A difficult, stark reality of a situation in Bolivia: Ayoré girls, some as young as 12, spend many days bound by the shadows of prostitution and drug use. God called South America Mission over a half century ago to the Ayoré people. As we continue to go and respond, our message continues to be one of redemption and transformation in Jesus Christ. The stark reality of Jesus: He is able to make beauty from ashes, something
beautiful and pure out of violated innocence.

In response to these realities, the SAM ministry team in Bolivia held a camp for Ayoré girls in July, 2011. Hopeful for perhaps 30 girls to come, 70 in the end came over seven days to hear the message: “Dupade checae yoque”, i.e., God Transforms Us.

In partnership with Gather Network and Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, mid-year “mini” retreats will maintain contact and follow-up with the girls. And, after a hugely
effective inaugural major camp, it will become an annual event—planned next for July 2012. We need your partnership to keep reaching these Ayoré girls.

The hospital has very little in terms of supplies and equipment and no surgeons even though it is expected to serve the whole province of Itenez with over 20,000 people spread over an area of over 14,000 square miles of jungle and rivers. David came to us with a fast growing but supposedly benign (non-metastasic) tumor on his jaw. It had already eaten away a large section of his jawbone. He had already scraped together the money to travel to Cochabamba and see a surgeon, but the cost of nearly $4000 just for the plates and screws needed to repair his jaw was prohibitive. We had a bad feeling about the tumor even though he’d been told it was benign. We told him we would do everything in our power to raise the funds needed but that it would be a miracle if they were raised in less than a month. Less than one week later David had the money pledged and within 10 days he had the money! He has had surgery and pathology showed his tumor was malignant. However, the great thing is that the whole tumor was removed and there are no signs of metastasis.

When people come to us for abdominal or urological surgeries we take care of them within our team. However, if they involve complicated procedures pertaining to other specializations we have to look for help outside our circle. Unfortunately the least expensive yet trustworthy option we could find cost around $2500 per foot, assuming the surgeon would work for free. Since we did not have that kind of money and we already had two other people in need of more urgent surgery, we put Christian in third place on our surgery list and right at the top of our prayer list.

This past week we finally finished up with our other two patients, we were ready to take a deep breath and start looking for help for Christian. Before we could do much, we heard about a Spanish team doing free orthopedic surgery in a nearby hospital. When we checked it out, we were told it was too late for Christian to benefit from the program because the screening process was closed and 40 children had already been selected. However, by God’s grace and after numerous phone calls, favors called in, haggling and begging on the part of several members of our team, Christian was included in the list for surgery! He will have surgery on one foot tomorrow and on the other foot in six months.