In 4 days we will be on a plane to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Woohoo!! Chris and I are leading a group of young adults for three weeks as we work with the Mennonite churches in Santa Cruz and help out at a daycare run by one of those churches. The program through which we are doing this is called Youth Venture and is a part of Mennonite Mission Network. This is my third time to Santa Cruz, and I’m really excited to get back there and see my Bolivian friends. Our last time there was in 2004, so many of the children are grown up now. I’m also excited about meeting the 10 girls on our team and getting to know them. We have been in communication online, and it’s quite evident that they are also very excited. They range in age from 17-23.
For those of you who don’t know, Bolivia is located in the middle of South America and is one of two land locked country on that continent. Bolivia’s border did extend to the pacific ocean at one time, but that land was lost in a war with Chile in the late 1800’s. Bolivia used to be a very prosperous country, but is now the poorest country in South America. The Bolivian people are very kind and hospitable. There is currently quite a bit of political turmoil going on in Bolivia, so it will be interesting to hear more about that and try to understand what all is going on.
This post is just an introduction to what we will write more about later. The plan at this point is to post every day while we are there. I hope to get the girls involved so you will be hearing directly from them. There are a plethora (I like saying that word but don’t get to use it often) of internet cafes in Santa Cruz and they are fairly inexpensive to use for an hour. So we shouldn’t have a problem reporting in on a regular basis. Be sure to check back regularly so you can follow along with us on our experiences. Here is our travel schedule:
• We fly out of Chicago O’Hare on Thursday, July 3 at 9:50am.
• We arrive at Miami International at 1:50pm.
• We leave Miami at 3:20pm, arriving at Viru Viru International just outside of Santa Cruz at 10:00pm (I believe that Santa Cruz is the same as Eastern time).
Be sure to bookmark this page so you can come back easily to see what we’re up to. We will update in a few days.
by Gina
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