Bolivia was falling apart at the seams as I, a young teen, rode my bicycle to school each morning from the edge of town to the one American school in the hills above the city. People with their packs trudged in from the country, lots of Incan farmers in their basic clothes, with rubber tire sandals and bare feet, temperatures hovering at freezing every morning in this valley enclosed by the Andes.

Nothing betrayed the events which had crashed around the university community deep in the nation, just 90 miles away from where guerrilla terrorist Che Guevara had been executed a year earlier. Times were tense. Very tense.

My high school educated perhaps a hundred kids from diplomat families, oil workers, and a few missionaries like my parents, in Cochabamba for language learning, Spanish not being their strong suite.

The kids ranged from straight athletes to one young teen named Greg, who loudly proclaimed both his displeasure with Boliva ( a dangerous enough statement!) and his frequent conquests of female fellow students for the large music collection he had.

I felt out of place among the affluent mixture of wealthy students, international travelers, and our pot smoking friend. Our property was off limits to police because of the kids from diplomat families so drugs were openly consumed daily.

The pressure was on. Thick, constant. I felt so weak, just fifteen years old and my first foray out of the US and trying to learn Spanish while keeping school attendance. Bolivia was exciting and friendly, but as dangerous as a deadly Bushmaster snake.

As I drove home after classes, no hint of the disaster which consumed the nation appeared in my vision, though the President's son had been brought down with a shot fired at a helicopter flying through south of La Paz. Only the haze of the noon day dust hung in the still air. By supper time, it was apparent that all hell had broken loose downtown, but we had no way of knowing.

Our neighbor, a fellow teen crossed the hard dirt street, appeared at our gate and rang the house bell. I ran out to meet him and he looked positively deathly. While still in my umpleasant surprise, he opened the paper he held and showed me the shock of my life. There was a full page of names of university students who had been murdered the afternoon of October 9th, the anniversary of the execution of the Cuban doctor and murderer. Machine guns had been posted on corners of the plaza. As the kids protested the dictatorship, bullets barked into the square, mowing them down! Before it ended, three hundred bodies piled up around the bloodstained grass beneath the quietly waving palms.

Here I was, a young missionary kid, trying to be a witness to my friends, and our world had collapsed around us! Willy, the neighbor boy, came to Christ over that horrible incident, learning that two young college students in the massacre were from our neighborhood. Standing for Jesus has a cost! Willy saw the Jesus I didn't know I showed and became a Christ follower. Our family was advised to stay packed from then on to possibly escape!

I lost contact with my young friend. Only two pictures remain of him and our jocular companion, Orlando. God uses the meanest of circumstances to reach the chosen. Two teenagers in a forgotten valley in a forgotten country.