July 23,2023
Dear Diary,
Our last Sunday in Bolivia! I can hardly believe how fast the time has flown and that tomorrow night we’ll go to the airport to head back to Colombia. Last night my co-leader and I slept outside again. For some reason I haven’t been able to persuade the other girls to sleep outside now that we actually can. Some are scared of spiders and we did kill a snake one day, so it’s understandable.
The pastor and his wife have been sleeping in the van since we have the extra people here. They are such giving people and always remind me of God’s generosity with us. Another thing, the pastor keeps telling us we need to fast all the time that way we can give all our money to help build the baptismal pool out back. 😊
I got up a bit earlier this morning so I could write goodbye notes to the children since today will be our last day of spending time with them. After breakfast and worship we filled out our check-mig forms for re-entering Colombia and finished planning the church service. We hardly had enough time planned, but we got it all done and led the singing, introduced the service, etc.
At the end of the service the pastor, his wife and daughter, two sisters and nephew got up front and the pastor talked about how we should all pray that our families will come to church. May God continue to grow the church in Bolivia and give them strength to stand strong in the face of difficulties.*
After we had served everyone lunch and exchanged notes with children and talked with the adults we played games with the children. Some of the girls were teaching us a new jump rope game and then we played UNO.
This evening there’ll be one last church service and then I think tomorrow the pastor is going to take the girls into Santa Cruz so they can experience the city. For now we rest and trust that God we’ll see us through each step of the journey. Also, I’m trying to eat as much cheese as I can since I’m not taking any home with me. Good bye for now…
*about a week later the pastor who was in Cotoca retired, so the pastor (our contact from Tarija) has begun weekly visits to Cotoca, about 10 hours each way. Please pray for a pastoral couple who could live in Cotoca and help guide the church.
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