Saturday, July 18, 2009

Bolivia Surrender

As a team we've been talking and praying about surrender. Surrendering everything to God. Big topic the first two days.

Today Enzo (e3 national director) and I were headed out to visit the MBBC team. We stopped to change some money on the way. When we got back in the car to head out . . . nothing. Wouldn't even turn over.

My first thought . . . "here we go again . . . why don't things work here like they should?" Not wanting to give in any more to this tempation to murmer, my next thought was "Lord, what do You want to accomplish through this?"

Almost immediately a car parked next to us, and a family got out. In a city of almost two million people, the lady says "hola, Enzo." We had stalled in front of the apartment of a former student of Enzo's, from way back when he taught high school for a little while.

Since I evidently had a mechanical lobotomy when I was younger, I knew everyone would be better off if I just stayed out of the way. So as her husband helped Enzo, I tried to engage in conversation with the lady with my very limited Spanish.

IF (and that's a big IF) I understood her correctly, both she and her husband are now doctors. They work at the Christian University here, serving as doctors and professors. On the weekends they volunteer doing medical clinics for the poor. So we invited them to participate in our medical missions trip in September to Sucre!

Since it was too late to go to the area, we then went to my favorite restaurant in Bolivia—Sakura 2. Hole in the wall place that serves world class chicken, plantains, yucca and French fries. Because of the swine flu scare here, the waiters were all wearing masks. Does this make me feel safer? Or not? How about you?

As we got our food, we heard another “hola, Enzo.” A lady and her new husband were walking in. Turns out his family lives in Sucre. His father is a recovering alcoholic, and now his parents do conferences to help families of alcoholics. So another Sucre connection within a few minutes.

Oh . . . you’re still wondering about the car. Enzo and the man tried his battery in the car, and it started right up. So with it running, they put the old one back in. We took it to a repair shop . . . they checked the battery . . . said it was good . . . maybe a drop of oil shorted out a connection (?) . . . for a little while . . . don't really know . . . stop bothering us with a car that is running fine?

Seems to be working fine now. Just had problems at the doorway of the two doctors. What are You up to, God? Time will tell.

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