Category Archives: Bolivia

Pastor Guillermo

Pastor Guillermo


Until now, regular readers of peace for the journey have known me as Elaine’s husband and her number one fan. Now for the first time I am a guest contributor to her blog, which coincides with another important first in my life—my first mission trip outside the USA.

A team of 16 young adults and chaperones left our church on July 16, 2008, for the South American nation of Bolivia and a new orphanage established by the Methodist Church of Bolivia. The Andes Mountain range is second only to the Himalayas as the highest in the world and is home to the Aymaran Indians, the native people of Bolivia. For ten days we called this harsh, desperately poor but splendid place our home.


Tacachia rests at the end of a forty mile stretch of winding mountain road. My sense of “belonging” in that little village was challenged from the very beginning. As one of Tacachia’s newest residents my name was a problem: “Billy.”

Billy is the name that I have answered to for almost forty-one years of living, but to a rural population that spoke only Spanish and Aymaran, none of them had ever met a “Billy” and had great difficulty pronouncing my name. I had a choice to make: to insist that everyone in my new home struggle with a name that defied their tongues’ best efforts, or I could change my name. The choice was easy. My high school Spanish teacher had us use the Spanish equivalent of our English names in class. Thanks to those lessons from long ago I quickly exchanged “Billy” for “Guillermo,” which is Spanish for “William.”

Instead of loosing any precious sense of my identity, compromising my standards, or watering down the Gospel message, the Lord led me to a deeper understanding of what it means to “deny myself.” When Jesus said to His disciples, in Matthew 16:24 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” Jesus meant that we have to be willing to replace our standards with His standards. As long as we stay close to the place we call home and the local church we call our own, self denial may not seem like a big deal. But what does the Lord require of His people when He leads us among strangers?

I believe that Acts 1:4-8 is concrete proof that Jesus does not use a “sliding scale” in measuring mission work. The idea of local missions, verses overseas missions, and one being better than another is an invention of man and not of God. Wherever you are, if you are a baptized believer in Jesus Christ, you are in the mission field. As missionaries, there is an ever present temptation to value our station in life, our title, our accomplishments, our circumstances, to the point that the world around us feels like they have no hope of relating to us.

To the people of Tacachia, “Pastor Billy” was a name their tongues could not grasp. They could not greet me. They could not introduce me to their neighbors. They could not hope to have any kind of intimate relationship with me, because “Pastor Billy” was the name of a stranger who wanted to remain a stranger. But “Pastor Guillermo” was a welcome guest who wanted to know them and wanted to be known by them.


What about my other names? I am a United Methodist pastor. I am an Elder in the Church. I have an undergraduate degree from Pfeiffer College and a Masters of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary. I am proud of all these names—up to the point that these parts of my “identity” might become an obstacle in proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that my own selfishness has been the biggest obstacle in keeping me from sharing the love of Jesus.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that Christians have to be willing to deny the things we often prize the most, for the sake of the least and the lost.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that Christians have to love Jesus more than we love denomination, or education, or anything else that might build a wall between us and those He sends us too.

Ten days with Pastor Guillermo taught me that the most important thing I have to offer the Lord on the mission field is my obedience.

As it was with Pastor Guillermo, so I want it to be with Pastor Billy. I want to love others more than myself and to prize relationships over ego…Christ above self.

The lesson of my mission field has not been an identity crisis, but rather has been the fertile soil to finding my true identity in Christ. Not everyone will need a trip to South America to learn how to part with their selfishness, but as Elaine will attest, I’ve never been very good at doing things the easy way. God used Pastor Guillermo to humble Pastor Billy.

I’m so glad for the occasion to have met him in the little village of Tacachia.


peace for the journey~
Billy

If you want to learn more about the medical mission society that helped us organize our trip to Bolivia, please click on this link to Curamericas. Details about the Kory Wawanaca Children’s Home of Tacachia, Bolivia can be viewed at their website.

