Hey Cornerstone family!

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already been in Bolivia for three days. It was a long journey to get here, as we started our trip on February 12th around 2pm, and finally arriving in Bolivia on February 14th at 2am! And that whole time was spent either in airports or on the various planes. Needless to say, sleep was hard to come by for most of the trip down. Thankfully we had the full morning on the 14th to sleep, shower, and start to recover from the trip down.

One of the first things we did in Bolivia after having a good sleep, was go to La Jornada to meet with Ken, Isabel (his wife) and the many guys that are living in the group house. It was amazing to see how welcoming they were, and we started to hit it off well with all of them. I am grateful for that, as they are very helpful when it comes to translating, showing us the various culture and traditions in Bolivia, and also making sure that we aren’t feeling overwhelmed.

On day 2 in Bolivia, we did our very first VBS with at Mission to Timoteo (children’s home), where we got to hang out with around 20 kids, being able to sing together with them, perform a skit, play games and do various crafts with them. And of course, the kids wanted to play soccer. I will say, that playing soccer with them was very fun. However, I got a good reminder that I’m not 20 years old anymore when I went to do a full out kick of the soccer ball and ended up landing on my back. Thankfully nothing was hurt (except for my pride), and the kids had a great laugh at my expense! We continued to hang out with Ken and the guys in the afternoon, getting to know them better. I got to have a really cool experience where one of Ken’s guys played guitar, and we both sang the songs (he in Spanish, myself in English). Being able to worship together while not being able to speak each other’s language well was awesome. And we got to have that experience again when we went to their church for an evening service. I always love to see how other cultures do “church” together, and really it isn’t much different (with the exception of having very lively worship music).

Today was day 3 in Bolivia. We got to experience the large Fruit Market that they have in Santa Cruz. This place is incredible, with many sights and sounds (and smells…) to behold! It is very different from how we do our shopping in Canada, and hopefully we can share some photos of that place in the near future. A few of us got to practice our Spanish, asking the various shop keepers what their prices were, and how much of the fruit that were needing. My daughter Isabelle was quite nervous doing this, but I was very proud to see her overcome her fear and step out in doing this. There was a big reason why we were at the fruit market, which I’ll get to shortly. After the fruit market, we went back to La Jornada to have lunch, and then immediately got to chopping up all of the fruit! There were about 14 of us chopping up enough fruit to be able to fill up 75 decent sized cups. After that, we went to Gracia (church and family ministry serving an area that has a lot of poverty). There we did some visitations with some families, being able to visit with them, share a meal. With the family that we visited with, one of the biggest things that I felt God reminding me about was how important it is to be grateful in all circumstances. Talking with the husband, I could see that he was proud of being able to provide for his family, but also very grateful for what God had provided them. So many times we take things for granted in North America, and can be ungrateful for the many blessings that we have. These people have so much joy in their lives, and it really speaks to the fact that God wants us to be happy with just Him, and not with the material world behind him. After the visitation, we got to go to church with these families and many other families and children in that area. That blessed my heart so much, being able to say hi to the kids (many of them gave us hugs and asked what our names were), but also being able to worship with them. After the service, we were able to hand out the fruit cups with yogurt (you were probably wondering when I was going to get to that!), which is a big treat for them. A lot of them don’t get to eat various kinds of fruit that they grow locally, which is unfortunate. On a side note, the fruit that we have in Saskatchewan fails in comparison to what they have here. And the food is amazing! I’ve had a lot of chicken already, and every time I have just loved it. Our hosts have been amazing for either cooking or taking us out for meals.

There are many other work projects, VBS’ and other adventures coming, and our team will be sharing about those in future posts.

To end this one, I just want to say how amazing it has been to be down here with Isabelle so far. She is seeing a very different part of the world, and this experience is something that I believe will stick with her for a long time. I hope that God helps to use this to impress His love on her even more.

Thanks for reading, and I hope all of you aren’t freezing too much up there!

Justin on behalf of the Bolivia Mission Team!

Hey Cornerstone Family,

This is Isabelle communicating live from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Hope you’re having a good day.

We are all having a very good time here. It has been an amazing experience so far. It has been great to connect with different people and being able to practice my Spanish. It’s getting there, LOL.

