Bolivia: 2001

During the trip, we stayed in the home of Gordon and Nikki Elliott, and their children, who had to tolerate having us as extra guests at their house for about two weeks in late October and early November, 2001.

Here is a photo of the inside of the current church building of the congregation we helped. It is quite cramped compared to what they really need at this location, and thus the new sanctuary.

The start of putting the concrete around the steel rebar column is to put up a wooden form. Gordon Elliott, one of the Evangelical Church's missionaries to Bolivia, is in the foreground. While normally he teaches pastor's training classes or otherwise helps with the education aspect of the mission in Bolivia, there are also times he gets to do true "missions WORK" like mixing concrete with a shovel in the hot sun in Bolivia.

Here is how the church looked on our last day at the work location. Though it didn't seem like we did that much to help them, they cheered us on as we left. Later on, they came and visited us at Gordon Elliott's home in order to let us know how much they appreciated our help.

Update #1

From Gordon & Nikki Elliotts home in Santa Cruz, Bolivia

First, I will tell you of the rest of the people on our Evangelical Church Missions Work & Witness trip here to Bolivia: there are only four of us: August and his Grandmother Leone, from the Salem, Oregon church, myself, and Merlin from Wisconsin.

Today, we actually got to start work. Our primary work project, while here, is going to be in helping start the construction of a new church sanctuary for one of the daughter churches in a somewhat remote and impoverished part of the city. The church has been going for a while: it was one of the daughter churches started by the Lineage of God church. That particular congregation went though a period, perhaps even continuing now, when it was starting a new daughter congregation about once every month or so. Gordon Elliott, the father of our missionary family here in Santa Cruz, isn¥t quite certain if that is continuing at that same pace or not, as he is not involved that much in actual church administration. That is primarily happening through natives now. Gordon¥s primary function is to serve the Bible institute here, which trains Bolivian pastors. This institute is active in 6 cities, including the two biggest: La Paz and Santa Cruz. In any event, there is a lot of church growth happening here, which of course leads to the need for an expanded sanctuary for this particular church.

We first met this particular group of people on Sunday morning, when they had a baptism service. So, on Sunday morning we piled into the Toyota Land Cruiser and headed for the hills outside of town. Sunday is also market day here, which means that the churches have to compete with everyone also wanting to visit the outdoor markets. It also means that we had to go through one particular rural town where the main highway is the main street for the town as well, so all the merchants set up along our route. This created an impressive traffic jam consisting of everything from large semi-trucks to goats and chickens running around loose and everything, EVERYTHING in between, including several cows, a number of bicycles, a vast number of highway vehicles of assorted shapes and sizes (all of which are driven in the unique Bolivian fashion of using all lanes and directions of travel, simultaneously, with one hand on the horn, and any of a number of combinations of turn signals, emergency flashers, and headlights turned on, none of which actually mean the driver has anything in particular in mind), one or two horse drawn wagons, and about 5,000 people, plus, the primary reason for stopping in the town in the first place: the highway department toll booth. This, of course, added to the number of assorted vehicles scattered all over the road.

We eventually arrived at a place where the foothills of the Andes stick up out of the ground like immense pyramids turned at crazy angles to the ground. Here, there is a river that the natives feel is safe enough to swim in and have their baptism services in. However, because it has been hot this week, a huge number of people had already arrived here by the time the rest of the group from the church came. The solution was to drive over the river. Everyone made it across but one of the vehicles had quite a fountain of water coming out of the top of the hood during the crossing.

Its tires submerged in water, a bus crosses the river to the site of the baptism service.

The secretary of education for the denomination happened to be in town for other reasons, and so he helped conduct the baptism service. They were baptizing about 10 people, which is fairly impressive when you consider that they only have about 25 or so that regularly come to their services. In many ways it was a true public statement of faith for these people, due to the huge number of other people from the surrounding area who were there to witness the event. When we looked across the river, we happened to notice that there was another group also performing a baptism service there.

So, this brings us back to today. There was quite a large group on hand today, and quite honestly it probably wasnít entirely necessary for us to be there, as far as the physical work goes. However, our presence was probably a help in making sure that such a large group was on hand. Today, we helped construct the iron rebar networks for some of the columns that will be going in the church. Poverty is quite heavy in that part of Santa Cruz, and indeed past that point the road is in such severe condition ( one canít say disrepair because there is no evidence that it was ever in repair to begin with ) that to get to houses beyond there, it is necessary to either have a horse or to walk. Even some of the serious four-wheel drive vehicles available here would not make it through the mixture of rock and swamp that is beyond that last driveway. The housing lots are reasonably good sized, perhaps about a quarter of an acre, and therefore many of the people have chickens and grow food on their land. Therefore, through the whole construction process, the neighborís chickens were constantly coming over to investigate what was going on. The church already has a small sanctuary and classroom building set up, and so it is just a matter of adding on to the church structures that are already there.

