The first Friday of the month in Bolivia is a spiritually dark day. Traditionally on this day Pachamama, the Andean Mother Earth, receives sacrifices and petitions for the coming month. Our friends who are registered in local brothels are required to take part in these sacrifices of alcohol, small animal carcasses, or plastic objects representing the object of their petition. Often, they fear the consequences if they don't participate in these sacrifices. Christians far more aware of spiritual realities than me hate coming to El Alto, the epicenter of many of these sacrifices, during these times. They feel oppressed, heavy.
I went to the streets Tuesday after the sacrifices this month. It had been raining and hailing all day, appropriately, the first day of a rainy season that will last until March. For the farmers, this rain means life. But for our friends selling themselves in the street, it means a night of shivering and bracing against the freeze.
“Why are you crying, why are you sad?” asked one of my friends as I handed her hot chocolate.
“I'm not crying,” I answered, confused.
“Then why is it raining?” she giggled.
It's a common enough joke on rainy days here. The animistic worldview purports that all living beings are connected, that if your spirit is tied
strongly to the earth, the earth will
empathize with your deepest emotions,
and respond in kind. If I cry, the earth cries with me.
When our directors, Andy and Andrea Baker, first settled in El Alto, Andy took a prayer walk around the perimeter of the city. All day he circled the ramshackle adobe houses and prayed God's blessing over this dilapidated city. But surrounding the city were also shamans in fortune-telling booths, offering sacrifices on burning eucalyptus wood. In the general market there is a whole section simply known as the “Witch's Market,” and many Bolivians buy sacrifices each month in an attempt to win spirits' favor. Considering the unbelievably high rates of alcoholism and domestic abuse, El Alto does seem wrapped in spiritual darkness.
Last Tuesday in the rain, our hot chocolate nearly gone, we reached the door of a dear friend. Instead of simply accepting the proffered cup, she motioned us frantically into her room. As we sat gingerly on her bed, she unwrapped the scarf that covered her face. Instead of her usual wide smile, her face was bruised, cut up, and swollen.
“Last Friday, I left at one in the morning and got in a taxi,” she slurred through a split lip. “As soon as I got in, the driver sped off in the wrong direction. I screamed, and then felt hands grab my neck. His accomplice was hidden in the back seat and started strangling me. I hit him and scratched him, but he took a rock and smashed back of my head. I don't remember anything else until they pushed me out of the car. Somehow I got home, even though I could hardly see through the blood in my eyes. I couldn't get out of bed for two days.”
We carefully looked at her bruised arms and legs, the signs of a knife on her face and shoulder.
My coworker Heather was recently at a conference for ministries such as ours. In a panel discussion, someone asked, “How do you know when an issue is spiritual, or when it's caused by something else?”
“It's always spiritual,” an eminent psychologist and seminary president answered. “It may also be psychological, or physical, or disease-related, or poverty-related. But it's ALWAYS spiritual.” Now, I don't claim to know a lot about what most call spiritual warfare. All I know is that my friend was beaten up on Friday, the day false spirits were invited onto this exact street, and into this brothel.
As I left our beat-up friend's room another women came up to me. “Why are you crying?” she asked. “Why did you make it rain?”
I didn't tell her what I was thinking. That maybe, just maybe, the God who made and holds the earth, who detests violence and desires our freedom from all spiritual oppression, maybe He was crying along with me for his dear broken daughter.
Please pray for El Alto, our friends, and us.
Cara Strauss