2022--Cochabamba, Bolivia

In April of 2022, Dr. Emde traveled with the high school students of Greeneville Adventist Academy (GAA), one of our community's local K-12 Christian church schools, to serve those in need in the country of Bolivia.  They provided free vision care and glasses to several small communities around Cochabamba.  It Is Written (see Mongolia, Moldova, and Costa Rica trips below) helped to organize the trip.

Bolivia is in South America south of Peru and Brazil.  Cochabamba sits in a basin at 8,392 feet elevation surrounded by the Andes mountains.

Dr. Emde was able to help provide basic glasses and sunglasses to 791 people in 5 days of vision clinics.  What was unique about this trip was we saw over a hundred indiginous people who lived in the Andes mountains called Quechua who do not speak Spanish so I had to have two translators for each of these.  English to Spanish, Spanish to Quechua, then Quechua to Spanish back to English.  It was time consuming, but most of them could not read or write and the livelihood of the women was sewing.   When we were able to get them reading glasses, they not only could see again, but they were so thrilled because we gave them back the way they can make a living!

This was our largest group form GAA so far with 48 people going.  Over 25 students from GAA  went on the mission trip.  Students would rotate through helping in the vision clinics and helping build a local Seventh-day Adventist church in Cochabamba and providing some maintenance on others.  In the evenings, the students gave health talks, children's stories, and preached at the local churches.

Dr. Emde was happy he was able to go on this trip, not only to help those in need, but to help teach the students the joy of serving others, whether it is here in Greeneville, or abroad.