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Everywhere you look there are children, people, cars, dogs, trash blowing across the road, busses racing by....a constant sea of movement. There are buildings being constructed, people at work, something for sale, a noise that never ceases; always a rush. 

But what for? People work hard in hope that opportunity will come, but sadly enough, for many here in Sucre, it seems that it never does. 

We met with Esperanza, a mother of three who works hard all day, every day, handwashing laundry and still just barely getting by. We assumed she was single by the way she spoke of her "son's father." But none of us had the heart to ask. She lived in the heart of the city but spoke as if she were all alone.  The only family she mentioned were the "cousins" of her children, as she called them, from her "boys' father's family". To get to her humble dwelling we climbed over a concrete guardrail, at a random spot off a steep embankment from a busy road, down a shaky set of rusty steel and plywood stairs. It was a tiny, hidden community unto itself, no more than five ramshackle dwellings. You never would have known it was there. It left us wondering how the women of FH had ever found it?

There were children, dogs and hanging laundry amongst the rubbish and mess. Yet children’s eager faces greeted us, hoping for a sponsor`s letter or even better, a visit! All three children were FH sponsored children and seemed more optimistic than most.

But on Esperanza's sad face, there was loneliness and exhaustion, embarrassment that all she had to offer her guests was Salvetti soda, one of which she provided in a wooden bowl because she had no more cups.

Though we knew that our 20-minute visit, gift of school supplies and simple words could not erase that, before we left we covered Esperanza with our prayers. What else can you do when you feel impossibly inadequate?

God's grace covers what we cannot.

His love was a hopeful light in Esperanza's dim, damp, single room dwelling. She smiled as we left, asking us not to forget her. It was heart wrenching.

How could we possibly forget?

Just as her sad face and situation was a profound example of those need, Jesus is a profound example that we NOT FORGET those in need.

"And the King will answer them,`Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40

Just as Sucre felt like a city that would never sleep, I prayed that we would be a people that would never forget. That we would remember her as a member of the family of Christ and continue to lift her up in prayer.

It left me wondering, what will we do for the least of these? In a world that moves too fast, where distraction abounds and we race to keep up, how will you and I serve, how can we pray and be a people that never forgets?

This is my third time in Bolivia. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would spend my vacation time each year to visit people in need and work with the less fortunate, I'm not sure I would have believed you. But God placed Bolivia on my heart from the very first trip I made, one of the ways He did that was  through working with the women of the community.

I have been blessed to witness the progress made in the village of Villa Margarita.  My first trip, God blessed me with the opportunity to teach the women community leaders about Nutrition. God used that experience to change my heart for those in poverty and show me where there was poverty in my life as well. FH was just starting in the community and the Cascada group of women leaders were few and needed education as basic as understanding the food groups.

Three years later, my heart filled with love, grace and humility as I witnessed the same community with many more members of the Cascada group open their Nutrition Center. Though the building was awesome, it was the pride each women had in their work. The ownership, responsibility and confidence each woman had filled my heart. The women have learned and are bringing the good information to others. All the while, living and learning biblical principles. Their children are learning from their mothers and will be leaders one day too! 

I praise God that He brought me here to be a part of the opening of the nutrition center. It will be a day that will forever remain in my heart. 

Jorge Alvarez Davila is known throughout the jungles of Peru as a “well-drilling evangelist”. A unique title indeed! It makes you wonder -- how does someone decide to give up their day job and start building wells to serve God’s people and glorify the Lord?

It seems that the Lord used Jorge’s whole life to prepare him for this purpose.

Jorge was born in the small coastal fishing town of San Bartolo, Peru. He studied accounting in college and operated his own construction business for many years. He built houses, churches, and missionary compounds in, and around, the town of Pucallpa.

He is a gentle soul with a huge heart for both the Lord and for the indigenous people of Peru.

In 2000, Jorge and his wife were asked to take part in a full-time jungle ministry by Tommy and Angela Head. With Jorge’s active construction business, he declined, but their friendship and collaborations grew. The Head’s contracted with Jorge to build a compound to house a group of people working on Bible translation.

Angela describes Jorge as a natural evangelist. “You truly see the joy of Jesus in his heart through his smile,” she wrote. “His love of the Lord is infectious.” 

