I Have A Plan for You

We have felt like boats floating aimlessly in the water for the past ten months. Directionless, listless, without direction. In our hearts we knew that we had been in the right place but .... what now? A dwindling community, a community that was ‘on its feet’ financially. To stay or to go? How often we would pray for direction. How often we wanted to know where our paths would lead. We had no plan. We were living day by day ‘con calma’, not wanting to do anything rash.

But God was working his plan and it opened in a way that blew us away.

The story started when we first came to Bolivia. We attended the English service at the Calama Baptist Church. Also attending was a young man, Freddy Gutierrez, whose family lived in Yapacani. He was attending university in Cochabamba. We moved to Patujusal and did not maintain contact, mainly because we did not have a telephone.

One day Jake hailed a mototaxi in Yapacani. The driver asked if he knew a gringo called Jake. Naturally, Jake was surprised since his name was Jake and he was the only gringo living in Yapacani. The driver was Freddy – from Calama in Cochabamba. Remember? We met a few times and we learned that he wanted to learn more English, that he wanted to attend Cambridge in England. Freddy moved to Santa Cruz and after some time we lost contact.

Freddy called when our email was compromised and someone sent an email saying that we were robbed in Nigeria. He was very concerned and wanted to help us. We were touched.

Last January our land lady in Yapacani called me because there was a young man who wanted to talk to me. It was Freddy. He had returned from England and was married the month before. He was planning to work at a small Baptist church plant in Barrio Florida. I was heading to Cochabamba for Quechua classes so we arranged to meet ‘later’. But with our schedules, nothing materialized.

Meanwhile, Freddy worked at the church in Barrio Florida, the barrio where many of the families from Patujusal and La Pista have purchased lots and are building houses. The church has had a positive influence on these people and some of them are now actively involved.

Freddy spent two years at Cambridge taking Integral Missions, an area in which I have been interested and in which I want to be involved. It is the vision we had for our work in Patujusal. Freddy and I only had a few minutes to discuss his plans but in that time he touched on every idea I have had for working in Yapacani. Although I have lots of ideas, I do not have the people that can implement them but Freddy has a network available.

Where this will lead we do not know. How things will be implemented we do not know. But we know that there is a reason that Freddy and ourselves keep connecting. We know God has a plan and we are eager to be part of it.