What a day it has been! Or should I say days. It was yesterday (almost 2 days ago as I write this) that Liz and I met our team from Mountain Christian Church (coming from Albuquerque) at DFW airport. Liz was so excited just to be at the airport and told me "this is so great and we haven't even got on the plane yet!" Our flight from DFW to Miami was Liz's first time on an airplane and I think she really liked it! She did, however, say the takeoff was a bit scary but kind of fun.
Our flight to Miami was good, but our flight out of Miami to La Paz, Bolivia was delayed about a half an hour. After an overnight flight getting into La Paz at 530am and then going through customs it did not give us enough time to catch our one hour flight to Sucre where we'll spend the week (correction - our scheduled changed before our trip and we were going to catch the afternoon flight). Not a problem as we know that on trips like this, things will happen and we need to be flexible. So the FH (Food for the Hungry) staff showed us around La Paz as the next flight to Sucre was not until 4pm. Though it was great to see La Paz and were thankful for the opportunity none of the team got much sleep on the overnight flight so we were--how can I say--slow. Eventually we got back to the airport. We waited. And we waited. Not a problem. I should note that time is treated very differently in Bolivia compared to North America. Eventually at 5:30pm they announced they were canceling the flight. The Sucre airport doesn't have a control tower (correction - Sucre does have a control tower) and the runway doesn't even have lights and though a short flight, the airline could not get the plane in and out of Sucre with enough light to safely do it. So back into La Paz we went and are in a hotel from where I am writing this. We will get up tomorrow and catch and early morning flight to Sucre. As Bob Parr says from The Incredibles, "We'll get there when we get there!" The key is that man plans his paths, but God directs his steps. Lord willing, we will make it to Sucre tomorrow. I will say that though it has been a very, very long two days, the team has done well. And Liz has been a total trooper in all of this. I am very proud of her.
I wanted to also take a few moments to tell you a little bit of what we have experienced so far in our time in Bolivia today. When traveling to a foreign country where you speak very little of the language and the culture is very different is just plain humbling. You see all these people and in many ways I am just like them, yet I am so different. It also caused me to reflect that Jesus Christ is Lord of ALL. And that word ALL had much more meaning for me today. It also humbles me that Jesus calls people from all walks of life, all cultures and over all areas of the earth. His sovereignty is even more amazing to me in light of today.
I hope to get a few of the photos that we took posted this week, but I will not do so now. I will say though, that La Paz is a city of around 2 million people. It stands at an elevation of over 11,000 feet and the other part (I guess a suburb) called Alto where the airport is located is at 13,000 feet. From many parts of the city you can see two spectacular snow covered mountain peaks that are over 20,000. The city itself is very large and spralls up out of the valley it is in. In driving around we saw many areas from the government palace to areas where people have large metal sheets mixed with bricks to make a dwelling to live in. Quite an eye opening experience for not only Liz, but me as well.
Well, all for now...need to get some sleep as it has been rare the last two days.
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