Solitude

Since I was having such a hard time adjusting to being without home, our servant team leader, Cara, has lended me a book, The Sacred Sorrow. It is a book on worshipping through lament. I have taken a lot from it, learning that no matter what your situation may be, you can worship the Lord because He is always there. The first few days have still been tough. It is mostly hard not being able to communicate with home (everyone that is reading this) all the time. I have learned to turn to God in my tears and sorrow from this experience thus far. I have been praying for peace and strength and God has definitely come through.

Our team had an assignment on Wednesday. It was a day of Solitude. We did not speak the entire day, just observed and learned. It was a chance to internalize all our thoughts. If we had questions, we wrote them down. We had several times to journal throughout the day, but did not share until the very end. We began at 9 AM and took the minibus to the ceja (market) of El Alto. On the way, our bus driver had road rage with another and we stopped while they got out and argued a bit. This in itself was an experience. We then got to the ceja and walked the streets, past the red light district, and saw the remains of the protests on the brothels last October with grafiti and banged in doors. Then, we entered the market. The market was FILLED with vendors of raw meat, clothes, shoes, toys, blankets. We walked SOO long through this. We then took a path through the witches market. There were many ingredients and fires in this part of town. I still don´t know what to think about it. One interesting thing we saw was dead, dried llama fetuses. It is a ritual when building a home to bury this under your house. If you are rich, you are expected to buy a real llama and sacrifice it. Interesting...
We then took the minibus down to La Paz. La Paz is 2000 feet below El Alto. The more and more we went, the more beautiful and well dressed the people got. We went to St. Fransisco, and then down the main street. As we traveled to the south part of the city, it was such a vast difference than we had experienced in El Alto. We ended in a nice restaurant called CharliePapa. It was then, 4 hours into our journey that we discussed our observations. We also learned that our families were never fortunate enough to travel this far. It was extremely convicting to be in a place that I would find in the states, and know that our families would never even have the guts to enter a place like this because they say they don´t belong there. I am already convicted in the luxurious life I live compared to these people just in the fact that I know I would have thought nothing of entering this restaurant and eating before. The day of Solitude was an incredible experience to witness. I am still so grateful of all that my family does have in El Alto.
They are continuing to be amazing in helping me learn. Although I can not say everything I´d like to say to them, we can still communicate. I recently discovered Cipriana and her husband separated just 2 months ago, and he lives very far away. She has a deep pain because 2 of her sons are with him, ages 15 and 6. She is a great and VERY loving mother, so I can not imagine what this pain is to her. I hope to be a light to her and the kids, help as much as possible, and teach them to rely on Christ. I am also praying this for myself everyday.
I miss you all VERY much, and I love you. Thank you for all the emails, prayers, and comments! xoxoxo from Bolivia
Caio!