June 2022: Rebuilding in Bolivia
Editor’s Note: Each month, we mail an article with our contribution statements to the previous month’s donors. Click here to download a PDF version.
Written by Tom Corson, Executive Director
In our Easter letter, we shared the sad news of a terrible flash flood that destroyed the school in the isolated village of Huiri Lanza in mountains of Bolivia. The parents of the children in this village are working hard to make adobe bricks to rebuild a two-room school for the children. In Bolivia, the government will send a teacher if the community constructs a school building. This village had a teacher that was respected and loved by the village. On the day of this disaster, he sent the children home when he saw the rainstorm approaching. He was straightening the classroom and getting ready to go home himself, when without warning, there was a flash flood in the mountain above them, which sent a huge amount of water cascading down onto the school and surrounding community. It completely washed away the school building, taking the teacher, too. The villagers spent days searching for the body of their teacher, but he was never found, as this village is in a very steep part of the Andes Mountains.
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Not only was the school affected, but some 200 families’ homes were partially or fully washed away. Fruit trees, gardens and a chicken house with 1,500 chickens, all of which the villagers had counted on for food, were swept down the mountainside in a moment’s time. Their drinking water was contaminated, and food became scarce.
You—our supporters—responded by sending resources to provide CENATEC/SIFAT Bolivia director Huber Ramos and SIFAT worker Angel Roman with Sawyer Water Filters that provided clean drinking water for the village. Huber and Angel traveled miles over washed-out terrain to meet the leaders of Huiri Lanza. Likewise, the leaders of the village walked miles from the other direction to meet them and receive the filters. Their local government has committed to help with materials to rebuild the school. The people of Huiri Lanza are very industrious, and they have been working with a will to build back. With your support, SIFAT is again sending more funds this month to help them buy desks for the school, fruit trees to replant and food to get the children through this disaster.
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We appreciate you and all our supporters deeply. Because of your support, we can help supply the resources the people of Huiri Lanza need in their struggle to survive and to rebuild. I wish we could take all of you on a trip to Latin America, to Africa or to Asia to meet the hundreds, actually the thousands, of people who were suffering immensely during COVID-19 when things were locked down or who are victims of earthquakes, floods and disasters, but have felt the Love of God pour into their lives and give them strength to survive because of the projects SIFAT’s graduates are doing across the world. SIFAT cannot do that alone. God has used your support of SIFAT to help make these things happen.
Thank you for your contributions! Thank you for your prayers! Thank you for being part of the ministry of Jesus Christ through SIFAT to help the least of these—our graduates in some of the most remote places of the world!
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