June 2021 Update
We hope this letter finds you doing well. We are grateful for one more opportunity to update you on the ministry here in Bolivia.
The ministry has moved forward a bit slower than usual these last few weeks due to Covid-19. The government has quarantined us in our homes for the past several Sundays which has hindered us from holding our services.
Right now, our local infection and hospitalization rates are the highest they have been since the pandemic started. The hospitals are overrun. Oxygen and medicines are in short supply. Some hospital nurses have had to give oxygen manuallya time or two because the hospital was completely out. The federal government has started to bring it in from neighboring countries to try to keep up. The local governments are putting more restrictions on when we can go out, but they have not been a severe as they were this time last year. We believe this is due to the struggling economy. We think the government is afraid to shut down too much because the country has suffered so much financially over the last couple of years. Please continue to pray for our people. So far, we don’t know of anyone in our church who has had the virus, but we do know of many in other churches.
At the beginning of June, we had Brian Fox from HELP Missions South America here with us. This is one of the ministries that has helped us get scripture portions into Bolivia. Last August we received a full container of scripture portions. As of the first week of June, we were completely out of the scriptures and tracts we had received in that container. It is hard to believe that we have gone through that much scripture in less than a year! That is over 500,000 Romans booklets and over one million tracts in about 10 months. Thankfully, we are already working on another container which we hope will be here around November. We have also been able to help coordinate the printing of some John and Romans portions in the country of Chile. We have shipped to Chile before, but it took months for the missionary to receive the packages. So, this time we helped them by organizing the printing in country for the first time.
Our second church will be celebrating their 3rd anniversary in July. Even though we were not involved with this church during their first 4 months of services, it is hard to believe that 3 years have already passed! This church has suffered through many trials but Pastor Rogelio, his wife and the people have stayed strong and persevered. This past year much has been accomplished, even despite the pandemic. We have gone from renting a small building to buying property and then moving into our newly constructed building. This past month, I did some electrical work, installed more lights and outlets. The new lighting has really transformed the look of the building. The people are wanting to paint the inside of the building before the anniversary service. I have already seen one or two buckets of paint be donated. Lord willing, these Covid restrictions will pass, and we can get the work done so that we can have our celebration on time.
As I stated before, this past month has moved a little slower than normal due to Covid; however, we have a lot of plans for the coming weeks. If things go according to plan, we will have a lot of exciting things to tell you about in our next prayer letter. Please continue to pray for us and the ministry here. More specifically, please help us pray over the current Covid-19 situation and that it will let up very soon so that we can accomplish all we have planned in the coming days and weeks.
