8:00am - Leslie takes a trufi (taxi/bus thing) into work. In the trufi, the brakes aren't sounding so great, and the driver seems to be employing the hand break as well as the pedal break each time he screeches to a halt. Passengers look at each other nervously and finally a woman in the back speaks up: Driver, is that your brakes? Is there something wrong? Driver: Oh, Senora, don't worry, we're mostly going uphill this morning. It's only dangerous on the way down.
10:00am - Leslie leaves the IJM office to go up to El Alto (the slum city that overlooks La Paz from the flat highlands of the Andes Mountain range)
In El Alto, Leslie meets with the volunteers that are working with the Safe Sanctuaries Program from an NGO/mission organization known as Word Made Flesh. Two of Leslie's friends, Gavo and Caryl, happen to also be there leading worship, so after her meeting and the time of worship, Leslie decides to catch a mini-bus back to La Paz with them. On the way down, Leslie begins to be confused when the minibus crosses the margin of the highway and begins to descend on the left side, zig-zagging around the ascending traffic. Que cochinera! (What a mess!) she says, using her newly learned slang. Her friends seem unaffected. Leslie grows more alarmed when the bus comes to a stop because a large trash-truck is sideways, blocking all lanes of traffic. After it moves, she can see the reason for the chaos. There is a road blockade, with hundreds of protesters chilling in the middle of the highway, blocking all traffic. They have a few signs, some are shouting, there are occasional blasts of dynamite, but mostly people seem to be hanging out and having a good time. All the traffic has to turn around and go back up the mountain, so many of the passengers get out and walk down along the highway, past the protesters, to the other side of the blockade where there are other minibuses that are willing to take them the rest of the way down the mountain. Leslie's friends Gavo and Caryl lend her their sweatshirts and sunglasses so she can disguise her blonde hair and fair skin so as not to attract any attention from the protesters and they make their way past peacefully. The protesters are shouting "We will win the war! We will overcome!" (in Spanish). Leslie and her friends have no idea what war they are referring to and decide not to ask. Just as they are leaving, they see armored police vehicles arriving on the scene to tear gas the lively protesters back to their jobs and homes. Just another day in Bolivia.
2pm Leslie gets back to the office and goes about some of her usual tasks - she translates a document, compiles her department's financial receipts, and puts together the month's prayer requests to be sent out the prayer supporters in the US.
4pm - Leslie and Juan Carlos meet with two women from one of the churches involved in Safe Sanctuaries. Leslie serves them tea and explains the months activities to them, and Juan Carlos helps them work through some challenging situations they are facing concerning the program and their congregation.
6pm - Leslie and her co-workers celebrate being more than halfway through their week by drinking Mate together Argentina style. They joke and laugh and listen to Cumbia music. Leslie smiles and thinks about how the investigators are a lot more fun and goofy than she expected them to be.
7:30pm Leslie goes with one of her co-workers to a Bible study and meets new people and enjoys their fellowship.
10:30pm Leslie gets home, skypes with her mom, and her friends Amy D and Val Yeo who are at her house without her, and tells them about her crazy day!
An encouraging moment
In the midst of it all, there are many beautiful and encouraging moments. I was sitting in my office today when a pastor from a nearby church came in to drop off some materials. When he met me and discovered that I was the new intern, he shook my hand warmly and said, "Little sister, it is so wonderful that you have come. You bring good news. I don't mean evangelism - telling us about Jesus for the first time because we have that - but you are bringing many other kinds of good news. You are bringing your care, your love, your service, and your friendship. You have much to give and also much to receive. Welcome, little sister (hermanita)."
