August 2006

Dear Friends of Joining Hands,

It is an invaluable boost for us to know you have joined hands with us, that you pray for us and support us as we work to create a more just and life-giving world here in Bolivia.

As the Bolivian members of the Joining Hands network, UMAVIDA, take a deeper look at how they can further be supported, in practical ways, by our partners in the North, I would like to share with you my reflections as your companionship facilitator.

In the 17 months that have passed since I arrived in Bolivia, I have experienced a revelation which is nothing unique except on the personal level: The good news Bolivia is celebrating, legislating, constituting, debating is the same good news that we followers of Jesus' teachings celebrate. I say this because the current administration of the Bolivian government has taken significant steps to give good news to the poor.

So the question is: How do those of us living in the Pax Americana, who are part of the most wealthy 2 percent of the entire world—if we own a car—step down and join the dusty, rowdy crowd of the poor and their advocates? It is not easy. Some of these dancing in the streets are still desperately hungry, grieving for absent family members who left home to find employment for survival, or died from preventable, water-borne diseases. One in every ten Bolivian children dies before the age of five, the primary cause being bad drinking water. Some feel enslaved by powers beyond their control, beyond their borders. Some are angry, diseased, tired, and very, very poor. To move among such a crowd, to become so vulnerable, so helpless seems challenging. It calls upon our faith in God.

And we are already feeling so vulnerable and threatened. The largest national budget item in the United States: "defense."

Those in this huge crowd outside have only their own faith and each other to keep themselves alive. They cry out to the authorities that they need clean water, while currently profit-driven private corporations have been inadequately managing water systems. The new government of Bolivia is responding, but the need for resources is gigantic.

People ask, "What can we do?"

Look to the mountains and you will see that the primary sources of fresh water, the aquifers and glaciers remnant of the last ice age, are rapidly disappearing. Most are now gone. We have learned that only another ice age could restore them. Global warming is resulting in record-breaking changes in climate, which many scientists believe could lead to a collapse of life on the planet.

Bolivians need us to respond on a big scale to help them by preventing the destruction of our Mother Earth. Many of the poor depend on what the earth itself offers them directly: drinking water, irrigation for vegetables and crops, fish, wildlife, grazing for animals. All this is disappearing! We can stop this destruction. We now have the means, the understanding, the technology.

All we need is the will, and as Al Gore points out in his latest book and in his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” that is a renewable resource. I am convinced it is God's desire that we join hands in this endeavor.

So, there it is: We can help Bolivians by working to reverse global warming, stabilize the consumption of water, clean the rivers, lakes, and oceans, and eliminate toxic contamination of the Mother upon whom all of us depend. Legislation enacted in Washington can impact Bolivia's future.

Here in Bolivia, the community of faith embodied in the UMAVIDA network is working urgently to show the way. There is tremendous resistance from the rich and powerful. But people in the network ask us to follow what they are doing and learn from them. Become inspired by their struggle, their humble successes: Bolivians have managed in the last seven months to reduce the salaries of the country's legislators and government functionaries and to raise the national minimum wage. Some corrupt officials have been removed from government, control of some natural resources has been removed from the hands of profiteering private interests, and a Constitutional Assembly has been convened to create a more just and equitable society.

Yet the greatest challenges remain and are rooted in realities and problems beyond Bolivia's borders.

As Christians, we believe the meek shall inherit the earth. Let us support both the meek and the earth, that there may be something left to inherit, and people left to inherit it!

Let us celebrate with these people.

In “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore points out that our country is responsible for contributing to more pollution that causes global warming than South America, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Japan and Asia put together. “Those with the most technology have the greatest moral obligation to use it wisely,” says Gore. “And this, too, is a political issue. Policy matters.”

Let us look at an example from Gore's book, an example of what we can do:

Japan has cars that are required by law to get more than 45 miles per gallon. Europe is not far behind and has passed new laws designed to surpass Japanese standards. Our friends in Canada and Australia are moving toward higher requirements of more than 30 miles per gallon.

Yet the United States is dead last.

We're told that we have to protect our automobile companies from competition in places like China where, it is said, their leaders don't care about the environment.

In fact, Chinese emissions standards have been raised and already far exceed our own. Ironically, we cannot sell cars made in America to China because we don't meet their environmental standards.

In California, the state legislature has taken the initiative to require higher standards for cars sold in California. But the auto companies are suing California to prevent this state law from taking effect—because it would mean that, 10 years from now, they would have to manufacture cars for California that are almost as efficient as China is making them today.

I believe that this is the most important thing we can do for Bolivia: work to stop global warming. This way, we can help assure that Bolivia's glaciers do not disappear, that living waters flow forever from the Royal Range of the Andes, and that fish and other wildlife return and thrive. We can help assure clean drinking water for all by promoting legislation proclaiming water as a basic and universal human right, for the enjoyment of our children's children to the seventh generation.

The poor and hungry of Bolivia have stopped believing that God wills them to be poor. Now there is dancing in the streets, as this wonderful truth becomes evident, as their new leadership enacts measures to promote prosperity and participatory governance for all Bolivians.

Surely Jesus celebrates with them.

Yes, the celebration is a desperate, terrible celebration. Life itself is at stake. And we are their hope.

Bob and Julie Dunsmore

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 46