Today we went to an organization called Tekove where we painted there main office. It was a full day of work. Even though work isn’t my favourite thing, it still was a very good experience and definitely took some stamina. I don’t think my legs have ever been so tired LOL. Tecove is run by an American woman named Hallie and her husband Miguel. with some other workers as well. We all enjoyed being able to spend time with them. When we were done there we rode back to kens house and ate a lovely meal of spaghetti.

Love you all!

<3

Isabelle on behalf of the Bolivia Mission Team.

Hey Cornerstone family!

Today mission was visiting a couple boys that live on the street and visiting a team called Novo who would help men with addiction. Even though these visits ended with soccer, I finished this day with a heavy heart. As much as I thought I prepared my heart for this trip, and knowing the things I would see would be difficult and hard to understand, today was very challenging for me. Pulling up to the boys, all I saw was a group of what seemed like helplessness. Helpless is not the ideal word to use but they were all high and in desperate need of any sort of happiness. Even though this was hard for me to see, I knew that God would lead them on the right path. It is definitely different to be reading this than seeing it in real life, but it definitely opened my eyes to how privileged I am. I compared this to how things are at home and how “unfortunate” life can be because I got a 60% on a test. These boys were smiling even though they only had dirty clothes and maybe a blanket if they were lucky. It is hard for me to understand why God put these boys in a situation where they only had soccer and I had a bed, house, and food to go home to. Playing soccer with both the street and Novo boys, allowed us to come together as people, not diverse, not healthy or sick but just people. We are all people of God and that is a huge reason why I am on this trip. The biggest thing I have learned today is to be grateful for every little thing we have no matter how small. We all need gratitude and share that with others.

Leyada on behalf of the Bolivia Mission Team

Hello Cornerstone family!

Todays mission was a visit to Tekove Foundation which is an organization that is based on restoration of families. We spent the morning finishing up our paint project that we started Monday. We painted the fence, bathroom, kitchen, and outside wall. The afternoon was spent with the children of the community, also the children of the families from which the foundation works with. We sang songs, did a couple crafts, and a skit which brought a few smiles to the children’s faces. We ended the day with a snack and soccer of course. I got the chance to hold a little boy, while his Auntie played soccer, which for me was the highlight of my day. After a couple hours of spending time with these kids it was time for them to go home. It broke my heart to see some of the children refusing to leave. They did not want to go home. I realized how special this foundation is to them and how most of them probably do not have a happy loving home to go to. The staff had to pled with these two boys in particular to go home. On the way home I was thanking God for no rain today as everything we did today was outside. We finished the day with a delicious traditional meal at La Jornada with the boys made by Kens wife, Isebel. I am so grateful to visit Tekove today and see what God is doing in the lives of these children and families. As Ken reminded us tonight we are only seeing a glimpse in time of what God can do in these kids lives. It reminded me how God has a plan for everything in our lives.

Tracey on behalf of the Bolivia Mission Team

Hola Cornerstone family from Bolivia!

Today we went to the maximum security prison in Santa Cruz. We joined a local ministry group called God On The Streets who’s pastor of there group who visits the prison up to three times a month for the last five years and we were also joined by a third ministry who goes to this prison to spread the gospel and help those who want to be part of the church program they offer in the prison since 2011. On the back of the local ministries shirts was Mark 16:15 ‘And he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

Ken and our group talked about how we will be out of our comfort zones when we go to this prison and I believe most of us were but being with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ made us feel comfortable and able to focus on the work we were sent there to do. We sang many songs ate food and performed our skit of “the prodigal son” and the women loved it. The God on the streets ministry brought clothing and shoes that were donated to the women.

The women were so happy to worship with us and really enjoyed every moment they couldn’t believe Canadians were coming to visit them they thought the locals who told them were just joking.

I was really happy to be part of and see how brothers and sisters from another culture worship and praise Jesus. It was a blessing to see the different ways God uses our talents he has gifted us to bring joy, hope and love to those less fortunate.

Clayton on behalf of the Bolivia Mission Team

Hola, Cornerstone family this is Elias today.

Today was a long day. It consisted of lots of painting and even more singing. the organization we visited and worked with was called Betel which works on improving children’s education by providing a place to study outside of school and extra help as well as a bible study group. In the evening we spent some time with Ken and the guys to eat some delicious Bolivian style food. Although all we did today was paint it was satisfying to do something for these people that are doing such great things. Overall today was a wonderful day I just wished we played some more soccer, as we have played lots over the past few days.

Elias on behalf of the Bolivia Mission Team