Bolivia Mission Project

At the beginning of 1999 Living Waters began supporting a mission effort amongst the street kids in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  So far over $ 3,500.00 has been sent to Bolivia as a result of various fund-raising efforts, including the very successful Millennium Project, and the school continues to support the work there through daily prayer.

We recently received the following letter from Corina Clements, our missionary in Bolivia:

Dear everyone at Living Waters,

First of all, I want to thank you SO much for the encouragement and support you have been to me... You have never met me... or the street kids in Bolivia and yet you pray for me... and you work hard at different fundraisers to help us. Your Millennium Project sounds exciting. Good for you. It is exciting that as a school you are getting involved in missions in this way.

Let me tell you a bit about myself... I am 29 years old and I grew up right here in Bolivia. My parents were missionaries here, working with the Guarani Indians.  When I finished high school, I returned to Canada to attend Briercrest Bible College. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Intercultural Studies (Missions), I worked in a veterinary clinic in British Columbia for about 3 years, saving my money for a trip to Bolivia.

It was less than 2 weeks after arriving back in Bolivia in 1995 that God placed in my heart a love and a burden for the street kids and drug addicts... but that is another story all in itself. I returned to North America in 1997 to officially join Gospel Missionary Union and to raise my support. Within 6 months I was back to Bolivia and back to the street kids that I had grown to love.

Gospel Missionary Union is a conservative, interdenominational mission that had its beginning in 1892. They have a corporate accountability structure with external audits every two years GMU is a member of ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability), CCCC (Canadian Council of Christian Charities) and IFMA (International Foreign Mission Association).

GMU is a faith mission and each missionary depends on God to provide their financial support through individuals and churches. In my years in British Columbia, I helped out in Spanish congregations made up mainly of Central American immigrants. The mother church, Iglesia Bautista El Redentor (The Redeemer Baptist Church) has adopted me as one of their missionaries. I am blessed with a team of individuals and churches who pray for me and support this ministry so faithfully. I want to serve our Lord all of my life - whether that is here in Bolivia or following Him elsewhere. I pray that I would be sensitive and obedient to His leading in my day to day ministry as well as in future plans.

Originally I worked mainly on the streets, building the kids' trust and directing them to places where they could receive spiritual and physical help. As I followed up on them, I was burdened with the need to support these evangelical ministries as many struggle to provide even basic needs. My desire is to motivate the national church and individual Christians to move beyond the walls of the church, overlook distinctions in social class and share God's salvation, love and hope with those that society so often rejects. Only God can truly change their lives, but He uses people from all walks of life to complete His purposes. Lord willing, by February 2000, we will be opening "El Jordan", a drop in centre -- a nucleus that will facilitate this coordination. Just as God opened the way through the Jordan River for the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, we want to offer that same hope. We want to show the lost of our city that in spite of the past, when one decides to follow God, He offers a new beginning.

Several prayer requests are:

• There are SO many needs. Pray that God would give me wisdom and strength every day in sharing His plan with the street kids of Bolivia and that He will show me which opportunities to follow up.
• Pray that God would direct in the renovations and in all the details of opening "El Jordan". Pray that through the testimony of what God is going to do, that people "might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty..." Joshua 4:24
• We'd like to serve a Christmas meal to the people on the streets. (Last year we fed about 400 street people). Pray that we would not only share a meal but also share the real meaning of Christmas.
• "...the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth labourers into HIS harvest." Matthew 9:37,38

Thanks again for your interest in the lives of the children and young people on the streets in Santa Cruz.

Because HE is faithful, Corina Clements

Mailing Address: Cajon 3216, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
E-Mail: Corina Clements <corina@scbbs-bo.com>

This site is maintained by Gordon Poultney, a parent of the school.