JULY 2007 NEWSLETTER

LUCHO & LORNA VéLEZ
TRINIDAD-BENI, BOLIVIA

Our dear friends, prayer supporters and sponsors,

We thank our Living God for the vibrancy and transforming dynamics of La Palmera Ministries under the leadership of our young mentorées. What an indescribable joy it is, to sit back and to observe how the "norms and routines" emerging from our community development concept and the constant dialogue with our Christian friends -willing to be seriously engaged in changing for good our community- are continually producing much fruit as the days go by.
Palmera's Team of laborers with great commitment, dedication and creativity has been achieving the works of the kingdom and has been sharing the good news of our Lord Jesus.

Let me share with you a few samples of these fruits "harvested" just in the last weeks.

TWENTY LA PALMERA'S SECONDARY STUDENTS TRUSTED THE LORD!
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The 22nd Youth Camp was held at La Palmera's Chaco on July 9-13. A team of 200 campers between staff, counselors, speakers and students were together around the theme "BUILDING CHRISTIAN CHARACTER". We had a different subject during three full days: LOYALTY, INTEGRITY & KINDNESS. It was my privilege to be the camp’s main speaker. There were three more speakers from local evangelical churches in town and a special guest from YWAM-Colombia who took care of all group dynamics.
Although the weather was terribly cold -we experienced the coldest nights ever in the last 90 years in the southern hemisphere!- the human atmosphere was delightfully warm with activities planned since 6:00am 'till midnight.
XXII Winter Youth Camp 2007 at La Palmera Chaco in MirafloresThe daily routine started with body exercises, devotionals and breakfast. The morning included camp cleaning, main conference, workshops and lunch. In the afternoon, campers had character building games, group competitions & time for themselves and personal care, then dinner. The evening was mainly around the theme of the day with lots of Christian music, a Gospel message and dramas. Finally, there were every sort of games and a bonfire before going to sleep by midnight.
At the end of the last gospel meeting when the speaker invited the campers to open their hearts to Jesus, the only source of power to build up a truly positive human & Christian character with sins forgiven, saved for eternity and secured in Christ, TWENTY CAMPERS STOOD UP TO TESTIFY OF THEIR DECISION TO FOLLOW THE LORD!

LA PALMERA DENTAL DOCTORS BECAME ENGAGED!

On Saturday 07, Tony Cullen (NI) and Irma Salvatierra (BO) invited us to a private family dinner to announce their engagement to be married on Dec. 30th 2007 at La Palmera Evangelical Christian Community Church.
Tony Cullen & Irma SalvatierraThe news was joyfully welcomed by relatives, friends and all believers at La Palmera. Tony has been a Short Term Worker of outstanding Christian character who has won the hearts of Bolivians with his gentle manners, humble spirit, and unconditional involvement with the holistic ethos of La Palmera Ministries and his high quality expertise as a Dentist. Irma has grown up as a sponsored child in La Palmera missionary project since the age of 4. She graduated as a Dentist at The Bolivian Christian University and, as she expressed herself, it was her most cherished dream to serve the Lord as member of La Palmera Team. Again, this was a unique opportunity for all of us to witness God's amazing ways in people's life history and especially in the history of La Palmera Ministries.
Tony & Irma along with Ruben Coplot -another former La Palmera sponsored child- are currently the directors of La Palmera Health Centre.

THE CALIFORNIA TEAM –TCT- IS HERE AT LA PALMERA CCC.

From the Mojave Desert, the town of Hesperia, Pastor David Ley and 14 team members, most of them young students, they have arrived to La Palmera to join the team counselors for La Palmera Children Camp from July 16-20 2007. This is The California Team's second visit to La Palmera. Pastor David's vision is to encourage Iain & Nicole in their process of maturity for Christian service while supporting the holistic ethos of La Palmera Ministries.
The California Team was warmly welcomed on Sunday Morning Family Service by La Palmera community and on Sunday evening at the Breaking of Bread Meeting, each one of its members was personally introduced to the believers especially to those with whom they will be closely interacting during their stay with us.
CT plans amongst us include home visitation to church families and village evangelism to those places where we have been invited to return after the solidarity operations of La Palmera Relief Project at the beginning of the year.

LA PALMERA STUDENT'S FOOT MIRACULOUSLY SPARED!

