This month, I was in Mapiri, Bolivia! It’s a small town in the jungle at the foot of the Andes Mountains. In order to get there, we traversed “death road,” crossed “suspension” bridges (aka. wooden slats held up by cables), and drove 13 hours on rough mountain and jungle roads. I’ll just say we got stuck in the mud a few times on our way there.
What did Ministry look like?
Our main ministry for the month was construction on a new church building and then working with the church. We preached at services, did kids’ church, prayed for members of the church, and even had the opportunity to counsel a few people. Construction work (which consisted of gathering rocks from a river bed and leveling the ground) halted after about the first week as they were having trouble getting the needed supplies. This was almost a blessing for our team, however, as most of my team became sick that week. After that, we focused on serving the Pastor and Pastora by doing things like cleaning the grounds, cooking them dinner, and cleaning the church kitchen.
Favorite moment?
One of my favorite moments this month was when I unexpectedly got to preach. We were headed to another village about 2 hours away and had prepared some songs and a teammate, Chelsea, had prepared a message. That morning, however, Chelsea woke up feeling sick and throwing up. She obviously wouldn’t be going.
The time for us to leave came extremely fast and I grabbed my water bottle and Bible (that was it) and we jammed five of us plus the pastor and his daughter into their small car. In the car, we picked up the topic that somebody was going to have to preach. We prayed about it and while we were praying, the Holy Spirit reminded me of a journal entry I had just written. It was about hearing the voice of God and the different ways He speaks to us. In Trujillo, Peru God had spoken to me through dreams. Something I had never experienced before. (For four nights in a row, I had very vivid and peaceful dreams that had pretty clear meanings). So within a matter of a few minutes, I had an entire sermon outlined in my head. Verses came to mind and I even had personal experiences to talk about, which was amazing to me.
Prayers:
On Tuesday, we will be heading out of Bolivia and making our way to India! Please be praying for safe travels and that we will get to our next ministry sites smoothly. My team is going to be working at a children’s home in Bangalore, so you can also be praying for the home there as well.
