Many Tongues, One Body(July 8 post)

Sunday morning we were able to sleep in a little before heading to the Cochabamba International Church with the Timmer’s.  This was a unique and wonderful experience to be able to worship alongside Bolivians and missionaries from all over the world.  There was even another youth group working in the city from Virginia.  Worship was a blend of English and Spanish with some songs entirely in English, some all in Spanish, and most a combination of the two.  The pastor from Virginia gave the sermon entitled A Donkey Like Me focusing on the Biblical references to donkeys and what they teach us from how God uses them.

After church we went up the mountain to see the Cristo statue up close.  The Cochabamba Cristo is the tallest statue of Jesus in the world standing at just over 33 meters.  The famous statue of Christ in Buenos Aries is 33 meters even, one meter for each year Jesus walked the earth.  The Bolivians justified making their Jesus just over 33 meters because Jesus didn’t die on his birthday.  Both the statue and the view from the top of the mountain were incredible.  Mike walked us around the statue and pointed out places we had been in the city.  It was there that we realized how big Cochabamba really is looking out at the sprawling buildings. 

After visiting Cristo, we met Bonnie and Gracie at the restaurant where we were able to try a traditional and popular Bolivian dish.  This dish is a platter of French fries covered in peppers, tomatoes, cubes of beef, cut up hot dog, and gravy.  When Mike told us what he had ordered we thought he was joking.  He urged us to try it and as bizarre as the dish sounds we all loved it.  Bonnie then surprised us by ordering two huge Oreo cakes from the bakery downstairs. 

We had one more stop for the day before heading home to enjoy some free time, the house in .  This was the Timmer’s first home they started in Bolivia. Marcelino  and Sofia, the house parents have huge hearts for the children and do a fantastic job raising the children.  The house is home to two sibling sets, two additional orphans, and  Marcelino and Sofia‘s two biological children, totaling nine children.   We were able to present the family with a laptop and camera, as well as some toys for the children.  The family was extremely grateful, especially Marcelino who came around to give all of us a hug and kiss on the cheek in thanks.  This was a fairly brief visit, but before we had to leave we were able to purchase some of the beautiful textile handcrafts  and  make.  We were stunned at their beauty and many of the team purchased items from them.  We were happy to buy items with a story we could share and we also helped to family to earn about $200 US dollars from our purchases. 

The rest of the day we were able to do things at our own leisure.  When we had left that morning we could barely get any water to come out of the faucets.  Mike told us it was probably because many people in the neighborhood were using water at the same time.  However, upon arriving we soon found out that this was not the case.  Mike helped us check circuit breakers to make sure it wasn’t just a blown fuse.  Having that ruled out he informed us that unlike in the States where we have water lines we share, it is too expensive to do  that in Bolivia so each neighborhood has a big tank underground holding all of the water.  Our tank had been used up and the city wouldn’t come to refill it until the following day.  Some of our guys went with Mike back to his house to fill the jugs of water used for transporting water to baby washing.  These were to be used to be able to flush the toilets.  When the students seemed a little hesitant about the situation we reminded them that they had been saying they wanted some cultural immersion.  We couldn’t have been much more immersed at that time!  While it was not the optimal situation, we were able to get a glimpse of what life is like for many Bolivians who do not have the luxury of running water.