ROUND about La Paz (Bolivia) our work is done mostly in the homes of the Indians rather than in the city dispensary. Last month we visited about four hundred Indian mud huts, and found one hundred and sixty cases to care for. This month the number will be almost doubled. Nearly every day finds Mrs. Cluff and me out in the villages on the outskirts of La Paz, giving treatments and medicine where necessary. These poor people do not know the first principles of caring for themselves. We find many who have been lying on mud floors for as long as a year, with diseases that with proper care should have been of short duration.
“Please, sir, won’t you come with me, and make my mamma well?” was the cry of a little boy who stopped us the other day. He led us over a high mountain, by a path very difficult for the mules to travel. Far over in a hut we found an Indian woman lying on the floor, scarcely able to move. She had been lying there with rheumatic fever for five months. After a few days’ treatment she was able to go about her work.
Thus we find opportunities for service on every side. We feel that God is indeed opening up the way for us to reach the hearts of these poor people with the saving truths of the gospel. Who will furnish the means needed to carry the gospel to these Indians in the high mountains of Bolivia and Peru?
STREET SCENE, LA PAZ, FROM BALCONY OF MISSION HOME
“If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” Wm. O. Cluff.
