I said to Bethany, our Y Squad leader, as our group of six ran around La Paz, Bolivia, looking for reliable enough Wi-Fi to download our finance information before we began our search for safe ATMs to pull out cash for the month. She laughed and said, “I said the same thing to Sam this morning.” (Sam is her co-leader for our squad.)
The first two months of the race were nothing short of a honeymoon. As the “beach team” in Puerto Rico and then in the lush mountains of the Dominican Republic – transitioning into cooler weather, altitude sickness and a change of hemispheres was all a bit of a culture shock.
After giving up on the Internet, we ventured over to a road with a few places that exchanged money and five ATMs. My team needed cash, Bolivianos or Bs, for the month and I was ready to pull it all out. After multiple unsuccessful tries with multiple bank machines, I gave up. Bethany tried getting money for my team, and was able to get out less than half of what I wanted us to have before we left on our 13 hour bus ride to Uyuni, where we were not entirely sure what the cash situation would look like. The ATM refused to work for Bethany again, but luckily another treasurer was able to get me just shy of my goal.
Back at our La Paz host’s home, I discussed the situation with Houston, our team’s leader, and we felt ready for the next leg of our journey. At this time, we had already been traveling for about 36 hours and we were all pretty anxious to get to our ministry site.
Around 8 am the next morning, my team, our translator (Pastor Juan), team Radical, Sam and our teams’ coordinator in Bolivia (Caleb), arrived in Uyuni. Lesa and Laura on Radical had likened the town to Arizona – dusty and dry. I was still in the excitement phase of being back in South America, and began to reminisce about my trip to Ambato, Ecuador last year and its similarities to Uyuni.
We found we had one small bathroom to share – currently with the 16 people in our group, plus the families we are staying with. This seemed to pose little problem as we shared one bathroom the previous month with 47 people! We also knew that once Radical, Caleb and Sam moved on, we would have even less people to share it with. The shower doesn’t seem to work in the bathroom, and while there isn’t a waterfall nearby like last month, boiled water bucket showers are just as nice.
We also have our own kitchen again, like we had in Puerto Rico. Our Uyuni host, Pastor Rolando, even borrowed a refrigerator for us to use for the month! The difference this month is that we get to do our shopping at markets around the town, instead of the super market we were brought to in month one.
The markets are quite the experience. We walk about 8 blocks to the nearest market and we’re learning the best deals and times to go (mornings are key if you want the best fruit). Our translator, Juan, also helps with pricing and explaining the different vegetables or fruits we’re finding. He has such a servant’s heart and loves cooking new food for us – and we’re asking for all of the recipes!
On our first meeting with Pastor Rolando, it seemed we had our work cut out for us this month. The original plans were to have a ministry in the morning (house and hospital visits, and presentations at the high schools), English classes in the afternoon, and different activities each night as well. We were to also have children’s days on Saturdays and help with Sunday School in the morning and attend another service Sunday evenings.
While not everything has worked out as originally planned, and we still have a packed schedule of attending, leading and preparing for ministry, it’s amazing to see how God orchestrated last month to prepare us for this month.
I can see how my team is growing as a cohesive group, and we are all pushing each other to be better. Houston and Kay play the guitar and have been doing an awesome time leading worship – I have even been helping sing for worship with them. Karen is doing an amazing job putting the English lesson plans together and being the primary teacher for the two classes we have 4 days a week. Jen is great with the kids and thinking of Bible stories, songs and dances for our two children’s days this month. Abigail is bringing it home with organizing our discussions at the three high schools in Uyuni about self-esteem, and drug and alcohol abuse. I spoke to the community earlier this week about money management, and the team will speak next week about time and talents management.
Speaking Spanish is getting easier every day for each of us – though, we’re pretty sure our English is suffering as a result!
This month is really teaching me in a tangible way that the Lord gives us just enough, just in time.
