Missions trip on a missions trip...

Flat tires, bad brakes, and a shifter that won’t stay in gear… Winding 4X4 roads with steep cliffs, breathtaking views of canyons, desolate and arid land, and herds of llamas, donkeys and sheep wandering across the road… Arriving in villages at midnight, getting up at 6am, no showers, beautiful indigenous people… Quechua, English, Spanish, Aymara… All I’m capable of sharing with you is just snippets of what I experienced during my time in Potosi, but I hope you’re able to get a glimpse of how powerful the trip was. As a quick re-cap, I went on a 9 day mission’s trip to Potosi with 3 other interns and 5 Bolivians. Potosi is a southern department in Bolivia, known for its mountains, remote villages, mines, and Quechua-speaking people. We went to 7 villages, sharing the gospel, giving the kiddos a little hygienic education, and distributing Samaritan’s Purse shoeboxes.


As you can see from this picture, these precious wawas were thrilled to get a gift from so far away. As one dad shared, some of the kids had never been given presents before. Before we gave them their boxes, we talked about how the shoeboxes were an example of God’s love for them, and how the best gift He ever gave was the gift of His Son. In each village, I was able to offer a Quechua greeting or a question to the weathered old men and women, and was rewarded with a toothless smile. In a Quechua church in Urmiri, the third village, I was asked on the spot to share my testimony. When I got on stage, the translator joked in Quechua that I was fluent, and he didn’t need to translate. I said, “Mana parlanichu” (I don’t speak Quechua!) but was able to use a little Quechua at the beginning. It was a powerful experience to share my story in Spanish and to hear it translated into Quechua. I talked about my connection to God through nature, and then shared Psalm 23. What a beautiful thing to share a passage from scripture about God as our Shepherd to an audience full of shepherds! One of my main roles on the team was to share John 3:16 with the 10-14 year-olds in the village when we broke up into groups. For most of the villages, Jen, another intern was in there for moral support, but she doesn’t speak much Spanish.

In Macha Macha, the last village, 30-40 Quechua kids all crowded into a dim room and looked at me expectantly. I didn’t have any of the teaching tools I was used to in the other villages, and I was all by myself. As I read, “Porque tanto amo Dios al mundo…” I learned that most of these kids had never heard the gospel before, and that many of them didn’t even have a clear picture of who God is or what Jesus did.

There’s no way to put into words how beautiful it was to stare into the eager brown eyes of these beautiful Quechua children and to share with them from the bottom of my heart what it means to have a rich relationship with Christ. We went through each part of the verse, and I explained what each part meant, and what it could mean to them. They soaked it all in, and when we were done and left the classroom, the kids flocked around me, all smiles. I have no idea if they understood all I said, but I can only continued to pray that God will draw each of them to Him, and that some day each of those kids will be able to experience the overwhelming richness of a relationship with Him.

Our journey felt like one of Paul’s trips in many ways, with major car troubles, persecution and division, but so much truth and beauty shared about God and His love for us. Check out 2 Corinthians for a taste of some of what we experienced.

Pray for the seeds planted, and for the body of Christ in each village. May God be as real and present for each of you as He was for us on this trip.

Dios llawan,
Kata