Four weeks ago, "Bebicha" -a La Palmera School Secondary 2 student- had a really bad car accident while riding on the back of a motorcycle with a school friend. She was rushed to the hospital where the medical doctors diagnosed a serious injury on her right foot with the main tendon totally severed.
Without any delays, the doctor in duty took her to the emergency room and started to perform a surgery to stitch the two ends of the broken tendon and to restore the damaged muscles and skin of Bebicha's foot. After a couple of hours of unbearable tension and prayers amongst the family members - all the them members of La Palmera church- Bebicha was in one of the hospital recovery room.
in Trinidad, this kind of cases generates very traumatic experiences to most people: doctors are not available to attend cases on time, medical costs are exorbitantly expensive, hospital staff lacks compassion and kindness with those one in despair. But in Bebicha's case, it was totally the opposite! The doctor was prompt, the nurses were very helpful, attention was extra kind and all Bebicha's school friends were welcome to visit her at any time during her recovery. Outsiders were quite amazed observing this unique social attitude at the hospital. Well, this was a perfect opportunity to share with our neighbors about the difference made by Christians in our community as the doctor who looked after Bebicha, was a man who grew up in La Palmera, the head nurse at the hospital was a La Palmera School parent and the administrative director was a believer from La Palmera church all of whom happened to be there at the same time when Bebicha had the accident!
This is how God works miracles in our community and how, thru the years, La Palmera Ministries has caused a deep impact in many people's lives thru the testimony of his beneficiaries who today are serving others with Christian kindness.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

On July 14th, we celebrated Lorna´s birthday while she was happily serving dinner at our house dining room to her 25 guest staying at La Palmera CCC as part of the team of people visiting us for our Winter Season 2007.
Lorna's vitality does not decrease with the years and her standards of hospitality excel even more as visitors, short term volunteers and resident missionaries drop by our house feeling totally embraced by Lorna's heart.
Lorna is the longest serving British missionary in Bolivia. We praise the Lord for her outstanding good health, energy and assertiveness while continuing to be engaged as an active member of La Palmera Team, what we native local Christians and visiting missiologists consider to be one of the most contemporary & creative Christian Brethren Ministries in Latin America.

Well, my dear friends, this is what I have to share with you for the moment. Thank you for your support to our ministry and for your prayers on our behalf. We hope you are encouraged by reading these few stories reflecting just a speck of the grand picture of La Palmera Ministries in our community and the small significance of our personal role as missionaries in all that the Lord is doing thru his people in Trinidad-Beni, Bolivia

We convey to all churches and friends who have sent us money for our ministry budget and for our personal needs, our most sincere thanks once again for their generous gifts transfered to us via Interlink-Scotland, Echoes-England, CMML-USA, MSC-Canada and BCP. We do really appreciate this further token of your fellowship with us.

Blessings
Lucho & Lorna

June 2007: A missionary report

The winter season has been officially welcomed in Bolivia on June 21st along with the AYMARA NEW YEAR. Also, the Bolivian Government's TV station has launched a new advert celebrating the changes in attitude amongst a growing number of political leaders who have been engaged in a divisive opposition to most national initiatives promoted by our democratically elect first ever "non-caucasian" President who in his 18 months of ruling has definitively made an unquestionable difference in the conditions of life of the great majority of the country - the poor and the native highlander & lowlander- by increasing salaries, stabilizing the national economy, promoting better social welfare systems and promoting political reforms to give to Bolivia a New Constitution with the participation of all national social institutions for the first time ever in its history.


We have travelled all over the country to minister the Word -to Quechua assemblies in SantaCruz, young people's camp in Chuquisaca, Christian leaders in Cochabamba, teachers in La Paz and to Rurre, La Palmera's outreach work in the west region of Beni- and we have found total freedom to travel, to gather & to preach, plenty of food everywhere, new paved roads connecting the main cities an many secondary towns and thousands of signs of new community projects of every sort financed by the government: new market places, potable water systems, school, sports units, clinics, agricultural projects, nurseries and women centres, small business enterprises, indigenous collective factories, educational training centres, etc. etc. all as a result of an increase of more than 300% of all the country's municipalities' budget due to the new distribution of the profits of the revenues from Bolivia's oil & natural gas resources. Of course, we also have faced the exceptional blockade and "cold war style" political propaganda of the former ruling elites which is part of the dynamics of our continually maturing exercise of genuine democracy that still grant to its citizens in the whole country of Bolivia absolute freedom of gathering, speech and beliefs.

