MISSIONER NEWSLETTER – Spring 2025
Minh Nguyen, Bolivia
Left, Genoveva showing her aguayo, the traditional indigenous tapestry technique she has learned from her mother, passed down through generations. Center, Genoveva crocheting her first jacket, and right, on graduation day.
TACOPAYA, BOLIVIA—It is hard enough to raise a child, but when the child is mute and deaf, it literally takes the whole village to raise one, as in Tacopaya, the Andean rural highland of Bolivia. It is where I have lived and worked with the afterschool program for the Quechua Indigenous children for the last six years.
God has blessed us to see fruit of our labor. Her name is Genoveva Mendoza. She is 19 now, the oldest of six children, whose father passed away five years ago. She graduated from high school in 2024. Once a shy girl hiding behind the door every time we came to visit her family, she has grown up to become an amazingly confident and outgoing young adult.
God has done good work with Genoveva. He expresses his love for her through us. His work of inclusion involves many of us—from the people in the village to the school principal, her teachers, and classmates—as well as me who God calls to their remote land and gifts me with the desire and capacity to learn sign language to help them.
Minh shows Genoveva how to count and sort money and make change.
I am in awe watching God patiently conduct his orchestra in which we all miraculously play our part. Everyone deserves the right to education regardless of their differences, and seeing people with disabilities being discriminated and excluded in many societies is discouraging. It’s a miracle to see children in rural Tacopaya, like Genoveva, who are mute and deaf, enter the regular school system and be treated with love and support.
God manifests in this land and his simple people here, as elsewhere. Miracles happen so often in our daily lives—mindful or not of his presence. It is easier for me to experience the miracles in rural areas because cities are filled with overwhelming distractions.
Genoveva’s graduation was a feast in which God rejoiced with us all. Her mother, with the help from the villagers, prepared 15 sheep and countless chicken for her celebration. People in the village flocked into the house to congratulate her with blessings, dancing, eating, and drinking that lasted until the next day. I overjoyed watching Genoveva dance beautifully, wondering if she could feel the music beats. What a blessing for me to experience love in their community! God must smile watching us enjoying the fruit of his love.
And the work of love continues as we have a project for Genoveva this year to learn sewing, knitting, and baking. We hope to equip her with some useful skills that will help her to make a living for the future if she chooses, whether she stays in the village or moves away.
Thanks for your support of my mission. Your help makes our dreams of spreading God’s love possible! Please continue to work with us to help not only Genoveva but also her younger brother and the three siblings from another family who have the same disabilities, so they can have the future they deserve.
P.S. Our work in rural Tacopaya, Bolivia has evolved over many years with Genoveva and Octavio Mendoza, siblings who are both mute and deaf, from the time Juan Gómez and I started six years ago learning and teaching sign language to them and their classmates in 2019 until Genoveva’s graduation in 2024.
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We also invite you to walk with us as our “COMPANIONS IN MISSION.” Companions in Mission are friends and generous donors who give financial gifts on a regular (usually monthly) basis. For more information, visit Become a Companion in Mission. Thank you so much for your generosity!
Thank you, Minh, for sharing this God-filled story!
May God continue blessing Genoveva in her future endeavors.