Church Construction
The need for the construction of Methodist Churches in Bolivia is astounding! Some examples are:
El Alto – The fastest growing city in the Western Hemisphere. El Alto was a small slum area of about 85,000 people around the airport of La paz in 1986 when our partnership began. Today it is city of over 1.1 million persons! The growth comes from migrants from the campo who are often Methodists because of the strength of the IEMB in rural villages. Bible Studies in homes and house churches pop up in El Alto almost every month. But because this is basically a giant slum and the poorest major city in the world, there is no money for purchasing land or building a brick church, as is now required.
Similar (but not quite as rapid) growth is occuring in Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, and Tarija, all of which need new churches.
In Pampahasi, a church is about to slide down a mountain and needs to be relocated.
Achacachi is a famous town in Bolivian history. Many of the strikes and battles over human rights of the indigenous people began in Achacachi. They are a ‘militant’ people as the local Methodist pastor calls them. And the government has built a large miliatry base, with strong walls to protect the soldiers from the community! The IEMB wants to build a new church directly across the street from the entrance to the base to preach about peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness in a community whose history is struggle, anger and violence.
Cobija is a community way up north on the border with Brazil in the midst of the Amazon jungle. The only road to this village, up until 3 years ago, was through Brazil! We have 3 churches and 2 Bible study groups ready to build churches in this area, but most US groups don’t want to travel that far, to that remote of a location to work; and so the mission stagnets.
What the Bolivia/Oklahoma Ayllu is accomplishing
New Canaan
In El Alto:
Skiatook. Okla UMC is about to complete the Nuevo Canann Church on the outskirts of El Alto (click here for more including a video)
Chapel Hilll UMC in Okla City is helping to construct “Manantial de Vida” (River of Live) church in the heart of El Alto. (Click here)
(Click here for Video) The Oklahoma Annual Conerence Offering for 2011 is going to help build the Pampahasi and Achacachi churches, with a VIM team from the Bartlesville District.
The Lawton District is going to be sending a team in 2012 to start work in Cobija.
If you would like to donate to this work click on the Advance logo and designate your donation to one of these specific churches, or let the IEMB select the greatest needs.