As Jorge continued to help Tommy build churches and make disciples for Christ, a new ministry was born. In 2002, Jorge and Tommy constructed their first water well in the Peruvian jungle. On the first well-drilling team, he encountered someone known as “Dr. Water” in Peru. You know him, too -- MCC Elder Vince Tidwell! And Vince has helped on several more wells since then.

After the drilling of that first well, Tommy once again asked Jorge to join them in ministry, a water ministry, and Jorge said yes.

Since 2002, this quiet man with a heart overflowing for the Lord has personally drilled and installed more than 500 water wells in remote jungle villages. Countless villagers have heard the gospel messages, many for the first time, and many have been brought to Christ by Jorge.

Throughout the years, one thing has always stood out about Jorge; sharing the Gospel is always on his heart. Angela shared that, during their early work in construction, Jorge would often be late arriving to work, which was not abnormal in Peru.  However he usually had an interesting story to share. It always involved Jorge sharing the Gospel with a new believer; somebody in a taxi, a person walking down a dirt road (because there wasn't a taxi), or waiting with a person in line at the store. What a reminder that is to each of us -- to let the Lord use us wherever we are, whatever the inconvenience, even if it means being a few minutes late!

In 2009 their ministry team suffered a devastating loss when Tommy was killed in a dirt bike motor cycle accident in Peru. Angela remains in Peru, leading the water ministry and working through Living Water International. In 2013 she and Jorge formed Asociacion Ministerios Fuentes de Agua (AMFA), of which Jorge is now the in-country director of, to be able to continue providing water wells to remote jungle villages.

While working in tribal culture can be challenging and draining, you would never know it with Jorge.  He is a man of his word, and is sought after as a man of the Lord. Those of us who spent one evening with him during his recent visit to New Mexico and Mountain Christian Church can attest to both his love of the Lord, and his passion for the people living under what we would find as incredibly difficult conditions in remote villages.

We are blessed that God has led our church to support AMFA, led by this jungle missionary who is changing lives with clean water and the Gospel.

MCC continues to support AMFA. Click here to see the latest updates on Jorge’s work with AMFA in Peru.

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” Mathew 19:14

These beautiful words of Jesus are experienced by Food for the Hungry volunteers as they step off the plane and onto the hard tarmac in Sucre, Bolivia. As they look up to the upper level of the airport, they can see the eyes and sweet faces of hundreds of sponsored children who can’t wait to see them, hug them, and get to know them! It can be an overwhelming and emotional experience for volunteers - but it’s also the reason they’ve come. Just ask Nathan Deterding.

 “A major part of my going to Bolivia was to meet our sponsored child. It was central to my reason to go,” Nathan said. “I really wanted to meet him and make that connection.” But, Nathan had no assurance that he would get to meet Efraim in March of 2016. He knew that Food for the Hungry was going to try to set up his meeting Efraim but that they couldn’t guarantee it. The days and months leading up to his trip left him feeling down and a little skeptical.

The night before flying out, he rolled his ankle and sprained it badly. With just 10 hours before he was supposed to leave, Nathan looked at his new set of crutches, and asked himself,

“Is this God telling me not to go?”

“I was upset that I probably wouldn’t see my sponsored child,” he said. “I could barely walk, and I wasn’t feeling connected to the group. They had been meeting for months but I was living in Colorado at the time and didn’t even know who was on the team.”

It wasn’t until 2 a.m. that Nathan decided that he was going on the trip. “Even if it meant that I just stayed in my hotel room and prayed for the team,” he said, “it would be worth it.”

And he was right! It would be worth it. God would affirm Nathan’s decision in a way he never could have expected.

“When we got to the airport, it really hit me.” Nathan explained, “We had landed and exited on the tarmac and looked up and saw all these kids on the upper level looking down, waving at us and they just couldn’t wait to get close to us. It was at that minute that it became real. I realized I wasn’t just here for my one sponsored child, we were here to see and support all of those kids.”

Within a few minutes of picking up their luggage something phenomenal happened.

“This woman, who literally come up to about my belly button, kept pointing at me saying ‘Nethen, Nethan.’ I didn’t even realize that she was saying my name,” he recounted. “I finally made the connection and in broken Spanish said, ‘Yes, my name is Nathan.’  She turned around, grabbed a kid out of the many children there, and said ‘This is Efraim!’  I thought, that’s cool. Thanks for introducing us!”

