Church Mission Trip

Last Saturday we traveled with our local church to a small village way up in the mountains north of Cochabamba. The trip took 4 hours, each way, and the views were amazing. The purpose of the trip was to put on a dental clinic for the villagers. Everyone in the village speaks Quechua so our spanish was pretty much useless. We did have three translators from our church with us so we were able to communicate a little bit. Mostly we spent our time there playing with the kids and handing out food. It was an absolutely amazing experience. Cochabamba is poor but appears rich compared to these small villages. Quite an eye opening experience considering this is how the majority of Bolivians live. Here are some pictures from the trip.

View of another village from the altar of the village we were in. The mountains surrounding these villages are massive and very majestic. The views made me pretty homesick for Crested Butte, especially since we saw a fair amount of snow. The altar that we hiked to is where they used to do animal sacrifices. They still do animal sacrifices but they no longer use the altar. Out of the whole village there are only two Christians.

This picture shows the village that we visited. People came from the surrounding villages as well.

Close up of some of the buildings in the village.

We made salvation bracelets with the kids and some of the moms that wanted them.

Here is our friend Danee and Natalie with two of the women from the village. The one between Danee and Natalie is 100 years old and she became a Christian when she was very young because she had a dream about God where he told her about Jesus. She can't read but carries around a Spanish bible with her wherever she goes.

Besides the mission trip our last two weeks have been full of administrative work and playing with kids at various orphanages. Natalie has started tutoring one of the Timmer girls, Grace, every weekday morning in English and math. She is enjoying it but is definitely challenged as she is not used to working with younger kids. On Thursday of this coming week our good friends Ben and Tenesha Baker will arrive here in Cochabamba for a two week visit. We could not be more excited as we really miss them and they will be the first people from home that we get to share this experience with. That is all for now. We probably will not make another post until after the Bakers leave on Sept 14th, but that is going to be a big post so make sure to check back in in a couple weeks. Hope everyone is doing well back home. If anyone has any prayer requests please let us know.