On Saturday, June 24th, La Palmera CCC held at its community pavilion a youth event called "Christian Songs, Dances, Dramas and Choreographies" with the participation of 6 of the largest evangelical churches in Trinidad and an attendance of more than 500 young people. This event was organized by the local "King's Kids Ministry" -most of them students from La Palmera School & church- and it was the most amazing display of spirituality, energy, artistic creativity, old Bible songs with new rhythms, new modern songs with Bible words, enthusiasm and Christian unity I have seen so far in all the years we have been in this town.

When the event reached its climax and the group of young people leading the crowds' singing made a call to be real in our demonstration of unity in the Spirit, everybody lifted their arms holding hands with their neighbours proclaiming the name of the Lord Jesus and vowing to let His Name be known to all their peers in town.

I, Lucho, - maybe the oldest guy in the whole audience- could not help but to let my heart be filled with joy as I witnessed such an electrifying spiritual atmosphere: The Spirit of God powerful presence was indescribable real amongst all of us especially confirming the faith of our town's christian youth! But the most impacting experience I had at the end of the event was to discover that the "brains" behind this youth celebration were two young men in their late teens from La Palmera community and whom I have hold in my arms since they were just little children... then I saw them both to stay alone at the end of the event to pick up all the chairs and the rubbish left in the pavilion in order to leave the place ready for Sunday morning. And I walked back home with my face full of tears of joy and my heart full of new illustrations for my message that Sunday morning at the Family Service to the families of our neighbourhs sharing the Gospel demonstrated by their own Christian children potential and comitment to serve the Lord in their own generation.

Please pray for Bolivia, God is doing amazing things in this country to build up His People and bring peace and justice to its citizens in the most wonderful manner than many pessimistic people may appreciate & think. And pray for La Palmera CCC as it engines many of these things in our own community environment.

Other news:

Carlos Hugo, our commended full time worker, has travelled to Germany where he was invited to represent Bolivia in the Fourth International Brethren Conference on Missions at Wiedenest Bible School on the last week of June. He is the first "Brethren Assemblies" national believer to achieve a Bachelor's Degree "Cum Laudem" in Theology in a certified university in Bolivia. He and his wife Erika serve the Lord full time at La Palmera. Both were brought up in our former Children's Project since the age of 6. They have two little daughters Carla '5 and Belén '3.

La Palmera Relief Project amongst victims of this year flooding in the Beni Region has now finalized with distribution of food amongst 250 families of the "Canichana Ethnic" in the ancient town of "San Pedro" 150 Kms north of Trinidad. This project has now opened the doors of 6 villages with almost 1000 families for further evangelistic programmes by invitation of their own local authorities who have expressed their desire to have our visit once again after receiving help without any kind of conditioning requirements or manipulation of their will. In this manner, we made a big difference with other agencies and political parties who offered help to many victims along with a big display of their own propaganda geared to win the victims adherence to their particular causes.

The Bolivian Community Project -Field- Short Term Volunteers Programme is currently hosting Jimmy Bollinger USA in the area of Computers and Communications, Stephen Sewell SCO in the Sports Ministry and Larry Fellmet USA in Campsite Building Development. Jimmy and Stephen are also engaged in Bible Ministry with young people and Larry is working in his Spanish with the aim to acquire more fluency in the language although he willingly volunteers to preach the Word with translation.

BCP Resident Missionary MaryLynn Powers continuous to amaze me with her endless chain of ideas and display of energy in her roles as Secondary School Director, PSJ La Palmera CFC President and loving hostess of our young students from this year Graduation Class and previous years ones as well.

Some news about our family:

Lorna is currently visiting our two sons, their wives and our grandchild in USA. She is returning soon along with our son Iain & Nicole who are leading a group of Christians from the Mojave Dessert in California visiting La Palmera to participate in our 22nd Winter Christian Camp for Primary School Students in the month of July. I, Lucho, continue to reap the fruit of nearly 3 decades of Christian endeavours and to enjoy my daily routine as Bible teacher, Mentor and Consultant from 7:00am to 9:00pm 24/7 with a good religious 2 hours siesta at noontime as part a therapy of stress control to deal with my psoriasis!

Nevertheless, my psoriasis is bad again but my doctor told me that I must understand that it is not a problem as terrible as having a heart condition, blood pressure, ulcers, migraine, arthritis, etc. etc. but believe me, it is still annoyingly itching and embarrassing when I have to scratch anyway!