Nathan didn’t even realize that this was his sponsored child for a few seconds. First, the situation was not at all how he was told he would be introduced to his sponsored child (if it happened at all), and second he didn’t realize until then that he had been mispronouncing “Efraim” for months.  

“Then I really looked at that little boy and realized who it was! I had been pronouncing his name wrong but could clearly recognize his face! It took me a moment to catch my breath and realize, ‘This is my Ephraim!’” Nathan exclaimed. “It was unbelievable that God met me right there at the airport,” Nathan said, “just minutes after getting off the plane!”

The next day Nathan had another chance to see Efraim, as well as to meet his family in the traditional setting. He gave Efraim’s mother a basket of food, and then was able to take Efraim to play soccer. “The whole experience was just amazing,” he said. “At the end of our time together, he was clinging to me and made me promise that I would come back and see him again. My trip to Bolivia this year is to fulfill that promise to him”

Nathan’s perspective is totally different after meeting Efraim, talking to him, seeing where he lives, and spending time with him.

“For me, it hard now to even imagine that I considered not going. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to miss out on that experience. What would have happened if I hadn’t gotten on that airplane?” Nathan asks aloud.

Luckily, he will never know. He listened to God’s calming voice, followed it, and had the experience of a lifetime.

Child Sponsorship through Food for the Hungry is an absolute gift, to those sponsored and to those sponsoring. The knowledge that you can profoundly bless a child, family and community through a simple monthly donation of $38 is powerful. Visit MCC Food for the Hungry Child Sponsorship page to learn more or talk with Jennifer Ward this Sunday, she will have a table set up in the foyer.  

He looks more like a construction worker than a business owner; more like a hard-working rancher than probably anything else.

But make no mistake; when he smiles, it is warm, and rich, and genuine.  And he has a gentleness and a humility about him that make him undeniably likable, even across the barriers of language.

Pastor Epheson Erballo was born into a family of Christ-followers, in the Ethiopian village of Wolyta.  I had the special privilege to meet with this dear brother on Wednesday, while I was here in Awassa.  He travelled here to take care of some business, and especially to make himself available to me.

Epheson is the fourth of six children.  He has three brothers and two sisters.  Although he has believed in Christ for about as long as he can remember, he was given a special desire from the Lord around age 15.  At that time, he sensed a burden to minister to others.  

He began to share the gospel readily with friends, and anyone else.  As people came to Christ, he began to disciple them.  Within a short time, he was leading Bible studies, and the number of those in his care grew.  Soon, he found himself leading a church.  He would shepherd and pastor this group of believers for 22 years.  In 2009, his congregation was officially organized as a church, and he was ordained.  

He continued to pastor there until 2013.  It was then that the Lord moved him and his family to Turmi, in the hopes of church planting and reaching a poor, desperate people there.  

The work in Turmi is growing, but it is not without colossal challenges.  The region is a desert, and food sources are scarce.  Epheson and his family (with four children) have to work hard just to survive.  And it is the same with everyone there.  You cannot simply go and grab something from the market.  Food has to travel just to get to them.

And if the physical challenges are great, the spiritual challenges are even greater. 

The tribal people there are very connected.  The community sticks together, and is led by chiefs.  And their beliefs are animistic - not so much a formal religion, but a system of worship and fear of spirits and gods.  If a member of the community professes faith and begins to follow Jesus Christ, then they are threatened by their family and friends.  If this does not dissuade them, then they are often beaten.  Still, the gospel is setting captives free, and there is now a growing church among the Turmi, where Epheson and his family love and shepherd them.

This is not an easy life, but it is the life of great reward.

When you ask Epheson about his personality, and the kinds of things that he likes to do, he says, “I’m naturally curious; learning and teaching are who I am.”

Meeting Epheson, I do not doubt this.  Nor do I doubt that he has learned many things in his life, and is probably capable of doing nearly anything asked of him.

Please continue to pray for our dear brother, and for all of his family and ministry.  We will be sharing more information and prayer requests in the future.

And praise our strong Savior together with us, that I got to connect with Epheson during this trip, and that we have the distinct privilege to be able to partner with this faithful, humble man.

Visit our Path Three Missions page for information on how MCC supports Pastor Erballo in Ethiopia.