Ok Ok I know it has almost been two weeks since my last entry. So I am going to cover the last two weeks in a nutshell which means this entry may be a bit longer than others. Last week the Aggies for Christ arrived and they helped us prepare for the Campaña or Gospel meeting that took place this last weekend. We had the priveledge of serving Christ by door knocking and handing out flyers to invite neighbors to the event and we also were able to walk around one of the plazas and sing as we handed out more flyers. Though man recieved flyers and were invited that isn´t really a good estimate of how many would come but I didn´t want to doubt what God may have had in mind. I was able to spend a lot of time with an Aggie named Frank, a business major, because I was put in charge of building signs at the contact center and church building and he was my "apprentice" so to speak...I ended up learning more from him and he had most of the good ideas for how we should secure the signs so that they couldn´t be taken down. It was fun having so many people my age around for a week and knowing that man still desire to be faithful to God and our fellowship. God is so good! The campaign came and went quickly. Preachers and missionaries from La Paz, Sucre and Santa Cruz came and shared messages with church members and visitors and they were some pretty strong and convicting messages. Though no one was baptized (many have heard the message of baptism many times and its importance just doesn´t click) we can´t humanly measure what went on in people´s hearts this weekend. Only God knows. So I would count it a succesful weekend. This week began with a flight to Tarija which is a smalled, much more tranquil city that cochabamba. But it comes with it´s lows as well. It was a survey trip so we spent time interviewing folks in the plaza´s and even an anabaptist minister from Pennsylvania who shared a lot about the city and it´s religious background. We even met a much older brother who lives there who currently attends the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) there where his sister is a Pastor along with two other women (go figure) . It is a place that is in need of a congregation and with the fact that is is a rapidly growing city, it is fertile. Now I am in Santa Cruz and Ken, our director for this program, has returned to the states to attend another one of our teams in Africa. There are 5 churches here and they are uniquely Bolivian. What I mean is that they recieved little help from the states and they weren´t placed by missionaries. They are here because of Angel, the first Christian of Bolivia from our fellowship (who I have had the priveledge of spending time with this week) . He responded to a newspaper ad about a correspondance course place by and asian lady merely traveling through the country. It is amazing how God works. He uses the tiniest things, such as newspaper ads, to reach the lost. They are training their members in the Bible with a special course so they can be prepared for visitors and to share the gospel with their neighbors. I was able to go to wednesday night Bible class at Angel´s church and afterwards we msut ahve stayed around for almost and hour and a hald talking amongst the members. They really LOVE here. They really desires missionaries from the states to come down and reach out to the five other areas of Bolivia that have been neglected by the church. Yes the church has for the most part looked past Bolivia and that must change. Yesterday I was terribly sick and couldn´t go out and finished recovering today. The girls have been attending a women´s conference and a few of the missionaries from Cochabamba arrived yesterday to spend time here with us and so their wives could attend the conference. Thanks again for being their for me in your prayers and thoughts...I know that your prayers make all the difference and that God hears every single one of them for the "prayer of a righteous man availath much."
Much love and in His name,
Taylor Box