Bolivia

Our team experienced Bolivia a little bit different than it did all the other countries. Initially, when we were praying for our route, we felt that the Lord’s plan for us in Bolivia wasn’t ministry amongst hosts…we had gotten direction that Bolivia is where we had to go but simply to pass through. So we did a classic Global style, Luke 10. We split up into groups and headed out to get from Santa Cruz to La Paz in 6 days hitchhiking with no money, just us, our thumbs out begging for lifts, and God. Considering we were split into groups, it’s no easy task to try to summarise everyone’s different experiences of Bolivia but one thing I can assure you is that it was a beautifully trying time for each group. Several of the groups spoke about their unique encounters with the Lord, and they saw Him provide in a way that they’d never seen before. That’s the beauty of a Luke 10…sometimes radical decisions and circumstances mean that God is going to show up radically, and He did. 

Below are testimonies from a member of each team. We hope that throughout your read you get a little glimpse of Bolivia and the experiences we’ve had.

Marko’s Luke 10 Experience:

“Have you ever been in a place where you have had no choice but to trust God with your every step? Well, that’s the way we should live, but we often get too comfortable. We thank God that we are not constantly in a place where we are wondering at every moment if we will have food to eat tonight or a warm place to sleep tonight. 

On our Luke 10 through Bolivia, we were put in this exact position where we had to trust God hour by hour, night by night and day by day for everything. Surely enough, Jehovah Jireh was with us every moment. On our first day of hitchhiking, we met a lovely Jamaican family who have been missionaries in Bolivia for some time. They, unfortunately, could only take us about 15min further in our 1000km journey, but any help was greatly appreciated. As a team, we were so grateful for the lift but that night we slept on the side of the street and we weren’t quite sure why we had met these people for only such a short time. Every day we managed to travel a little bit and within five days we made it to our final destination, the city of La Paz, which is about 1000km from Santa Cruz, where we started. When we arrived in La Paz we didn’t have accommodation. The missionary family that took us that first day had been communicating with us throughout our travels to make sure we were alright and they offered to help us find accommodation in La Paz when we got there…so we let them know that we had made it and sure enough, they let us know of a lady who would host us for as long as we needed. 

Now, this testimony is one of the many ways God provided for us during our travels through Bolivia, but one of my travel teammates challenged me by asking me this: “Did God only provide for us when we got our accommodation in La Paz or did God keep us safe every day we were travelling?” And I love the heart and moral behind this question. Did I only give God the glory when I had a nice warm bed to sleep in and food in my stomach? Was that God providing for me? Absolutely, but God also provided for us in every other way. We travelled through Bolivia, without being harmed, with food to eat every now and then, with people giving us lifts, hosting us, helping us and the list goes on. God was just as much providing for me while I was sleeping in a tent on the side of the road, as He was through that amazing testimony of that generous Jamaican family who helped us. We often wait for the big “GOD IS MY PROVIDER” moment when we see the thing we’ve been asking for, and we so quickly neglect the small things God gives us to enjoy.”

Azelle’s Luke 10 Experience 

“Hitchhiking 1500 km, a crazy journey that God took us on. On the first day, we were rushing to get as far as possible and we had our own agenda to get to Sucre. That day was spiritually and emotionally hard for us. Soon enough God taught me a lesson that I will carry for the rest of my life: Not to rush through life and that I should enjoy every moment that I am in. After that day my attitude and how I see this challenge changed. I no longer saw it as needing to get somewhere,  I now saw it more as a journey and I was excited for each day. I was excited to see where God was going to take us and not anymore how far He is gonna take us. Funny enough, when I had that realisation He took us quite far each day. We decided to enjoy the journey by making a stop by the salt flats and celebrating one of my teammate’s birthday by making pizza with the people we stayed with for 2 nights. The Lord also taught me through that, that I am where I am supposed to be and shouldn’t rush to get to the next phase in life and that I should just enjoy this moment. So I can definitely say that this travel challenge was life-changing for me. And just realising again that He is our comforter and He is a good God that wants us to enjoy life and the little things. I experienced Him as my Protector, my Provider and my Comforter.”

David’s Luke 10 Experience 

“Travel Challenge #2

We were split into three teams of three people and one team of two people, Nyasa and myself made up the two-person team. Going into the travel challenge, I was one of the more excited members of the team to be hitchhiking. Learning I was on a team with Nyasa made me even more excited as Nyasa grew up in Peru and speaks Spanish fluently, so I am basically taking a 6-day ‘vacation’ to travel with and pray for strangers without a language barrier.