Chickens from the neighbors house investigate our finished steel work, held together with wire. Bolivian construction is an amazing thing, simply because of the skill the workers have constructing buildings from a minimum of tools and materials.

City water and electricity also goes to that point ( it is a bit strange to see a city water meter sticking up out of the ground in the middle of this neighborhood, which looks like it hasnít changed since the 1850ís otherwise ) but many people seem to come from surrounding houses to get water from the churchís water faucet. Therefore, having some foreigners there working along with the Bolivians seems to have created some curiosity from the neighbors. Maybe weíll find out sometime if that leads to some more people coming to church there.

Bolivia is a Spanish speaking nation. However, I found out something interesting: there is a need for an English speaking church pastor here in Santa Cruz. There are enough foreign officials here ( several families with the US drug enforcement agency, for example ) that there is an English speaking church here in the city. However, currently the pastorship of this church is vacant. So, if anyone knows of a pastor that is looking to preach in English on the foreign missions field, there is an opening here.

Also non-project related: we also got a chance to visit the zoo here in Santa Cruz. While there isnít much money, and therefore it isnít quite up to the standards of some of our zoos in the USA, they seem to have done quite a good job with the money they do have.

Thatís all for now. Will probably hear from me again sometime soon.

Update #2

I need to let you all know that starting monday, they are planning to have surprise political protests throughout Bolivia, and this may interfere with my timely return to the USA.

Progress is being made at the church, though we spent most of Tuesday afternoon attempting to get the flat bed truck that delivered the cement bags un-stuck from what passes for a driveway in that neighborhood.

On a day when little went according to plan, a considerable amount of time was spent pushing a truck back and forth on the church lot, in an attempt to get him off the lot. He had stalled on the small bridge into the lot, and the battery of the vehicle wasn't in good enough condition to get it going again. The only photograph of the incident was this unfortunate double exposure that occurred when the camera choked on the film. It is the nature of work projects on the missions field: don't ever expect everything to go smoothly.

Visited one of the Inca ruin sites on Wed.

The team, plus Gordon and Nikki Elliott, and their adopted son Mark, and the summit at Samaipata. This was an ancient fortress and temple site. Deep carvings in the rock, what appear to be channels for a huge amount of blood from sacrifices, are quite visible even today.

Foothills here are the height of Mt Hood - 11,000 feet would be a valley in the highlands of Bolivia.

Talk to you later,
Glenn

Rebar is assembled into square columns that will be inside the concrete columns of the church.

Gordon Elliott demonstrates that missionary work is seldom glamorous, and sometimes involves preaching or teachings by action (which, after all, is the most powerful method of doing both) rather than from a lecture. The water table in this area is very high, and the holes for the column footings quickly filled with smelly water.

The final step of making the columns: pouring in the concrete. This is handled by bucket brigade.

Update #3

From Gordon & Nikki Elliotts home in Santa Cruz, Bolivia

So far, there haven't been that many problems with the political protests scheduled for Today. So, as of now, it appears that I will depart tomorrow morning as scheduled, and arrive Wednesday Afternoon at 12:40 pm Portland time.

A church undergoing construction is the setting of a class that Gordon Elliott offers on Monday evenings. The minimal lighting and benches would hardly be considered the starting point of a seminary in the USA, but the spirit is with these people in a way that is perhaps lacking in the more wealthy institutions in the USA. It is an illustration, perhaps, of how our dependence on money, in the USA, hinders the work of God. This hindrance is not present in many other countries.

The church is reasonably well along. We helped them get their first 6 concrete columns up anyway. They will eventually just put a roof on them, and not put in any walls. Church growth and construction money demands very simple methods in Bolivia - though I do hope they are able to find a method of keeping the neighbors chickens out of the church at some point. Though, their presence made lunch particularly easy to catch and eat. We had chicken for lunch each day.

Hope to give a more detailed set of information on everything that went on later.

In a showing of friendship and appreciation for our group, some of the Bolivians from the church visited our team at Gordon & Nikki's home.