The past seven days have been a strange mixture of joy, frustration
and sadness. Our life here is often a case of ‘two steps forwards, one back’
(or, at times, vice-versa!), with ‘events, dear boy, events’ never failing to
bring one crashing back to earth with a jolting thud. If I may be so bold as to
paraphrase another premier called Harold, a week is a long time in Bolivia.
Our main fillip this week has been to see major leaps forward in our
land dealings. The plot we bought some weeks ago is now fully registered in our
name at municipal level and it is now just a case of preparing for construction
– this weekend, a friend of a friend is busy hacking away at the 8-odd-foot
worth of growth on our plot with a machete in order to clear the ground. And,
with the help of a lawyer, we finally had the two plots we bought in 2010
transferred – we had done this last year, but it counted for nothing due to
several errors in the paperwork, which have now been rectified by the seller.
We effectively need to sell these plots to help towards the construction costs
of our planned home, so to now be in a position where we can take care of this
is a huge boost.
But the ink had barely dried on our last blog post when we heard
some really terrible news: Rut, the three-month-old sister of our dear sister Elizabeth, died due to heart complications late on Saturday night.
And so, on Sunday afternoon, we attended our first funeral, along with family
and friends of the bereaved family. Elizabeth’s parents are not believers,
however, they allowed the church to pay for the casket and the pastor, Elías,
to pray at a couple of junctures during the afternoon.
It was our first experience of a Bolivian funeral and something of a
cultural eye-opener. Throughout our time here, I’ve always had the feeling that
the locals here are a lot more in touch with their mortality – death is not the
taboo subject it is at home. This was evidenced by the frantic activity outside
the cemetery, where, if you were feeling peckish, you could treat yourself to
candyfloss, a bottle of Coke, or an ice-cream. ‘VELAS! VELAS!’ shouted the
several candle-sellers dotting around the massed throngs at the entrance. Where
there’s a crowd, such people gather in Trinidad (school gates are a big target)
and it would appear that cemeteries are no exception – after all, they wouldn’t
bother if no-one bought their product.
The refusal to bow to let grief get in life’s way even extended to
the internment, where the casket was literally placed in one of the
pre-excavated holes in the wall, which was then slowly but surely covered with
bricks and cement by a worker. The silence was broken only by the wails of
various family members…and the ringing of mobile phones, which, rather than
being promptly switched off, were answered without hesitation!
But for all the cultural insights, it was just a great shame that we
had to go at all and our thoughts are very much with the family right now, who
live in real poverty. Elizabeth, 20, has four other siblings and, thankfully, two of
those are strong Christians themselves, so she doesn’t have to face this alone.
However, she will be in great need of your prayers as she seeks to witness to
her family in such hard times.
Elizabeth’s family come from the small village of Maná, on the
outskirts of Trinidad, as do many of the young people who have been helped by
FT and El Jireh church over the
years. These are families that we have put a lot of effort into and, sad to
say, this was one of those weeks when you sometimes find yourself wondering why you bother, with two sets
of parents leaving their kids very much high and dry. One girl we know, for example, has been in need
of major optical care for a year now. It turns out the parents haven’t lifted a finger in all that time and
we discovered this week that she is certain to lose sight in one eye.
You may also remember Emilixy and her siblings, who we wrote about
in the bog some months ago. Last Christmas, they discovered they wouldn’t be
seeing their mum again for years to come due to some wholly preventable
goings-on on her part. We found out last week that they will now be without
their father for some time for similar reasons; he is stuck in Santa Cruz, and
the children’s aunt has decided to take some of them to stay with the father,
while the two remaining children will move into the local men’s prison, where
their uncle lives. Desperate ain’t the word.
However, encouragement is on the way in a most surprising package. A
couple of weeks ago we received an unexpected email from my cousin Douglas, now
living in Thomas Jefferson country in Virginia (we visited this charming corner
of the world last summer). Well, it turns out he’s at a loose end for a couple
of weeks and has decided to come to Bolivia! He’s flying in and out of La Paz,
where he plans to explore the Altiplano,
but before then, he is paying us a visit for the week, arriving in Trinidad
tomorrow afternoon. Weeks like this one are an important reminder to us of a
blessing in such short supply here, yet one God has graciously allowed us to
partake of: a supportive family.
Prayer
- That sense would prevail in those families mentioned, and that we would be able to support them responsibly (a further problem in this culture is that white people are seen as walking-ATMs, an outlook which helps no-one). Please pray too for encouragement for us.
- Pray for Douglas’ travels over the weekend and for a special time together this week. He’s on holiday, so pray that he’ll get a break (to the extent that that’s possible in Trinidad).
- For Craig, preaching tomorrow
morning on Psalm 19.
Praise
- For major breakthroughs this week in our pursuit of a living space we can call our own.
¡Que Dios les bendiga!
Craig & Amanda
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