Intertwined
by Paul Davis
At some point in a thirty-six-hour journey involving four airplane flights,
a Bolivian immigration counter whose staff was remarkably gentle given the
indignities many Bolivians face when seeking visas to the United States, an
altitude-sick layover at a La Paz airport (13,325 feet above sea level), an
Andes-skimming takeoff, and a ride through Cochabamba traffic in an elderly Datsun that had racked up 268,000 kilometers before the odometer quit
working—probably when the steering wheel was removed from the dashboard’s right
side, leaving a gaping hole, and jammed into the left—a person who does not love
fresh-baked bread might have asked himself if it was worth it.
I am not that person.
The bread in question is baked by young women in Sacaba, near Cochabamba.
They attend university or work at other jobs during the day, but between 4:00
and 6:00 a.m. they are bakers. At 6:00 they open the doors and sell bread to
their neighbors: five rolls for two bolivianos—about a nickel apiece. The
bakery’s competition sells four rolls for two bolivianos.
Feny, one of the young women, is twenty-six and studying for a degree in
economics. She says that when she was growing up her parents had to work in the
fields in the Chapare (the Bolivian tropics). She and her four siblings could
not live with them. They had so little money that it was all they could do to
scrape together two bolivianos, so they often had to split four rolls among the
five of them.
Agripina is married and has two small children. The partners elected her as
the bakery’s first president. She says the bread they used to buy at the market
sometimes contained pieces of metal and insects. The partners are determined to
bake wholesome, delicious, affordable bread.
At 6:00 a.m. the “Hay Pan” (“There is bread”) sign goes up at the home of
World Church minister Simon Copa and his family, where the bakery is housed in
two tiny rooms. Women then send children down from the surrounding hills for the
bread.
 The
partners still are learning to bake.
Sacaba’s altitude is more than 8,000 feet, and early on the bread did not
rise properly. The neighbors were encouraging: “This bread tastes good, but it’s
a little flat. Have you tried _____?” They kept buying, so the partners cobbled
together a propane-heated proofing booth and brought in a baker for lessons. Now
the bread is as good as can be bought anywhere.
The Sacaba women are Community of Christ members. Their journey to feeding
their neighbors intertwines with their journey of discipleship. The church in
Bolivia has roots in the Copa household, and to see bread baked and broken at
their table is to witness the social gospel in full effect. Not incidentally,
the women upgraded their operation recently with a larger oven after they
received a grant from the Community of Christ World Hunger Fund. So far the
women have not taken any money for their work. They’re reinvesting all proceeds
in improving the operation.
Just down the street from the bakery sits a plot bought by the church. There,
they hope to build a house of worship. It would be foolish to romanticize the
poverty of the neighborhood, but worshiping outdoors in plastic chairs on a warm
January afternoon had its charms. The little kids came early and stayed late,
lining up neatly in their kid-sized seats. Neighbors, walking by, stopped to
share the cookies and orange soda after the service.
It was good to imagine the building to come, but it also was good to
recognize that a building need not come first.
I recently was back in my home congregation in Missouri. I
missed Sacaba, and at the same time I enjoyed the climate control, soft chairs,
an excellent preacher, and very good singing. I wondered if I have been gifted
with an untellable story: Is there any way members of the Sacaba and Wood’s
Chapel congregations can experience belonging to the same community, Community
of Christ?
Photographs lie. They take the home of twelve people, a dirt-floored hovel
lighted with a bare bulb, and make it look “cozy.” They make Missouri’s big
houses and smooth streets look like the Promised Land.
Stories lie. They take Feny—whose mother could not go to elementary school
and whose grandparents were slaves—and turn her university education into a
“stirring” tale. But the true story is that God made us to be intertwined. The
church life in the Midwestern United States depends on the social gospel being
lived fully in Bolivia, and the church life in Bolivia depends on good preaching
and good singing in Kansas City, as far-fetched as that seems.
The opening words of Doctrine and Covenants Section 163—“‘Community of
Christ,’ your name, given as a divine blessing, is your identity and
calling”—speak to us as members of one community. Section 162 speaks to us in
community, too: “Look to the needs of your own congregations, but look also
beyond your walls to the far-flung places where the church must go. Each
disciple needs a spiritual home. You are called to build that home and care for
it, but also to share equally in the outreaching ministries of the church.”
“Share Equally” does not work as a catchphrase if it means to take care of
yourself and then give money to some distant, unloved bureaucracy. “Share
Equally” does work when it moves us to share our concern, our joy, and
our resources with all of our community of Christ.
We are at our best when we are one—brothers and sisters, hermanos y
hermanas.
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