The First Days in South America

In some ways "this world" as Ty calls it is not unlike our home in the States. We see the same stars at night, the same moon, feel the same heat of the day, slap mosquitoes off our legs just like we do in our backyard in Virginia in August. But we know we are in a world new to us when we see Quechua women in their traditional dress and braids sitting on street corners selling their wares, or when the wind kicks up sand from the earth and it blows across highways and through windows like smoke from a burning forest.

This new world is one we have been imagining for two years. It was two years ago exactly when we came to Bolivia for the first time, when we first sensed God leading us to come here. Two years is a long time to hope and pray for a place. Now that we are here, I do find myself saying, "I can't believe we are here, in the middle of South America."

Well, the first days have been busy. We are staying at the South America Mission guesthouse which is in the middle of a working class neighborhood right next to a Whiskería called Los Patos that on Monday and Tuesday nights has drunken karaoke sing-a-longs until 4am. We will be here until we move into a house, which we think we have found, it will just be a couple weeks until it is ready.

Sam and Georgia have started school. They attend a school called Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center that has students mostly of American, Bolivian, Korean and Japanese nationalities. Ty will stay at home for another year; he is excited for this as often he remarks that he is happy to be at home with his momma.

Yesterday Angela and I bounced around the city in a taxi with a Bolivian woman who escorted us to Interpol, a Clinic for blood tests and to a Notary. We are working on acquiring our visas and these errands are a part of this process.

On Sunday there was a national election, the "revocatorio", called by President Morales in response to the states of the Media Luna recently passing referendums expressing their desire to be autonomous of the Morales government. Morales called for the election to once again show he has a majority support, which he does, as he garnered 60% "si" on Sunday. The governors of the Bolivian states were also up for re-election—three were removed, seven were reinstated. Evo was hoping that governors of the opposition states would be removed, but they were not. So, despite Morales' victory on Sunday, this election may only serve to deepen the political crisis as the opposition forces remain largely in tact and emboldened by their wins. The political crisis is complex, but fundamentally it centers around a battle between Socialist and Capitalist ideologies.

We are anxious to get settled and begin our work here. We are looking to find a house in a strategic neighborhood where our neighbors will form the core of a church body. We will work primarily with the professional class of Santa Cruz. Pray for relationships to form and genuine contexts within which we can be about the work to which God has appointed us.