Andrew Moffett's Bolivia Missionary Adventure

Greetings from Santa Cruz,

As some of you may see the name Izozog in the title many of you may realize this means an update of great adventure and I can assure you it does.  But before I begin on that I want to take the time to recognize the Lottie Moon offering.  At this Christmas season when Southern Baptist Churches around the USA take time to give to the work of international missions.  I would be remiss if I did not take the time to thank those who have given their offering or are soon to do so.  Let me say how grateful I am for your partnership in the work here in Bolivia and around the world.  

Let me also list some prayer requests at the start for those who just want to pray for the work and don’t make it to the end of the update

Pray for the missions workshop to be held at Third Baptist January 11^th and 12^th.  This is a workshop we have been trying to put together since November and it has been moved a couple of times, so pray that the current date stays and we have a number of churches come and participate.

Pray for peace in Bolivia I have mentioned to some of the challenges facing Bolivia, these include two very distinct views of which direction the country should be headed in.  In recent days tensions between those views have been heightened and the two sides appear to be on a collision course.

Pray for Christine and me as we are separated for the next couple of months.  Christine was able to come for a visit in November and we had a wonderful time together, but the separation is no fun and we are counting the days until I am go to the US in February.

On to the adventure that is known as Izozog.  Some of you may recall in the first couple of years of my ministry I made a few trips to Southeast Bolivia to a region known as Izozog, where the Guarani live.  This was my fourth trip to Izozog and I have always gone previously when it was dry.  The purpose of our trip this time was to go and constitute a church in the area in a town called Copere.  The seven of us left Santa Cruz at 3am although our targeted time was to leave at 2am (to be honest I didn’t even get there until 2:30).  Izozog is about 250 miles from Santa Cruz 125 of that on paved road and another 125 on dirt road.  We didn’t make great time but we were doing well as we arrived at Charagua at 9:00 am with only about 75 miles to go.  Well there was another vehicle besides mine and he was having some trouble with his brakes, so we thought it might be important to get those fixed before going too far.  This delayed us until 1:30 and I was still feeling pretty good as we headed out except for one thing.  As mentioned above in my previous visits to Izozog I had gone when it was dry and I drove on these sand/dirt roads I remember thinking to myself I’m not sure I ever want to drive these roads when it is raining.  Guess what it was raining as we left Charagua and it is one time that I wish I was wrong but I was right, I did not want to be driving on these roads when it is raining.  I’m not sure I can describe the roads well enough and what happens when they turn to mud other than they become very, very slick and the car even in 4wheel drive is in trouble if you get out of your groove and start to slide into the gutter.  We did alright for a while but we were not the only vehicles on the road and some of the others had gotten stuck.  In trying to maneuver around them I did manage to get a little stuck (okay I was stuck for 40 minutes trying to get out).  In my defense the Mitsubishi got stuck three times so just once for me was not too bad.  I don’t know if that means Toyota beats Mitsubishi or I’m just that good.  So on the web page there will be some good pictures of me stuck and me digging and my boots after I was done although the picture will not express how muddy my boots were.  All that to say it was an adventure to get to Copere at 6:00 that evening, another long day of travel.  

Let me now say though that the trip became well worth the trouble as we visited with the church members in Copere.  Those with us presented some workshops on church leadership and I was able to share a workshop on church planting and preach one night.  We also had a Baptism in Copere and were able to visit with the lay leaders and encourage them.  We were then able to constitute the church in Copere which gave me great joy and yet a little sadness at the same time.  It was exciting to see this group of believers be recognized as a church but sad that it took 35 years for it to happen.  They had constituted as a congregation in 1972 but never been recognized as a full church until two weeks ago.  As I shared in my workshop we need to do better than that, there are three Baptist churches in Izozog which all began their work in the 70’s I believe and no new churches have been formed since.  We were also able to go and visit the other two communities where we have churches Yapiroa and Rancho Nuevo and I repeated a call to them to reach out to the other communities around them that have not heard the gospel.  Pray that the message has been heard and that opportunities will be taken to share the gospel with their families in other villages and communities.  Pray that we may be able to get back soon to encourage them to do so.

At our final stop our church service was a full event with a church anniversary service, Lords Supper and a wedding, plus my participation in special music.  The fellowship in all three communities was good as we often sat around the table and were able to share.  Even if the table consisted of rice, goat and chicha for three straight days.  I’ll admit I was ready for something that wasn’t rice, goat or chicha and went with a Hamburger from Burger King.  The trip back for the most part was uneventful the sun had come out and dried the road, but the other car died and I had to tow it in the last few miles.  All in all it was a good trip and productive, just very long travel wise.

Well I pray each and everyone of you have a Merry Christmas as you celebrate the birth of our Lord.

Andrew Moffett

Serving Christ in Santa Cruz, Bolivia

admoffett@samerica.com

Greetings from Santa Cruz, Bolivia,

 Well I could beat around the bush but I have a major announcement to make

 I’M GETTING MARRIED

Okay I realize that many of you are thinking, “Wait a second how did this happen, I didn’t even know the dude was dating anyone” or “There must be a good story somewhere”.  I can assure you there is a really good story.

