Northview teens give their hearts to Bolivia
Marcia S • June 19, 2015
LaPaz, Bolivia - For the third year in a row, a group of volunteers from the Northview Church, in Roswell, GA, served with the HOPE worldwide Bolivia team for nine days. The group, comprised of eight teens and four adults, poured themselves out and gave selflessly to work with the poor. Here is what a couple of the volunteers shared.
"The desperate level of poverty for many people of La Paz is heartbreaking. Even so, I have faith that God is taking care of the people in La Paz through the many volunteers that come to serve and help. I'm grateful that God works through us to reach the people that are in most need." - Melina Cole
“Volunteering in Bolivia with HOPE worldwide helped me finally understand what Matthew 25:40 says...“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” I always took this scripture at face value. It wasn’t until I looked at the little ecstatic faces around me in Bolivia that I realized on a deeper level what this scripture meant. When I saw a child's face brighten after receiving a blue smiley face sticker, I was filled with joy and love because it felt like I received that sticker.
That is how Jesus feels when we serve the poor and those in need. He becomes overjoyed when he sees us serving others because what we do for the least of these brothers and sisters, we do for him." - Matilde Jade Rogers
The HOPE worldwide Bolivia team is incredibly grateful for the volunteers who serve with us. The work we are doing to help the most vulnerable population in La Paz is made possible because of your love and support!
More from the International Church of Christ
Imagine you are at a neighborhood barbecue. Your new neighbor arrives late, dressed casually, and barely speaks. Someone whispers, “She thinks she’s too good for us.” You feel the quick sting of that snap judgment. Later, you learn she just lost her husband and is quietly grieving. In that moment, you sense the discomfort of judging wrongly, a rush to conclusions that harms relationships and reveals more about our own hearts than the other person. Yet, the same evening, when another guest makes a racist joke, you feel an inner nudge to speak up. Is that also “judging”? This everyday tension captures what Jesus presents in Scripture: a divine balance between grace-filled restraint and righteous discernment. The two commands in tension “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” – Matthew 7: “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” – John 7:24 At first glance, these seem contradictory. Don’t judge. Judge correctly. Which is it? Matthew 7 warns against a critical, hypocritical spirit that condemns others while ignoring our own faults. The context continues: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2). Jesus then uses the vivid image of someone with a plank in their own eye trying to remove a speck from another’s. Notice the aim: “then you will see clearly to remove the speck.” Self-examination is not a reason to stay silent. It is how we become safe enough to speak (Matthew 7:3-5). John 7, however, shows Jesus defending his healing on the Sabbath. He challenges the religious leaders: stop superficial, appearance-based judgments and instead apply right, truthful judgment aligned with God’s character and Word. This is not a contradiction but a divine tension, two truths that must be held together. We are called to humility and self-examination (do not judge harshly or hypocritically), while also exercising discernment and moral clarity (judge correctly, according to truth). Christianity rejects both naive permissiveness (“anything goes, no one can say anything”) and harsh legalism (constant condemnation without grace).
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about next year’s trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro.
The physics of the pendulum Picture an old grandfather clock in a quiet hallway. Its long brass pendulum swings steadily: tick, tock, tick, tock. Now give that pendulum a hard shove to the right. It does not simply glide back to the center and stop. It races right past the middle and sways just as far to the left. Left to its own momentum, a pendulum never rests at either extreme; it finds peace only when it hangs still at the center, held by gravity and its fixed point. The church behaves in much the same way. Push her too far toward one side of a truth and she does not gently settle into balance, she swings. Often for a whole generation toward the opposite error, and then back again, wounding people at both ends of the arc. And here is the crucial thing the clock teaches us: the pendulum comes to rest not by being frozen in place, but by being held. Balance is not the absence of force; it is the fixed point that keeps opposing pulls in tension so that the weight can finally hang still.