A Simple Life

Hello from a small internet cafe in Bolivia. I´m using a computer that is probably 15 years old. As you might expect, most things here are old, or seem old fashioned anyway. Life in Bolivia is just so much different than in the U.S. In Bolivia, you can throw aesthetics out the window. It doesn´t really matter what it looks like, as long as it works. A good example is their buildings. The buildings are made from really shoddy looking bricks or crooked pieces of bamboo, but they serve their purpose. Today we built a shelf for a shed that we organized out of crooked wood and rusty old reused nails . . . but it served its purpose. We went and got bricks this morning for a garage that we are going to build. They were using technology that was being used hundreds of years ago with workers manually making bricks and then firing them in a kiln. The weirdest thing for me to get used to so far is the raw sewage running through the ditches of the town. The stench can be pretty nasty sometimes.

Yeah, life is different here. On the surface, I can´t help but feel sorry for the people down here. They don´t have all the luxuries that we are used to in the U.S. You walk around the city and the word beautiful isn´t the first thing that comes to mind. You go to church and they don´t have fancy stained glass windows or ornate wooden pews. They still sing beautiful worship songs, they still pray, they still read the Bible, and they still share the bread and the cup though. God is still just as much present here as He is in the States. Actually, for me it is easier to see God´s presence here because there isn´t all that other ¨stuff¨. The stuff that can take our focus off of what truly important: Loving God and loving others. Everything here is just so much more raw. The Bolivian culture is teaching us that you don´t have to have all the luxuries to truly live life to its fullest. Many people are perfectly happy with the simple life they are living down here.

I think what I´ve taken the most out of this trip is how similar we all are. Sure, on the outside we have different languages, different levels of technology, different lifestyles even. When you look deeper and really get to know people, I´ve realized that they are just like me. They like to laugh, they want to have fun, they want to love and be loved in return . . . and you don´t have to speak the same language to understand that.

Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support! We love you all and miss ya up there!

¡Hasta Luego!

Tyler