aymara

Come to the Table: Patience

Editor’s note: Missioner Maggie Van Roekel continues a three-part blog series on how kitchens and cooking have become important to her on mission. In part two, Maggie shares a time she learned patience in the UAC campus kitchen in Carmen Pampa, Bolivia. Another kitchen that has made an impact on my experience on mission was the…

Faith Calls Us to be Neighbors: Aymara Hospitality

Editor’s note: As a part of FMS’ 2017 Advent blog series, returned missioner Lee Lechtenberg shares an experience of hospitality while adventuring the Inca trail with fellow missioners in Bolivia. Our journey began in the falling snow at the top of a mountain, trying to find the beginning of the Inca trail that would take…

Embrace language on International Mother Language Day

Editor’s Note: The following post is written by Nate Mortenson. Viviana (mentioned in the post) is fourth on the right in the featured image. I want to share a story from a former teacher of mine at the Merryknoll Language Institute in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Her name is Viviana and she was born and raised in…

Praise for Brother Sun – Happy Aymara New Year!

Thousands of Bolivians gathered this morning on Inka Rakay, a mountain sacred to the Aymara people, to greet the sun rise that marks the winter solstice and their new year. Pilgrims wave the Andean flag, called a wiphala, at the sunrise to greet the new year. Because June 21 is the shortest day of the…

“To be consoled as to console” – Leonel and his father

The students of the rural Unidad Académica Campesina – Carmen Pampa overcome many obstacles to receive a college education in Bolivia. The indigenous Quechua and Aymara peoples have little access to health care or education and survive by farming small plots. Students often juggle the stresses of school with those of helping their family. Our missioner…