‘Stepping Over’ Into Bolivia

[The Outcast]

Our new video today:

 ‘Stepping Over’ Into Bolivia

 

https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_periodical/64/jwb_E_201908_11_r240P.mp4

https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_periodical/e3/jwb_E_201908_11_r360P.mp4

https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_periodical/39/jwb_E_201908_11_r480P.mp4

https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_periodical/b0/jwb_E_201908_11_r720P.mp4

[The Outcast]

... and there will be a special campaign in Bolivia in 2020.

German Brothers and sisters are invited.

[Bek]

2 hours ago, The German said:

German Brothers and sisters are invited.

I wonder why.  There is quite a gap culturally and linguistically between Germany and Bolivia. It is like inviting Chinese brothers for a special campaign in Russia. 

[carlos]

8 minutes ago, Hun said:

I wonder why.  There is quite a gap culturally and linguistically between Germany and Bolivia. It is like inviting Chinese brothers for a special campaign in Russia. 

In Bolivia there are nearly 100,000 Mennonites (also known as Amish). Those communities speak a an old dialect of German, so German-speaking publishers are needed to visit them. 

Edited August 26, 2019 by carlos

[Meditate!]

8 minutes ago, Hun said:

I wonder why.  There is quite a gap culturally and linguistically between Germany and Bolivia. It is like inviting Chinese brothers for a special campaign in Russia. 

There is a lot of history with Germans living in Bolivia...

 

Just googled it.

[The Outcast]

10 minutes ago, Hun said:

I wonder why.  There is quite a gap culturally and linguistically between Germany and Bolivia. It is like inviting Chinese brothers for a special campaign in Russia. 

There are many Germans in Bolivia.
Often the families live there for a very long time and speak a very old German.
There are many menonites who speak Low German.
My brother's daughter is serving many years in Bolivia.

[jwhess]

Where Amish, Mennonite and Old Brethren faiths gather, they usually speak a basic German tongue (and their Bibles are in German).  We have all three types of faith in our territory.  Some speak Low German, Swiss-German or Pennsylvania German (called Pennsylvania Dutch here).

 

Our organization invited some Swiss Pioneers to come and spend part of a year here focusing on these cultures.  I carry some tracts for them, since we meet them in service and shopping many times a week.

[Bek]

It turns out that Bolivia has almost 100,000 brothers despite its small population of 17m! Only about 5 years ago there were about 80,000 brothers. I wonder why the figure is growing so quickly there. Is there some kind of crisis? 

 

As for the Bolivian Germans, there are about 350,000 of them according to Wikipedia. Of these, about 100,000 are Mennonites who were originally from the Russian empire where they lived in the 1800s and when the Tsar introduced a compulsory military service, many of them decided to emigrate to the US and South America. Interestingly, around the same time some Mennonite Germans also moved from central Russian regions to Talas and Khiva, which are located in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan respectively today.

 

Now I understand why some Germans were so religiously good with others in Soviet times. They were always known for being tidy, honest, hardworking and fair. Their houses and farms were the best in terms of design and production. Also, they were the only Europeans who learnt local languages unlike most Slavs. In the 1990s, there were over 100,000 Germans living in Kyrgyzstan, but I am not sure how many of them were Mennonites. In those years, nobody was allowed to practise religion, and many were forced to blend in with the Russian-speaking Communist majority. 

 

So many of the Mennonnite Germans in the US and South America are originally from Russia, which was something new to me. More info on German Mennonites from the Russian empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Mennonite 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by Hun

[Shawnster]

My wife's aunt is a regular pioneer in Bolivia.  She moved there after her husband died.  She wrote the Branch asking to serve somewhere hot.  They gave her a list of 3 countries or so and she chose Bolivia.

 

She's been there about 20 years.  Our son was able to visit her 3 times.  Once between 10th, and 11th grade, then between 11th and 12th grade, and then a year or two after graduation.  He said while they were there they visited a Mennonite colony.  All the Mennonites stared at this tall, blonde, white kid and no doubt wondered "where did we go wrong that he's not one of us?"  

 

 

[Sylv]

On 8/26/2019 at 10:09 AM, The German said:

... and there will be a special campaign in Bolivia in 2020.

German Brothers and sisters are invited.

We had the letter read last night too. Any Low German or even High German speakers are invited.