Bolivia Mission Trip Update

Our missionaries in Bolivia continued their digging of the footings for the church’s expansion. The weather had been absolutely gorgeous nothing but the bluest skis. It sounded like the footings have been completed, and they bent re-bar “cages” which are placed in the footings. Concrete is mixed right there on site and they poured concrete into two yesterday with another planned for this morning. Late in the day the village conducted another ceremony where they presented our group with their traditional hats and scarves and sang songs formally showing their appreciation.

Today the group is going to hike down to the completed bridge that crosses the yellow river, of which I am most envious. Our initial trip’s construction project was to anchor the main suspension cables on one side, stretch the cables across the river, and temporarily connect the cables on the other side until the concrete was poured on that side after we left. Today they will get to cross the completed bridge which links the all the villages on the other side of the river to Quesimpuco’s school and hospital. (Attached are some pictures of the completed bridge some 400ft long and 100ft above the river!) Since they will have to carry up everything that the carry down, they will leave the satellite phone behind and we will not hear from them for the next couple of days while they camp 3500 ft in elevation below.