This month Pilar and I went to the city of Cochabamba to visit some of our missionary friends who live there. Butch and Trish Sandoval are amazing people and we are always blessed when we spend time with them. They actually were supposed to leave Bolivia and move to the States last year. They sent most of their things to the States back in November, but Trish is Argentine and embassies have been basically shut down since last March, so they have been waiting this whole time. We wanted to take advantage of them still being here and also be some encouragement. They got notice last weekend that they have an appointment at the embassy next month. Please be praying that it doesn’t get changed and that they can go to the States soon.
(Pilar at a park, Trish and Pilar throwing paper airplanes off the balcony, and pizza picnic on a quarantine day. )
The plan was to stay for a week, but the one turned into three weeks. Pilar has had some broken teeth since her adoption and she started having pain while in Cochabamba. Since the Sandoval’s have a trusted dentist there (and I have had bad experiences with dentist in Bolivia and know people who have had worse), I decided to take Pilar to their dentist. In the end it was decided that she needed a spacer for her mouth since her adult teeth have no room to come in. It will mean going to Cochabamba every few months but its better to go with someone trusted.
(the people of Cochabamba are proud of their Christ statue that stands a little taller than the famous one in Rio de Janeiro)
The team is planning a trip to Sucre in July to visit the church there. It has been a hard year and a half for a lot of churches as they try to wade through complications from the pandemic and a visit to Sucre will hopefully be encouraging for them. The guys have been having zoom meetings with the leaders there the last couple of weeks and this week the ladies started getting together also. Both groups are focusing on church leadership and the ladies are also talking about emotional health and tying that into church leadership. In Sucre we’ll be doing a seminar on keeping your eyes on Christ and also having other times of getting together so that we can take advantage of the time we are there. Please pray for this trip, the time in Sucre and the church in Sucre. Also pray that quarantines will not get stricter while we are there. Right now in Sucre and Tarija, the quarantine is just during the night and on Sundays. Cochabamba also closes down during the weekends and on holidays.