The Village of Lluto

(Suggested background song while reading this post: "Follow You" by Leeland)

Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” 

(Matthew 19:13-14)

This is the verse on which our team based on impromptu skit when we visited the children of Lluto on our second day of ministry.

In my post about our quest for Wakallani, I described how on the first day of ministry, we had embarked on a full day's hike in the Andes Mountain.  The path we took was along a mountainous trail that encircled a wide valley. Throughout the day, I had noticed that in the middle of all the greenery of that valley sat a lone shiny structure.

The shiny structure (indicated by the yellow arrow) in the middle of the valley was hard to miss

I thought to myself, "I wonder what that structure is?" Well, I got my answer on the very next day. It was the school in the village of Lluto.

A plaque at the entrance of the school in Lluto

Our two Bolivian national leaders/missionaries, brothers Juan Sosa and Juan V., had built a solid relationship with the administrators of this school.  The relationship was so solid that the head of the school (also named Juan) allowed Juan S. and Juan V. (I know, very confusing) to visit the school each week and teach a "world religion" class to all the kids in the school.  Now, our two Juan's did not hide the fact that they were there to share Christ with the children and the administrators did not seem to have any qualms with it.

Panoramic shot from the heart of the school in Lluto 

So, on this sunny Tuesday morning, two pickup trucks ("Jack" and "Jill") filled with gringos (foreigners) pulled in the school yard.

After greeting the administrators, our team was quickly split into two smaller teams.  One team, with Donna as the main "gringo attraction", visited with the older (middle school and up) kids; while the other team, featuring Bobby and I, got a chance to hang out with the younger one.

Donna had it on her heart to share the Priceless Cube with the older kids. So she went off with her team of nationals to prepare for that presentation.

That left our team (Bobby, Cesia, Abigail, and me) to figure out what we should do. We had about 10 minutes! Juan V., who was always with guitar - we later started referring to him as "Juan Guitar" - had already gone into the classroom to be our warm-up act. He led the children in the singing of a few praise songs.

"Juan Guitar"

Cesia and Abi started to think of children's games that would be fun.  And as the feature attraction, Bobby's and my instructions were "to share the Gospel and do a Bible lesson". The go-to lesson in our training was the story about how a sinful woman anointed Jesus (Luke 7:36-50). Hmm... not exactly sure how a group of young kiddos would related to that story.

And then I remembered how the children's minister in my home church once asked me to share and I had used Matthew 19:14 as the theme verse. (1914 was stuck in my head because it was the year World War 1 had started - nerd alert!)  So I quickly mentioned that to Cesia and Abi and within minutes, we had put together a skit.  There was, however, one problem: we needed someone to play Jesus...

I mean, come on, doesn't Osvi just look the part (even with the hat and Snickers bar)? We asked him and he was a little reluctant at first (for a good reason), but ultimately agreed - "it is for the kids!" And perhaps not surprisingly, this was not his first time portraying the Son of God in a skit.

The next hour or so really flew by.  We went into the classroom (with about 15 or so students), introduced ourselves and performed the skit. The kids were shy at first, but a few of them mustered up enough courage to come up and participate in the skit with us. We then shared the Gospel with the kids version of the Evangecube - our first time using it!  Several of them accepted the invitation to receive Christ. So they came up to the front of the classroom where "Juan Guitar" led them in the believer's prayer. Praise God!

Then it was game time. Cesia, who is truly gifted in working with the kids, led them first in a game of "duck, duck, goose" (during which I overexerted myself a little bit, not realizing how exhausting it was to run at high altitude). We then played the Bolivian version of "London bridge is falling down."  And in this version, the grand finale seems to be a game of tug of war:

I never did figure out how a team "wins" this game

After a quick snack time, it was time for the kids to leave. So almost the entire school packed into the "school bus" (a red van).

There are at least 20 students in that "school bus"

It turns out that even though this school was in the village of Lluto, the students actually came from the various Aymara villages scattered across this mountainous area.  One can only imagine the number of stops this red van makes each day before and after school!  The school administrator, however, traveled in style...

Reflecting on our morning in Lluto, it was interesting to notice how it contrasted with our previous day's experience.  On that first day, we hiked nearly 10 (challenging) miles to share the Gospel in one village (Chojo). On this second day, we came to this school by car (or truck) and planted the Gospel seeds that would then be scattered throughout several Aymara villages.  Our God truly works in amazing ways!

Of course, like the seeds in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9. 18-23), we do not know which of the Gospel seeds we sowed that day landed on fertile soil.  Only God knows and only He can make the seeds grow and bear fruit.  So please pray for the children who attend the school in Lluto.  Pray for their families and communities.  Pray for the school administrators, who have graciously allowed our missionary brothers to visit with and teach the children on a regular basis. And pray for our brothers, Juan Sosa and "Juan Guitar", who, along their team of ministry partners, continue to follow-up and love on these children. May their Christ-like agape love bear fruit in the form of young Aymaran disciples who have the passion to make more disciples in their villages and beyond.