Reflections from the Field
I like the pattern of working full-time and coming home from work to chill at the apartment with the roomies. It's a great routine. I feel that in this first month in Bolivia, everything is so new that I can't seem to pray, reflect, journal and read enough. I'm enjoying my schedule and I'm finding my work meaningful and my need for God very high. Today, I was listening to a sermon that Gary Haugen (director of IJM) gave at a leadership conference at Willow Creek and his words were incredibly relevant. He was talking about how some people in the world don't necessarily need us to bring them the gospel, food, or shelter; they need us to fight their oppressors for justice and relief on their behalf. He went on to speak about how this call can be completely overwhelming. We might say - "Lord, what could I possibly have to offer in situations so grave and overwhelming?" (This is how I feel.) But Gary talked about how it is God's work, and the results are his responsibility. His plan is to use us, his people, as instruments of justice, but he is the one in control. It's like the feeding of the 5,000. The disciples were incapable of this feat, but Jesus asked them to offer what they had anyway. He then multiplied their efforts, and the multitudes were fed and satisfied. This message is very relevant to me as an IJM intern. I find myself sitting in the office feeling that the obstacles are too great and the need is too overwhelming. At the office, we take cases of child sexual abuse, and we don't have one case that isn't horrifying. Not only is it painful to imagine what these small girls have been through, but it is also frustrating how difficult it is to get justice for them here. It feels like there are so many things that are against us. The judges are being bribed to support the other side, the jury and prosecutors don't show up to the trials or the hearings, the safe houses aren't taking good care of our clients, police officers are often indifferent, perpetrators are disappearing before we can apprehend them, perpetrators and their families are assaulting the victims' families before or after their hearings, and today, a hospital told us that it will be a month before they can give one of our clients (a baby who was beaten by his stepfather) a surgery that he really should have had last week. Each situation is riddled with pain and hardship, and it often feels as if we are being attacked both from the outside and from within. But we continue to trust that this is the Lord's work. We are his humble and obedient servants, constantly putting our hope and trust in him. I know God has prepared us for this work, but at the same time we are completely weak, feeble, and powerless. This reminds me of a verse that is quite familiar by now: 2 Cor 1:9 We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure...But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
Neighborhood Watch
This hanging figure is the El Alto version of our Neighborhood Watch signs. This figure means that this neighborhood has united and decided that if they are robbed, they will find the thief and hang him. On the wall next to this figure it is written in large block letters: El ladron que se encuentra sera quemado vivo (Any robber found will be burned alive). In the absence of solid government control and law enforcement, the people have taken matters into their own hands.
Views from the road
As Juan Carlos and I drove up the steep, windy road to El Alto, I took pictures out the window. El Alto is a sprawling city that is an expansion of La Paz (pictured). La Paz is situated in a bowl of the Andes and has reached its full capacity. The bowl has been filled with houses and buildings which climb up the steep mountain sides in every direction. Now, all new growth occurs in El Alto, a crazy city which runs wild and free. There are few restrictions or government control in El Alto. Most of the residents have recently immigrated from the countryside looking for jobs and a more sustainable lifestyle. The city is unique and I would imagine it to be a sociologist's dream.
Work Time
Here's a pic of Juan Carlos and I driving up to El Alto on a Thursday afternoon for a church visit.
"The more I think about the meaning of living and acting in the name of Christ, the more I realize that what I have to offer to others in not my intelligence, skill, power, influence, or connections, but my own human brokenness through which the love of God can manifest itself... Ministry in entering with our human brokenness into communion with others and speaking a world of hope. This hope is not based on any power to solve the problems of those with whom we live, but on the love of God, which becomes visible when we let go of our fears of being out of control and enter into his presence in a shared confession of weakness." - Henri Nouwen, Gracias
My Street
Here's my view as I walk down my street to the main road to catch a bus every morning.
"Latin America: impressive wealth and degrading poverty, splendid flowers and dusty broken roads, loving people and cruel torturers, smiling children and soldiers who kill. It is here that we have to hunt for God's treasure. I pray that my stay in Bolivia will teach me more than Spanish." - Henri Nouwen Gracias.
My apartment building
I like it. And the best part is, you can go on the roof and have an incredible view of the city and the mountains.
"As I reflect on this fragmented approach to mastering Spanish, I can only say that I never gave up the deep conviction that I must learn it somehow, sometime. I never have been able fully to explain this conviction to myself or to anyone else. But the urge always was there and still is there; my desire to know Spanish and to know it well is a strong as ever. Why? I don't know. I hope that I will know before I die. There must be a meaning to such a strange passion!" - Henri Nouwen, Gracias.
Sundaes on Sunday
We had the gang over to our apartment a couple weeks ago for ice cream after playing wallyball.
"Ministry is the manifestation in our our person of the presence of Christ in the world. This means much more than speaking and acting in the Name of Him who came to us long ago. It means that our words and actions themselves become a manifestation of the living Christ here and now." - Henri Nouwen, Gracias
Friends
In my first week in Bolivia, the other IJM intern Emily welcomed me into the office and into a fun group of friends. This is a picture of use hanging out after work on Emily's last day in Bolivia.
"It is hard for me to accept that the best I can do is probably not to give but to receive. By receiving in a true and open way, those who give to me can become aware of their own gifts. After all, we come to recognize our own gifts in the eyes of those who receive them gratefully. Gratitude thus becomes the central virtue of a missionary." - Henri Nouwen, Gracias
Henri Nouwen
"Latin America offers us the image of the suffering Christ. The poor we see every day, the stories about deportation, torture, (rape, prostitution, trafficking, abuse), and murder we hear every day reveal to us the suffering Christ hidden within us. When we allow this image of the suffering Christ within us to grow into its full maturity, then ministry to the poor and oppressed becomes a real possibility; because then we can indeed hear, see, and touch him within us as well as among us. Thus prayer becomes ministry and ministry becomes prayer. Once we have seen the suffering of Christ within us, we will see him wherever we see people in pain. Thus we come to experience that the fist commandment to love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, resembles indeed the second: "You must love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:39-40)." - Henri Nouwen, Gracias