Bolivian Friends To Celebrate 100 Years

Next year the Bolivian Yearly Meeting of Friends (INELA) will celebrate its 100^th birthday. A smallish coliseum has been rented and people are making plans to host visitors from around the world. We will gather on April 18-21, Easter weekend, to sing, pray, eat, and together proclaim, “See what God has done!”

In anticipation, Hal, I, and a team of Bolivian Quakers have been working together for six years to research and write the history of this yearly meeting that today spreads in some 200 congregations across the nation of Bolivia. The task has been formidable—gathering primary documents, interviewing a host of people, writing down the stories, and doing the work of historical interpretation in our cross-cultural community. (I got out of breath just writing that last sentence.)

We’re finally approaching the end of the project. The book in English (my part of the task) is written, and a potential publisher is considering the proposal. The Bolivian team members are on schedule to finish the book in Spanish and the documentary film before the actual celebration in La Paz.

In the next couple of months I will use this blog to tell parts of the story. I hope to whet appetites, stimulate curiosity, and encourage a sense of gratitude.

Hal was overall coordinator of the project, and Reynaldo Mamani headed the Bolivian team.

Humberto Gutierrez was in charge of the Spanish book, while I took on the writing of the book in English. Humberto's wife Petrona sits between us.

Felix Huarina, here with his wife Clementina, is in charge of the documentary film. The photo at the top of the article is the team with their family members at our Christmas party (2017).