Seeing More

Hearing from home has been awesome, it turns out that since we´ve left everyone has decided their gonna get married. This must have been the most romantic Christmas holidays ever. Maybe it was a little something like this Latin culture we are seeing; in the parks, the restaurants, back streets, front streets. They let everyone know they´ve found romance. "It´s not wrong it´s just different." That is something Ken has reminded us of often, usually when we are in traffic or paying more then their advertised price. (ALWAYS... probably cause we´re white) Right now the boys from the home are at camp for the week, and Ken has taken us to Cochabamba, to show us this very beautiful city. It was a 9 hour drive through incredible mountain scenery. The road varied from smooth pavement curves, that you would simply love to drive a sport bike through, to a wash out with rocks and mud and no pavement. We had a nail pop into a tire when we were near a summit (far from anywhere) that we had to hurry to some village to find a tire guy before we got flat. When we finally did stop to fix the tire, we had it fixed with a plug and were charged $1.50 and Ken also gave him his coke. These mountain people are very often poor, working very hard for very little. They have a short stature often with round wind burnt faces. Many of these women come to the cities to beg on the streets with their children. Unlike Canada, there are no government social programs for these people to get money. It seems that instead of welfare we are all faced in person by the people that we should all contribute to. This poverty is very unavoidable and forces to you ask yourself if you will give to the poor, and how much. A very difficult challenge day to day. This lack of money seems to disprove the old saying `money is nothing´ for these people the importance of money is very real, and quite sad. Because I find that with the constant worry of having enough money, and it having such an importance, other valuable and important things are lost. Some have lost joy, hope, and their faith is tested. Some of these people need to find someone to lift them up. I have prayed that they would receive the hand of God in their lives, and bless them, with faith, hope, and love. God may want to do this through people that are able and I also pray that we would all respond to our calls. Jesus´ life example and message of the `The Kingdom of God´ is much more than a personal message of how I should live. It should also apply to how we should all work together as a church, community, province or country to live that example. Perhaps greater than ourselves, we may have a calling as church, town, country that is very real and not to be ignored. Lets pray for these people. - Kenton- (Feel free to comment more on this more.)