Binnacle List

Binnacle List- The ship's sick list


I believe this list would have contained all our names except Julia's (Firestorm, our fierce leader) at one point or the other. One of our sickest moments would probably be once we got to La Paz, Bolivia. Most of us were already sick after the Cuzco bus ride but then add on another 13 hr bus ride less than 24 hrs later and that lead to some sick and tired puppies.

However once we were off the bus, we had a soccer game that we had to attend. I will not lie, I was not in the best mood about playing this game and felt like the bus had been dragging me for the last 13hrs. However I guess playing football at freezing temperature and 4000m does not help you get over sickness, but I do not think any of us really cared. We had to die to ourselves and go do something we did not want to do and it turned out to be an amazing time. The kids we played with were so happy to have us there and we were able to show them God's love when most of us did not feel like it.

La Paz is a beautiful city when you are overlooking it. Once you get on the streets you start to notice how poor this city actually is. We were able to go with our friend Tito, who was an amazing host and we ate like kings from his restaurant while staying with him, to go and bring coffee and cookies to the homeless. I have to remind you how freezing it was there. The homeless in La Paz would stick together sleeping in makeshift shacks and under tarps. While in Costa Rica the homeless would flock to us while we gave out coffee and cookies here however we would have to search them out and find where they were trying to stay warm, some of the time we never even saw their faces. Most of our group was able to go play football with a bunch of homeless a few days after meeting them. A time that really stuck out to me was when we saw an inebriated gentleman standing against  a fence. I was worried he was not even alive because he had not moved for the whole time we had been handing out cookies and coffee. Once we approached this gentleman however it became apparent that he was just highly intoxicated. One thing that really struck me was that he was not dressed for the weather. His clothes were not beat up and looked kind of nice but he had no hat or gloves and had been standing out there for hours. I believe this also struck my friend Aryk and we were able to give him our hat and gloves. Once we had roused him, he would not stop talking. Through this my friend Charlie was spoken to by God. Charlie was probably the most sick out of our group and had decided to come and we had been out for awhile and it was freezing. We were just about to head in when we decided to approach this gentleman. After he started talking he would not stop talking and we could not understand anything he was saying but we listened to him. Charlie, in his story, says how he was getting frustrated and wanted to leave. God spoke to him and said that once we left he was going to be there still listening to this mans complaints and ramblings until his death. This really taught Charlie and me through Charlie, how we need to value people.

We all ended up leaving La Paz very encouraged and with great memories and experiences. Tito and his family, our hosts, was very generous and hospitable. Not only to us but to the people of La Paz and the surrounding communities. If any of you are ever in La Paz I would definitely recommend  getting in touch with him, they have three churches and lots of areas you could help out in :) While we were there we also did kids ministries, played more football, and drank enormous amounts of tea. Our next stop was Uyuni, which was foretold to be much more cold than anywhere we had been so far. It was but as was also foretold, it was a movie set waiting for us to take the places God had for us.