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Why am I going on this mission trip to Bolivia? It’s just selfishness really. Oh, it doesn’t look like selfishness, in fact by all appearances it’s just the opposite. When someone finds out you’re going to Bolivia for ten days they applaud your sacrifice with a comment like, “It’s so great that you are giving back.”  The appropriate reply is always, “I actually get much more out of it than I give,” but no one thinks you mean that, it’s just the right thing to say.  The truth is, it’s the truth.

I can’t say I go to Bolivia to give anything; I go because I need to go, I have to go.  Going to Bolivia recalibrates me, like taking your car in to get the brakes adjusted and I’m in consistent need of adjustment.  Otherwise, first world problems loom so large, and God shrinks so small. 

You see, many of my heroes live there.  The Food for the Hungry team who tirelessly spend long hours, sometimes through tears, loving the most vulnerable; they are my heroes. The young people like Mayra and Juan Javier and Paola who grew up with FH and now work tirelessly themselves to lift Christ up there; they are my heroes.  Ericka and her family who show so much hospitality when we invade their home and just hang out; they are my heroes. Sabasta, who we sponsored for years and has now graduated out of the program, has a family of her own now but still calls me on WhatsAp now and again just to remind me that she’s thinking of me; she’s my hero.  She has taught me that even if you are only 15 and you love your family by simply taking care of them, it’s enough. They are true faith heroes who inspire me and recalibrate me to be on this mission with Him.   

I have to go because for 10 days I won’t have control, I won’t make decisions, I’ll submit to someone else’s agenda and I’ll see God work.

If everything goes as planned sometime around midnight on March 29 I’ll drag my bag off the carousel in Albuquerque and someone will be impressed that I sacrificed for the people in Bolivia.

Truth is, I’ll be filled up with all they gave me and God will be bigger again. 

Click here for more information about MCC's Bolivian Missions.