This past week or so in Bolivia has been amazing so far! As I said in a previous blog, this month my team is doing an “Ask the Lord” month where we basically ask the Lord what He would have us do, where He would have us go, and who He would have us talk to. I remember going into this month being unsure of how exactly God was going to show up (or even if He was going to show up at all). I’ve just never been in a situation where I’ve had zero plan and had to be completely dependent on the Lord to show up. But God, for the past week, has just been blowing up all my preconceived notions of Him not showing up. And it started even before we got into Bolivia on the road trip from Lima, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia.
So disclaimer…I’m one of the logistics leaders for my squad (along with my man Joey, who’s a stud by the way). And as logistics leaders we are responsible for moving our whole squad (60 people) from country to country at the end of each month. We have to buy the bus tickets, purchase visas, find hostels if need be, and just make sure everyone is prepared when we do border crossings. As you can imagine, getting 60 people across a border can be challenging at times (especially since border crossings almost never go as planned). And this time was no different.
Normally the whole squad travels together when we switch to a new country, but this time was unique, as we had to leave 3 teams behind in Lima because we couldn’t find contacts for them to partner with in Bolivia. As a result, Joey stayed behind with all the squad leaders who also help out during travel days as I went with 34 other people on the 30-hour bus ride to La Paz. It was cool to kind of be the man in charge and have the weight and pressure of getting everyone to Bolivia safely (I love stepping into those situations), but at the same time it was a little nerve-wracking as I was alone and I haven’t had any experience traveling outside the country minus these last 2 months. So if there were going to be complications, there was really no plan-of-attack; God would just have to show up. Fortunately, He did.
The craziness began even before the trip even started: in the bus station in Lima. We were sitting around waiting for our bus to finish loading all our gear so we could begin to board. One of the girls was lying in the corner taking a little cat-nap with her phone in hand when I guy walked over to her and took her phone while she was sleeping along with another one of our squadmates. Some of the local people saw him and began to shout which made him dash quickly out of the station. A couple of us men ran and chased after him a little ways and ended up catching him. We brought him back to the bus station where a policeman was summoned to take custody of the guy. Some of us had to give witness reports and answer some questions, which took a little time. The rest of us were just stunned at what happened. Fortunately the girl wasn’t harmed, but she was still shaken up a bit along with the rest of us who were still trying to figure out what all happened. After taking care of things with the officer, we proceeded to board the bus and begin our 30-hour trip to La Paz. Wasn’t the start I had planned, but hey maybe get all the hiccups out of the way in the beginning, right? Wrong.
The trip itself wasn’t too bad…about as good as a 30-hour trip on a bus can go. I was able to get some sleep and talk with some of my squadmates that I hadn’t talked to in awhile. Probably the most painful part of the trip was watching the Ring in Spanish, then followed by the Ring 2 (in Spanish of course), and then followed by an Asian version of the Ring (which would have been in Spanish as well, but fortunately someone put a stop to the madness). But all in all, the trip was very smooth and the scenery was absolutely beautiful! Then came the border crossing.
Based on all the stories I’ve heard from past logistics leaders, I’ve come to expect things to happen that weren’t originally planned, but I guess it’s something you just have to go through in order to fully understand the experience. So we got into the border city and they had us take our passports and get off the bus so that we could go through the border checking and then we’d meet the bus on the other side in Bolivia. Seemed fairly simple at first…but then the fun began.
The border crossing was crazy busy to begin with so after waiting in line for awhile, our group finally got its turn to get our exit stamps from Peru and enter into Bolivia. We soon realized that the little sheets of paper that we received upon entering Peru were supposed to be kept so that we could get an exit stamp upon leaving Peru. Not everyone had realized that so some of the people had thrown theirs away. So we had to figure out how much extra it was and figure out if we had enough money to pay for it. Then we found out that about 15 of us only had a 30-day stamp in our passports meaning that we should have left the country a couple of days earlier. The rest of us had 90-day stamps so I’m not sure how we got different ones, but we had to figure out how much extra it was for that and then pay for it as well. Then one of the men realized that he might have thrown his passport away during the bus trip so he didn’t have anything to get across the border with. (Buff, I love you man…but really??) Haha. So we had to contact the embassy and figure out what to do (he ended up going back to Lima to get a new passport). And all throughout this time, people were getting altitude sickness and getting fatigued from the long trip, which added to the stress.
And on top of that, in the back of my mind was the thought of how we were going to find a hostel in La Paz this late at night with no clue of where anything is. But God was just at work in the whole situation. Joey and I thought the visas might be $138/person, but they ended up being $135/person so we had money to pay for the extra expenses. God allowed our out-of-minutes phones to somehow work so we could get in contact with the squad leaders back in Lima and work things out with Buff. Buff and Jan (another guy on the squad who went back with Buff to Lima) were able to find a bus that was heading back to Lima right away so they didn’t have to spend a night in the border city we were in. The bus staff were super helpful in finding us cocha tea, which helps with altitude sickness. And when we got into La Paz, the hostel that we ended up choosing to stay at was the exact same hostel that our logistics coordinator back State-side had already booked for us! It was such a good reminder that God knows our situations and He is present in them. This was especially needed for me as we were going into our ATL month. Cause He was only just beginning…more awesome God-moments to come in future blogs!
