more political updates

Queridos amigos,

YAY!! Good news! I´m back safely from Chile with at least 30 more days of legality, and a possible hope of 60 more if I talk to immigration. Chile was incredible, and I learned a lot more about South America thru my trip cross-country. Hopefully soon I can post pictures of the glacial peaks, alpine lakes, and flamingos. Yep! Flamingos at the border at a whopping 12,000+ feet! So much to tell.

For now, I wanted to let you know a few things to be praying about for the next few weeks. Tomorrow, I leave again to go on a short mission trip (27th of Sept thru 5th of Oct) to Potosí, a southern department in Bolivia. It´s up in the mountains, very remote, and has a large concentration of Quechua indigenous people. We´ll work with kiddos, and won´t take a shower for the whole 9 days:) Sounds like my kind of trip! Pray for safety on the roads, and that we will be able to express the beauty of relationship with Christ with the people in the villages we go to.

Here´s another update from our team leader about the current political situation:

"I'll share some of the highlights. The opposition governors continue to meet here in Cochabamba. Evo was supposed to meet with them yesterday but didn’t; he said today he would. He was in New York Wednesday to speak at the UN and also with the the South American Association of Leaders. The meeting yesterday should have ended with separate documents that he had drafted to encourage the governors to sign his constitutional amendments and a document the governors were drafting in hopes of Evo supporting more autonomy for the provinces. Some notable events:

Evo has asked that the Constitutional Vote be moved up from Dec 7 to Oct 15 (14?) side note: this vote is a big deal, and things could turn sour...

Governor Fernandez of the Pando province was released / moved to Sucre pending more investigation of his involvement in the violence last week.

Camposinos (Evo supporters) marched into Santa Cruz (Autonomy supporters)Wednesday as a show of support for Evo. Although it was peaceful the estimated 300,000 people were intimidating and could still turn violent should the wrong things be said at today's meeting with Evo and opposition governors here in Coch.

Life here continues to be very normal. There are no road blocks, no shortages."

Our God is faithful!
Katie