Three years ago I went to a conference in Lima, Peru and met a Journeyman, named Christine Keve, who was serving in the mountains of Peru.  I thought she was a very pretty girl and decided I wanted to get to know her a little better (in spite of the fact she is a graduate of UGA).  At the end of the conference asked her what she thought about our corresponding via email after I returned to Santa Cruz and to my great surprise she said okay.  I do think she was caught a little off guard though.  So we started to write and chat over messenger for a couple months and I decided to make a bold move and see what Christine would think about my coming for a visit so we could see if our relationship was heading anywhere.  For a variety of reasons the trip did not go well, as Christine would say later “to say it did not go well would be an understatement.”  We discovered midway through my visit that things were not going to work out and at the end of the week we decided that it would be best if we broke off all contact.  To make matters worse I was stuck in Peru for another day since I couldn’t find an earlier flight out.

Fast forward two and a half years to February of this year and I received an unexpected e-mail from Christine seeing how I was doing and apologizing for how poorly things had turned out during my visit. She even explained her reasoning for why things went so wrong for us at the time.  I decided that she had taken the time to write me the least I could do was respond and let her know I was doing well and that I appreciated her e-mail.  To my surprise, I got an e-mail back asking what I would think to our renewing our correspondence.   I’m not sure there are enough words to express how shocked I was, I guess my radar should have been up by the first e-mail but it was not.  I spent a couple of days thinking and praying about the proper response and if I wanted to reenter those waters after such a rough experience.  In the end, I decided that I had been truly interested and would cautiously reenter, but that we would move slowly.  Our correspondence quickly turned into daily e-mails and extended chat sessions on most days and within a month and a half I inquired if Christine was interested in coming to Santa Cruz for a visit. (You can see I stuck to my plan of moving slowly.)  Christine and I had a wonderful visit in May and God truly confirmed for us that he was doing something special in our lives and decided that we would visit again sometime in September or October.  Well, September quickly changed to my going to visit Christine in Atlanta in July.  While there I asked Christine to marry me and what do you know she said “Yes”.  We spent the trip traveling through the Southeast going from Atlanta to Auburn to Cairo, GA to Tampa to Miami meeting family and just having a good visit together. 

So what does this mean for the future? Well we are both called to missions and are planning to return to Santa Cruz.   I will be returning to the US in February and Christine and I will be married in April.  Christine has recently finished her coursework at NOBTS and will receive her diploma at the end of the year.  Christine is also in the appointment process and hopes to be appointed by the Board in April before we marry.  We then will be in the States for six months to a year before returning to Bolivia.  Enjoy the pictures of us on the http://boliviadrew.spaces.live.com/ page. 

Thank you for your continued prayer support.  If there is enough demand we may be able to convince Christine to write her own introduction of herself and her version of events.

Andrew Moffett

Serving Christ in Bolivia

Has it really been four months since I last sent an update wow well I guess it is time for a new edition of TWIB Notes (This week in Bolivia), although it will be more than a week a guess.  There is so much that I could share about I mean a lot can happen in the passage of four months.  I continue to go to the town of El Torno each Wednesday to share the stories from the Bible.  I have enjoyed sharing the stories with the folks in El Torno and hearing about where they are sharing them from neighbors to customers to family members to second division soccer teams.  Continue to pray for this group as we are about half way through and we have had a small off in attendance, pray that the folks will return and be excited about sharing the life of Jesus with their groups.  I also have a study going in Iglesia Bautista Horeb (Horeb Baptist Church) which is being done with the whole church on Thursday nights.  This again is using the Stories but a slightly different set and an emphasis on missions.  Pray that this study will have a true impact on the church and they will see their role as a whole church in missions and that God will move in the hearts of some to become involved in going.

Well August was mission’s month in Bolivia as the churches in the Convencion Bautista Boliviana (Bolivian Baptist Convention) take up their missions offering to support their National missionaries serving here in Bolivia and Asia. It is an exciting time to see the churches here in Santa Cruz putting before the people the need to go into all the world and all parts of Bolivia and preach the Gospel. I was able to visit a couple of different churches and preach on the day they took up their offering and there were similarities in each presentation (a smart man would have taken his camera so you could see what it looks like, but I forgot).  In both churches there was a procession of children dressed in the traditional dress of each department or of where the Convention currently has works.  Prayer was then given for the missionaries and then the offering taken up.  The part I really enjoy is that in most churches here call the people to come forward to give their offering and for the missions offering they use the Bolivian flag for an offering plate.  

I have been so excited to see how God has moved at Third Baptist and increased their missions focus.  I have shared some how we have begun to go on missions trips with the whole church and how God has called out Hermano Roman to go to Palmar Grande and their support of him.  But it is in our support of missions I have seen tremendous growth.  My first year at third there was a heated debate as to whether to keep the missions offering goal at $1500 (which was never met) or lower it to $1000.  The final vote was a tie and the Pastor casting the deciding vote in favor of missions and the goal being set at $1500, however, we fell just short of $1000, so the next year the offering was set at $1000 as we were also in a building project and to my surprise we brought in just under $1400 and so last year the goal again was put to $1500 and we brought in just over $1700.  So this year we have taken a step of faith and the goal is $2000.  I am excited to see the way the church will rally to meet this goal.   (Third emphasizes missions in August but takes up the offering on two dates in September.)

The work in Palmar Grande continues to go well I have not been down in a few months but I will be going down the weekend of the 22^nd of September.  Hermano Roman has had good participation with children and also has several families there beginning studies in their homes.  Continue to pray that God will give success in the spreading of His word and that leaders will develop in Palmar Grande.

Well that is all for now.  I will try to add some pictures to the site but I’m not sure I have any new ones.

Andrew Moffett

Serving Christ in Bolivia

admoffett@samerica.com