It’s amazing to see how the Lord uses these travel challenges differently for each team to teach and grow them in faith. However, in the case of Nyasa and myself, it really did feel like we were relaxing and enjoying ourselves, or that the Lord was teaching us to relax and enjoy ourselves. Not to say that things went perfectly, but when you keep a good attitude and aren’t concerned about your situation because you trust that God is fully in control, little seems to bother you. Early on we met one of the other teams and caught a ride in the back of an open bed truck hauling wheat. That moment was one of the most memorable for all of us present, laying on bags of wheat and looking up at a starry sky unhindered in beauty, it felt like we were in an observatory. Even in hitchhiking, we got to experience and enjoy the beauty of creation in a different way. We were the first team to make it to Sucre, the first city that every team was trying to reach. We had no contacts in the city and the person who gave us a lift to the edge of the city bought us a taxi into the heart of the city around 7 at night. This is usually the moment where faith is most tested, it is late, you are in an unfamiliar city, and you currently have nowhere to sleep. Neither Nyasa nor I felt worried, rather we took our time and went to a small coffee shop nearby to put our bags down, enjoy a warm drink, and pray about what to do next. I felt the Lord tell me that I was to walk around the corner of the block the coffee shop was on and find a man to pray for. I also felt that the Lord intended to give us a place to stay and that we wouldn’t struggle to find the place to sleep, but that it would be presented to us. After paying for our drinks we went around the corner, took another right and only a few paces in front of us we saw an older gentleman walking toward us. Naturally (or unnaturally) I stopped him and somewhat awkwardly explained that I felt the Lord had brought us all the way from Santa Cruz just to pray for him at that moment. The man was very receptive, being a Christian himself, and asked for prayer for his church and his wife who recently accepted a leadership position at the church. And we prayed for him, nothing dramatic happened, it didn’t feel like the Spirit came down or there was some great revelation or even much of a stirring of emotions, just a quick simple prayer. The man told us where his church was and said that there would be people there praying and that we should go. Not having much else on the agenda we grabbed a taxi to head in that direction.

This is the point where you aren’t really sure if you heard the Lord correctly. Yes, we did just pray for someone and so it isn’t as if we’ve done anything wrong, but the whole experience was platonic up to this point and so it could have been the Lord, or it could have also just been us finding a random person to pray for (not to say there is anything wrong with either case). But in the taxi was a lady who we started talking to and after only a minute or two of conversation, she offered us a place to sleep! This lady we met, Juana, blessed us far beyond anything we could have expected, she hosted us as well as many of our other team members who wanted to come and stay at her place. She gave us money to travel into the centre of Sucre to see the city and even more money the next day for whatever was needed for our travels. It truly is incredible how the Lord works! There was never a moment of intense spiritual guidance or emotional high, I only felt a clear and subtle prompting, prayed a very basic and unemotional prayer over a stranger and had half a conversation with a random lady in a taxi (and even then Nyasa did the actual talking), and suddenly I find myself and all of my teammates needs to be met. And not only were our needs met, Juana funded our being tourists for a day. This was a beautiful revelation of the heart of God, not only does He meet our needs, but he often loves to go above and beyond, blessing us so that we can also enjoy our situation. The rest of the journey involved getting to see the city of Sucre from the top of a hill, just a part of the Bolivian Salt flats in Uyuni, and some of the famous features of La Paz, in which there are many more stories but I think the prayer over a random gentleman in an evening in Sucre best summarises how the Lord was working during our hitchhiking adventure in Bolivia.”

Elijah Luke 10 Experience 

“There was a moment when our team’s faith was put to the test.

Even though I went into the Luke 10 journey with low expectations, this moment was tougher than I thought we would ever face.

Our first day of hitchhiking consisted of waiting outside for nearly the entire day attempting to receive a ride from anyone who would be willing.

At the end of a day full of sign-holding, attempting to convince bus drivers to make a little more space for us, we decided to rest. 

In a state of desperation, frustration, and disappointment, we turned to God in prayer. 

Although it seemed like God was turning away from us by not providing us with a ride, God was teaching us that the attitudes of our hearts have more eternal value than any ride we could receive.”

We got to experience Bolivia’s culture very differently, either through people who had taken us in to stay with them or through the people that gave us lifts…we met the culture face to face during the 6 days that we journeyed across the magnificent country. Jaw-dropping landscapes and beautiful sunsets are just a small piece of the things that come to mind when we think of our experience in Bolivia.

Thank you Jesus for the marvellous things you showed us, thank you for the challenges and the good times. You seem to reveal a little more about yourself every new place we go. We want more Lord.

Amen