Again, we express our gratitude to all friends, donors and sponsors generously and free-willingly supporting our missionary endeavours.

"Prayer and meditation

have an important part to play in opening up new ways and new horizons.

If your prayer is the expression of a deep and grace inspired desire for newness of life

—and not the mere blind attachment to what has always been familiar and "safe"—

God will act in us and through us to renew the Church

by preparing, in prayer, what we cannot yet imagine or understand.

In this way our prayer and faith today will be oriented toward the future

which we ourselves may never see fully realized on earth."

- Thomas Merton -

PSJ LA PALMERA CHRISTIAN FOOTBALL CLUB WINNING ROW

Last night (Fri. 22-06-07), I went to the town's stadium to watch our soccer team's game against one of the oldest & most popular teams in town: "FIRST-OF-MAY SPORTING CLUB". It was a crucial game because both teams had same amount of points but ours had higher goals average.

The crowd in the stadium was larger than usual. Our team had a least 20 supporters amongst church members, school parents and students. As usual, we were the best behaved crowd in the stadium's tribune and our presence deterred the inevitable "hooligans" and attracted families with children looking for a comfortable sit where to watch the game peacefully.

The opponents had a brass band and a well organized group of 100 cheerers -soldiers from a local army barracks- and tons of fireworks. Our team was continually encouraged by the most enchanting shouting of three wee girls from La Palmera Primary School that made the whole crowd laugh and clap the whole game with their cheers.

My delight was to enjoy the whole atmosphere while sitting in the last row of chairs of the tribune looking like a real "Cheshire cat" -Lorna's sayings when I am happy-.

The action on the pitch was thrilling. PSJ La Palmera scored the first goal of the night in the first 10 minutes. Our celebrations was angelic! Then, 30 minutes later the other team draw the game. Their supporters' noise was "earthquakedly".

At the very beginning of the second half, the referee gave a red card to one of our players. And we all expected the worst: a plot against us once again! But then I observed our coaches, Rufino and Stephen, discussing the actions on the pitch, pointing their fingers at players in different directions, making a couple of changes and producing the final result: two more goals for PSJ La Palmera. We won the game 3 to 1. The four victory in a row in the league.

We felt genuinely sorry for our opponents, their band bursting their trumpets thru the whole local repertoire achieving nothing and the unceasing explosion of fireworks dying in front of the stadium scoring board with a lost game. We could not help but to sympathize with the loosers and wish them the best for the next time! As for us, we are now first in the league with one more game to go.

But let me confess a sin: while leaving the stadium, I was approached by some of local league directors who asked me questions about our team's "foreign coach" and it was a great opportunity for me to sit down with them and talk about our coach & short term volunteer Stephen Sewell, his testimony, his service and his admirable commitment to support our national coach in a Christlike manner: becoming like one of us, bearing our weaknesses, empowering our potential and celebrating being one with us in spite of our differences. AND THIS WAS MY SIN: MY UNCONCEALED BOASTFULL PRIDE ON RUFINO AND STEPHEN'S PERFORMANCE ON THE PITCH AS A COACH AND AS A MEMBERS OF OUR CHRISTIAN WORKERS TEAM! **

Nevertheless, this was also another opportunity for me to share what I call "the Gospel in community terms" to people who observes our community actions and expresses desire to be like us and seek to enjoy the same vital relationship with the Lord by living lives and doing things in harmony with Him.

My prayer (prayer request) for Stephen is that he will continue to grow with a healthy spirit of collectivity, an enthusiastic attitude in his trusted tasks, a clear vision to empower others and a genuine servant's heart... for the sake of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus!

** (Rufino Montenegro Trucco '38 -Bolivian- is the founder, coach & main strategist of La Palmera CCC Sports Ministries since 1986. Currently, one of his former players: Limber Mendes, plays with Bolivia's National Team in "The America Cup 2007" in Venezuela. Rufino has been a regular member of La Palmera Christian Community Church since the age of 12. Stephen Sewell '22 -Scottish- is a Sports Student at University in Edinburgh who commited his life to Jesus Christ 3 years ago while visiting La Palmera CCC and he now volunteers to work with children and young people as a football coach and leads Bible Devotional times with young athletes in La Palmera community. Stephen meets with christians at Maddiston Evangelical Church in Central Scotland.)