsor it and provide spiritual encouragement. IOU has 8 orphanages throughout Cochabamba. 4 are open, 1 is waiting on paper work to be completed and 3 are being built.
I´ve been here almost a week andI´m really excited about our ministry this month! It´s something new and wonderful. Our ministry this month includes: working in the orphanages, building the orphanages, working at the restaurant and other small ministries. This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to wash children give them clean clothes, and do their hair. of homeless families. With only so much water and soap, if you could sit in the tub without your legs hanging over, you were able to get a bath. The last girl I washed didn´t fit the criteria but because we had a little left over, she was able to get one. And that one bath might be the only one she´ll get for the week or a month. Her hands and feet were so black and engrained with dirt, that no matter how hard I scrubbed, they would always look dirty. Out of all the children and babies I washed that day, she was the one who broke my heart the most.
Bolivia is one of the most beautiful countries I have visited thus far. The Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca is, in my oppinion, much more beautiful than the Peruvian side. The waters are as blue as the sky yet crystal clear. Sunday I was a ble to climb to the second largest statue of Jesus Christ in the world (the largest is in Poland). Unfortunately the statue was locked so I was not able to go inside, but the view was breath taking.
In Ecuador, I had the chance to clear out land for a soon-to-be built missionary school and encourage people through home visits. In Peru I had the chance to help build a children´s home as well as minister to some of the children who would be living in the home. And now In Bolivia I have the chance to wash the hands and feet of the homless children, work in and build an orphanage, and work in a restaurant that funds the orphanages. What an incredible opportunity God has given me. That´s how He works!
I´m getting close to my next deadline of $11,000 by October. I need $3,900 for this deadline and after that, $4,500 to be fully funded. Please consider supporting me monthly or as a one time donation. You can do it electronically from your computer. Just click the support button. Thanks for reading my blog and God bless!!
