...and in the mountains

EL ALTO, Bolivia — The Bolivian Bible Society’s program for distributing Study Bibles to schools has extended to El Alto, a rapidly growing city of 700,000 people high in the Andes. Here, Bible Society staff visited the Christian High School and the Franz Tamayo Adventist High School.

Emotions overtake high school student Hortencia Tapia, (right), as she shares with Christina Carrilla, Opportunity 21 Co-ordinator for the Bolivian Bible Society, how the Bible changed both her life and the life of her family. El Alto, Bolivia. Photo: UBS/Larry Jerden (BOL01DJ-112)

At the Christian High School, Hortencia Tapia, 18, told them that she had become bored with church, and only went because her mother asked her to go.

“My mother was going to church near our home, and she asked me to go,” Hortencia says. “I didn’t want to go because I didn’t have a Bible. So when the school gave me one I went. Now I want to join a Christian band.

“The Bible had an impact on me. Psalms and Proverbs affected me, but the Song of Solomon moves me the most. What had the strongest effect on me was when I read that a home was to be built on a rock - not on another kind of land.

“My family was having problems, but when I read in the Bible about building our life on God’s Word, I wanted to build my life on that and for my family to build our home on that. I want to be baptised and now my father is going to church.”

Hortencia says her Study Bible is also helping her at school, where there is a Bible reading every morning and the day’s classes begin with a devotional.

Tears

“I like the Study Bible because it is more understandable than what I had before,” she says. As she speaks, tears well up in her eyes and she brushes them away. “The other one I couldn’t understand. And the study helps are great.”

Like some others, Marisol Calderon, 16, a student at Franz Tamayo Adventist High School, was excited at first simply because she had her own Bible at last.

First Bible

“The Bible they gave me was the first one I had received in my life just for me,” she declares. “No-one gave me a Bible when I was baptised. My mother was a Christian, but not my father. My mother gave my brother a Bible, and promised me one when I was older. Actually, she had given me one, but I lost it.

“My brother loaned me an extra Bible, but it did not belong to me. Now I have my very own Bible! I’m keeping it very carefully because I don’t want anything to happen to it. I will keep this Bible as a treasure forever.” Her joy about her new Bible goes beyond just having her own ‘treasure’.

“My father had left the church, but two years ago he returned,” she explains. “I showed my new Bible to him, and he was very interested in it because it is a Study Bible. Now he is studying it! I’m very thankful because it has inspired my father. He has a strong desire to know more about God, and now he is finding the answers he was searching for.”

Alvaro Inturias Montaño, the Bible Society’s Director of Distribution, explains that the massive school distribution effort has been made possible by the co-operation of the schools, principals, teachers of religion and those who support Opportunity 21.

Permission

“We asked permission of the principals to get into the schools,” he says. “We told the students that we were from the Bolivian Bible Society and the UBS and that we were there to give Bibles to everyone.

A student at Franz Tamayo Adventist High School in El Alto proudly displays her new Study Bible, made possible by gifts from supporters of the UBS` Opportunity 21 expansion initiative. El Alto, Bolivia. Photo: UBS/ Larry Jerden (BOL01DJ-116)

“We also encouraged the students to read the Bible, and told them it would help them with their religion studies. We gave each student a Bible - one by one. In all, we gave out about 19,426 Bibles to students and 574 Bibles to school principals and religion teachers.”

In total, the Bible Society has visited 287 high schools in Bolivia. Sometimes, the response has been unexpected.

“The young people were so excited to receive them that, even though we said they were free, they were willing to help pay for them,” says Mr Inturias. Now the Bible Society is noticing that some of the schools are donating money to the effort, and others are buying Scriptures from the Bible Society.

“The schools have put the Bible on a list of school supplies,” he explains, “so parents will buy them along with other school books.”

In addition to providing the printed Scriptures, the Bible Society is also distributing Scripture cassettes with titles including Good News for Families and Good News for the Lonely.