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Cristo Amado (Beloved Christ)

Greetings to all of you faithful bloggers who clicked on Peace for the Journey to read Elaine’s writing. Alas, you’re stuck with her son instead. I’m Nick, the eldest (!!!), and I was part of a recent 16-man team from our church who went to Tacachia, Bolivia for a mission trip. Mom asked me to write a little something for the blog, and though I lack her writing prowess, here goes!


I’d never been on a mission trip before, much less one out of the country, so I understandably had some worries and anxieties prior to leaving. How would I do speaking Spanish? How would I do with limited electricity and cramped sleeping quarters? Would I be able to do the very difficult work on the farm? Most importantly, though, how could God bless others through people who were completely and utterly different from them in almost every aspect of life?

It became clear to me as the trip progressed that this trip was something that God had planned for me before He’d even breathed life into me.


Tacachia offered many formidable challenges for us 16 Americans. The language barrier, the elevation (Tacachia is approximately 12,000 ft. above sea level), the sleeping situation, the food, and the labor all daunted members of our group at one time or another. However, God blessed me in innumerable and unspeakable ways. He didn’t break down those barriers for me; instead, He ensured that I wouldn’t have to deal with any of those in the first place.

*The altitude didn’t really bother me (rare for people in our group).
*I didn’t contract even a minor disease or so much as an upset stomach (even rarer).
*And I knew enough Spanish to hold basic conversations with the people of Tacachia (rarer still).

With God’s help, I set out to share His love with others, and I believe I did that everyday I was in Bolivia. Playing soccer and volleyball with the kids from the village, doing a Daniel in the Lion’s Den skit, and helping dig a canal and make adobe bricks were all ways in which I was able to share God’s love with those Bolivians. Looking back on the trip, though, it is obvious that the people of Bolivia were more of a blessing to me than vice versa.


Everyone was so kind and loving that I must confess I was envious of them at times. Family means everything to Bolivians…how often do we hear that in the United States? I grew closer to people there than I did with some members of my graduating class. For the first time in my life, I really felt like family with people who weren’t genetically related to me. The love was so evident and so thorough and so joyous that it permeated everything that they did with us.


The most vivid and eternal memory I will take from Tacachia occurred during the church service we attended the last night we were in the village. During the previous Sunday’s service, we had sung a Spanish hymn that was a congregational favorite and I thought to myself “That song was pretty good.” During the closing Wednesday service, I found myself hoping “Please let us sing that cool song again.” I didn’t even know the title…

Lo and behold, as the service drew to a close, the musicians began to play that song, which I later found out to be titled “Cristo Amado” (Beloved Christ). As soon as I recognized the song and heard all the locals singing it, a joy that I have rarely experienced crashed over me like ocean waves. Though I did not know the words and thus could not sing along, I have never felt the presence of the Holy Spirit as tangibly as I did during those five minutes. Everyone was singing and clapping and pouring their hearts out to their Beloved Christ.

Following the service, I really wanted to learn the song, as I thoroughly enjoyed it. I told Pastor Antonio in Spanish that I had really enjoyed the song, not knowing how to ask to copy the words down. He responded with a huge grin, and holding a hymnal and paper, he asked me in Spanish if I wanted to copy it down. In that moment, elation filled my heart and I have not been able to stop thanking God and the people of Tacachia for the love and blessings they’ve so wonderfully showered on me in the five days since I learned that song.


As 1 John says, “How great is the love that the Father has lavished upon us, that we might be called children of God!”

Cristo Amado (Beloved Christ)

 

O Cristo, Cristo amado! (O beloved Christ!)
Alumbra pues mi camino (Light up my way)
Para llevar tu palabra (So I can take your word)
A pueblo desconocido (To the unknowing home)

Jehova es mi Padre (God is my Father)
Cristo es mi Salvador (Christ is my Savior)
El Espiritu Santo (The Holy Spirit)
Es mi Fortaleza (Is my stronghold)

Our Cristo Amado is so wonderful. Won’t you go share Him with others? After all, as Henry Burton’s hymn says:

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going,And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing;That’s how it is with God’s Love,Once you’ve experienced it,You spread the love to everyone You want to pass it on.”

elaine

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