I want to share a personal word with you.
This last trip to Bolivia was a
very spiritual one for me, especially when I link it with the trip last August.
I am writing this on the plane as I’m coming
home. Jeremy Basset
(Conference Director of Volunteers-In-Mission) and I got to see the
wonderful results of nearly 20 years of work by the Oklahoma Annual
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Conference with the poor, suffering and oppressed indigenous Methodist
people of Bolivia. The welcome they gave us was truly a special joy. We
were able to see tangible fruit from our work: buildings and health posts
built by our VIM teams; equipment such as water wells, vehicles and sound
systems, and even gas lanterns which are still being used that the generous
people of Oklahoma Methodism have provided over the last 18 years.
Less tangible, but equally obvious were the
political, social, and economic
changes in this time of great hope for the indigenous people of Bolivia.
The
Iglesia Evangelica Metodista en Bolivia (IEMB) (Methodist Church of
Bolivia) is truly seen as the great spiritual center and national church for
the indigenous people of Bolivia. And the hope, inspiration and raising of
self-esteem for Aymara Methodists which came from the election of Evo
Morales (an Indigenous Aymara Indian) as the new President of Bolivia is
hard to describe.
It was the intangibles which have always
been there which impressed me
once again: an absolute faith and trust in God in the midst of crushing
poverty; a church which is not FOR the poor, but instead a church OF the
poor; dynamic energetic worship which included deep heart-felt pleads for
God’s help in their daily lives; and their willingness to share what
little
they had with each other and with their church. Day after day, and time
after time I met Christ this week: in an elderly man so proud of his
“mother” church which had established a half dozen churches in the
District and even in the big city of El Alto; a pastor who pleaded for the
simplest evangelism equipment like a portable PA system so he could
preach in the villages up and down the remote Andean valley in which he
lived so he could bring the good news of Christ’s love to these people and
start Methodist churches in “every village in this valley”; these people
who
had nothing yet who weekly gathered to share what little they had for a
“fellowship meal” literally laid out on the grounds outside of the church;
an
eight year old boy who during the congregational hymn was beating an
animal skin drum for all he was worth; and of course the time last August
to join with the District Pastor in baptizing 10 children at Rio Colorado.
But there was another side that I also saw:
Politically this is a time of
danger. Any time a people put their whole hope and dreams in the life of
one man other then Jesus Himself, they face near certain disappointment.
Whether Evo Morales will prove to be worthy of the hopes and dreams of
the Aymara, Quechua, Chimani, and other indigenous peoples throughout
the world is yet to be seen.
And I saw, despite the healing and growth
which has occurred in the IEMB
in 18 years, and especially since their ‘times of troubles’ in 1993, there
are
still many internal difficulties for the IEMB including church politics,
kingdom building; and a tendency to focus on building institutions instead
of building of their faith in Christ. These are, of course, dangers which
exist
no less, if not more, in the Oklahoma Annual Conference.
And I saw the extreme poverty of God’s
people: the hungry; the
malnourished; the unemployed, those living on the streets with their
children; the alcoholics.
And I heard God’s Voice calling, saying
“Here I am among the hungry, the
thirsty, the sick. It would take so little for us to make such a huge
difference in the lives of so many.
And I also saw a church doing its best to
meet those overwhelming needs.
Who despite it mistakes and foibles, its egos, it occasional focus on
self-
interest; I saw a church striving to remake itself more and more into the
Body of Christ in Bolivia.
And that led me to reflect on our little
congregation . . . . and how WE
function and strive to do God’s work. But I will save that for the next
Newsletter.
So, for now, I just wanted to report on my
trip, and to thank you for
allowing me to be gone for a week.
To Be Continued…
David