Two Girls in the Amazon

There is a documentary series that you may or may not have heard of called The Most Dangerous Ways to School. All around the world families and kids seek out basic education as a crucial key to a better future. Children who can attend school have the hope of pursuing better careers than the generations before them. Even the most basic of education is hugely impactful on kids lives all over the world. Unlike in the States, however, it’s not always as simple as walking down to the curb and waiting for the bus. There are many who have to travel long distances every morning (in various dangerous conditions) just to get to school.

 

The documentary mentioned above chronicles such journeys, one of which, takes place here in Bolivia. It tells the stories of two different families, who attend the same school in Puente Armas. Two boys from one family have to cross a gorge on a long handmade zipline (of questionable security) every morning on the way to school and every afternoon on the way back. The other family is a single mother and her two girls. The girls have to hike through the jungle for several hours every morning to get to school (and once again on the way back).

 

There was a man in Texas who watched this documentary and was moved to action. He felt particularly strongly for the two sisters, Helen and Mariella, whose toes were sticking out of shoes that had ripped from the grueling daily trek. He raised money to get the girls new shoes, school supplies, food, and other things they and their mother might need.

 

Once the money was raised, he needed to find someone who could deliver the donation to these girls in the Amazon Jungle. You may have guessed, that the people he ended up connecting with are our hosts this month (Medfund/Cup of Cold Water Ministries).

 

When my team and I first sat down to watch the documentary it was with the objective of looking for clues and landmarks to help us find the family. The idea was that we would hike to their house with only the images and information given in the documentary.

As we were watching, someone aptly pointed out that we could just go to the school and meet the girls there. (Duh, why didn’t we think of that before?)

 

Cool. So that’s the plan. Puente Armas happens to be between La Paz and Caranavi, the town we would be  going to to help with an orphanage for a few days, so we decide to go find the girls on the way there (or on the way back if we missed them).

 

Though the idea to go straight to the school (instead of hiking somewhat aimlessly through the jungle) simplified the plan significantly, we still had quite a time of it getting there. We got up early on Friday morning to see if we could catch them, but by the time we reached our first stop in Coroico, a town that emerges from the side of a mountain in the jungle as though conjured by a wizard, the window to catch the girls before they left school was a little too tight to be feasible. We couldn’t try and catch them the next day either since there is no school on Saturday. After reconsidering the map we realized that the school was closer to the orphanage than we had originally thought, so we decided to make a short day trip of it during our time in Caranavi (that way we would have the wiggle room to try again the next day if we missed them for some reason).

 

As we drove on to Caranavi we looked for landmarks and asked our driver if he had heard of the school. We saw a familiar waterfall and Christine pinned the location in her phone.

 

On Monday morning, during our time at the orphanage, we set out to find the school.  We picked up shoes and combs and candies and found a taxi driver willing to take us to the “Hamlet” (according to Maps.me) of Puente Armas.

 

It was very surreal seeing the blue roof of the school’s ball court come into view after the terrifying switchbacks that led down off the road and into the valley. We recognized all the buildings from the documentary. This was the place.

 

We got out of the van and asked a confused school teacher if Helen and Mariella were there. They weren’t. The teacher informed us that Helen and Mariella hadn’t been attending that school all year. I tried to pick up details with my limited Spanish and by what those on the team with better Spanish later filled us in on. It turns out that the girls live somewhere near the border of Peru now, perhaps with their father.

 

The teacher got our host’s number with the hope of connecting us to the girls’ mother and also let us pass out candy to all the kids there. We got to meet the brothers from the documentary- Elmer with his broken finger, and his little brother. The teachers said that they were so glad we had come. The school is in such a remote area that it often gets forgotten about. They try to teach the children about Geography and what America is like, but as I can attest from my own elementary school years trying to learn Geography, it’s very hard to do when it’s still an abstract concept-  when you have no frame of reference and nothing to hook it to.

 

Something I find myself continually returning to this year, is the concept that God is never doing just one thing. God is never doing just one million things. We talk about seeking out the one, and that is true and so important, but in every situation God is doing more things than we can possibly imagine.

 

What could seem to us as a failed mission to find a pair of sisters in the jungle and give them new shoes, could turn into a partnership and ministry for people to come and pour into this forgotten school in the middle of the jungle. Our God is a God who remembers the forgotten. He is a God who seeks people out to show them his love.

 

Sometimes he uses a man in Texas, and a team of world racers, and a couple pairs of shoes.

 

Here is a picture of us with the kids. It’s a chronic case of too many cell phones because all the teachers were eager to photograph us with the kids. Elmer is all the way to the right, right next to the two boys in red. We are not quite sure which is his brother, maybe one of the kids closer to me. The tall guy in the middle is Patrick, one of our primary contacts here, who has been working with Medfund and Cup of Cold Water for several years (in three month increments, as his visa allows).

 

I have faith that our hosts will still be able to get in touch with Helen and Mariella’s mother. Perhaps the money raised will enable her to visit her daughters. I hope and pray that the fact that we weren’t able to find the girls means that they are in a better situation and are being well cared for (it crossed my mind that the documentary might have had something to do with that, but who can say for sure).

 

Please pray for these girls and for the kids at the school, that the Lord would continue to pursue and provide for them, and that He would bless future trips to visit the school and love on these students.

 

I am writing to you now from La Paz, where we have been back for a couple days to rest, recharge, do laundry, get some good showers in, and all that jazz. Tomorrow morning (at 5:30 AM) we will be back on the road to spend a week or so with the community in Apollo. On the way we will be spending two days with the families and loved ones of the Med Fund volunteers who died in a tragic bus accident back in August. There will be a memorial service at the site of the accident. The mother of one of the deceased stayed in our house here in La Paz last night. Her daughter was a doctor. Today would have been her twenty sixth birthday.

 

Please be in prayer for these families and the service. Pray that my team and I would be able to be a comforting and encouraging presence for these people who are in a time of unspeakable grief. Pray as always for safety on the roads and for the Lord’s presence to go with us behind and before.

 

Sending Love,

-Hattie

 

P.s. here is the link to the documentary if you want to watch it. It’s a little cheezy and over-dramaticized, but you can see the kids and what their lives look like.

I also need to give the caveat that the road the teacher takes to get to school is actually the older road that hasn’t been used for cars since about 2006. These are not the roads that we are traveling on. They probably requested to film with that road to increase the dramatic effect.

Here’s the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGRnd8WlcIU  enjoy!

Also Christine made a video of our journey which you can find here

(UPDATE):

This blog has a part 2 which you can read here

Also if you are interested in donating you can follow the contact link here

The Kittelson’s were our hosts when we were in Bolivia and while I don’t know if they have any recent updates (writing this update in 2023), contacting Andrew will be your best bet for any support you want to offer.

Thank you all for your comments!