Written by Catherine Flanagan

The fourteen-member U.S. team for the 2023 Multi-Specialty Mission Trip (MSMT) arrived in Bolivia on Friday full of excitement and anticipation. Although our medical work will take place in the foothills of the Andes outside Cochabamba, we began our time in Bolivia with a brief stay in the low-lying city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Santa Cruz, located in eastern Bolivia amid the southernmost reaches of the Amazon River basin, has a very different climate and culture than Cochabama. Our team relished the opportunity to explore another part of this beautiful country. On Saturday, we visited the Güembe Biocenter, which boasts the world’s largest butterfly sanctuary. It is also home to a variety of tropical birds, monkeys, and tortoises. As our team explored the natural beauty of the park, we wandered through an approximation of the mid-level of the rainforest canopy. The area was filled with macaws, toucans, parrots, and peacocks, and we marveled at the amazing colors of these dazzling birds emitting a cacophony of squawks, squeals, chirps, and calls. In contrast, the tortoises lumbered silently below on the forest floor while monkeys scampered among them and playfully swung through branches. At times the monkeys were silent and seemingly pensive, at other times they were mischievous, attempting to steal poorly supervised sunglasses. In this small taste of the rainforest, we were awed by the incredible diversity of God’s creation.

On Sunday we arrived in Cochabamba and were welcomed home to the Puente de Solidaridad (PdS) offices. We were greeted by Executive Director Patricia Vargas and the PdS staff, as well as three PdS board members, Carl Brockman, Maria Eugenia Rojas, and Claudia Silis. We were then treated to a wonderful musical performance by a children’s group, Kimsa Temple. It was a joyful celebration-- our small crowd dancing and clapping to the songs sung in Spanish and Quechua and played on traditional instruments. While enjoying the music, we shopped the exquisite wares of some of our partner fair trade artisans, allowing us to bring a piece of Bolivia home with us.

After visiting the awe-inspiring Cristo monument, we made our way to our home for the week, La Casa Nuestra Señora de Lourdes in the town of Tolata. This beautiful and peaceful retreat house will be the perfect place to gather and reflect on the transformative work we will engage in this week. After a warm greeting from our host, Harold Menacho, we shared a delicious dinner before heading to a tranquil gathering space for our opening ceremony. As we began, our reflection leaders Marcela Canedo and Ted Johnson invited us to close our eyes, breathe deeply, and listen to the sounds around us. “These are the sounds of the valleys of Cochabamba, the sounds of Cliza, the sounds that will be a part of your life over the next week. Listen and arrive.”

Arrive? Hadn’t we arrived in Bolivia two days ago, to Cochabama earlier this morning, to the retreat house hours earlier? But as I looked at the faces around me, those of my fellow travelers, those of our Bolivian friends, I realized that we were at a new arrival point. This was a more internal, spiritual place of arrival. The mission was beginning in earnest. We had arrived at the true purpose of our journey to Bolivia, to engage in a transformative experience of sharing and healing, of friendship and love.

Marcela and Ted directed our attention to the tapestry that adorned the small altar they had created in the center of the room. They explained that the tapestries of indigenous people always tell a story; as an indigenous woman once explained, “Through these designs one is able to understand the story and meanings of the life one is learning to weave.” They passed a tray with colored yarn and invited us to take a strand. As we held our thread, we were asked to reflect on our part of the story, our part of the tapestry that we would weave together this week. I am humbled and honored to help weave this tapestry, this as yet unseen design that, together with our patients and the medical staff, we are weaving with our lives, our work together, and our shared mission. We will forever be knitted together in this beautiful pattern of God’s creation.

Monday morning welcome and introductions with the director of the Cliza hospital.

Monday morning, we had another arrival, at the Hospital Materno Infantil San Juan de Dios. With this latest arrival, we are meeting or reacquainting ourselves with the doctors and staff of the hospital with whom we will partner in patient care. We are arriving at and truly entering into the work that brought us to Bolivia, the care of patients in need. To do that, we must be present, we must listen, and we must stand in solidarity with these patients and all who work so hard to give them life-transforming care. We enter into this work knowing we have the support of our Solidarity Bridge community back in the states, the over three thousand people who make up our network of donors, medical suppliers, and medical professionals. We ask for all your prayers as we weave this tapestry of healing and love. We know that with God’s grace, the pattern will be one of infinite beauty.

Arriving, again and again