Valle Grande

I know I’ve been promising pictures of Valle Grande (a small town in the same province as Santa Cruz about 8 hours getting there, 6 hours back (since we had to go up into the mountains to get there and cruz down them to get back), so here are a few. Chris and I were invited to participate in a missions trip with the Catholic Church. It was really interesting (especially because of two things, 1, we’re not really Catholic; we just work with a mom’s group with the Catholic Church and 2, no one is really used to Catholic Missionaries knocking on their doors which often led to one of two things, people excitedly bringing us into their homes all to realize we aren’t “evangelicals” (the word used for protestants) or else they would prematurely slam the door in our faces before we’d get a chance to tell them we are with the Catholic Church.)
Here in Bolivia, the divides between the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church is unhealthily wide. From what I can tell, the roots of the divide have to do with competition for members, although from the Evangelical perspective it has a bit more to do with saving souls. Danitza, our former coworker, told us stories of the two dueling churches in her hometown where the evangelical church held an outside service with huge speakers right outside of the Catholic Church while they were trying to have mass. The clowns, puppet shows and free popcorn slowly drew the congregants out of the mass. So this was a unique opportunity. Anytime we’d meet someone new in Valle Grande, our friend Julia would introduce us as “from the Mennonite Church.” Chris had some particularly good chats in his house visits where his buddy would invite him to talk about what it’s like to be an “evangelical” working with Catholics, and Chris would talk about all the things we have in common; the same faith in God, the same promise of salvation through Jesus, the same call to serve God’s children etc. In a climate that continues to draw more and more lines of division here, I am impressed with how warmly we have been invitedinvited to participate in the activities of the parish here not only during this trip but continually in our work (even after we are introduced as Mennonites).