Asbury Students Serve in Bolivian Ministry – The Asbury Collegian

Asbury students traveled to La Paz, Bolivia this summer to work in a ministry that helps women trapped in sexual exploitation. Elizabeth Bramer and Josie Deatherage interned with Project Suma, staying with a host family, attending Spanish school, and supporting women in local trafficking systems. Their trip and work were fully funded by the Deese Initiative Grant.

Deatherage, an intercultural studies student with a focus on social justice, discovered the ministry through Elias Baker, another Asbury student whose parents founded Project Suma, when she was looking for an internship.

“(Project Suma) works with women who are sexually exploited,” Deatherage explains, “whether that’s in prostitution in the brothels in the city or whether some are involved in human trafficking. That’s an area I’ve been interested in for a while.”

After taking courses on human trafficking and realizing that learning more and doing something about the problem were her next steps, she decided to do an internship there. “It seemed like the best thing: I knew people, I knew who was running it. That’s how I ended up there.”

Bramer applied for the internship for a different reason: he wanted to learn to speak Spanish fluently.

“I had a goal of becoming fluent in Spanish before I graduated, so of course I had to be uncomfortable and put myself in situations where I would be completely immersed in Spanish,” Bramer said. This internship provided a great opportunity for growth, as the interns went to a language school three times a week. However, the experience went much further than just learning more Spanish for the two students.

“With the Deese Grant, you have to combine it with an internship that fits your major,” Bramer explains. “I study Intercultural Studies and Political Science, so it worked out really well to work with Project Suma, helping women and children who are victims of sexual exploitation.”

A staggering 70% of Bolivian women are survivors of sexual and/or physical violence. Project Suma’s goal is to break the cycle and provide healing and resources to these women. Project Suma partners with many organizations to help these women, including Word Made Flesh, a non-profit organization here in Wilmore. They build relationships and meet women where they are.

For the women the ministry serves, Bramer says, “Project Suma has made healing and restoration possible in their lives. The women take that personal healing and extend it to their communities.”

Before Bramer, she worked on the administrative side of Project Suma and helped with a donor engagement report, where she shows donors what the ministry has been able to do. During this particular internship, Bramer collected stories from the women and children who have directly benefited from the ministry, giving her the opportunity to sit down and listen to their stories. With their economic program, they ask the women what their passions and gifts are and they start working together to create an alternative form of income. One woman they helped was an amazing baker, so she got a grant to start her own bakery.

“That was a really cool part: sitting and hearing how the Lord delivered them,” Bramer says. “I have so much more appreciation for the simple truth that God is with us. As we walk through the brothels, the Lord is tangibly with us.”

For another side of the ministry, Deatherage helped run social media and create ideas, saying, “My project was a strategic communications plan. I worked with their communications team, like helping them with their social media: posting and helping with different ideas.”

The interns also got to talk to everyone and participate in different programs, like the economic program. The women’s program would have workshops where women would learn how to paint their nails, do their makeup, or make a pollera, the indigenous Bolivian skirt.

An important part of Bramer and Deatherage’s internships was visiting women in brothels.

“One of the most impactful[moments]was the first time they took me on an outreach visit to one of the brothels, because it’s just a completely different world,” Deatherage recalls. “The whole room feels really heavy. But being able to go door to door and talk to the women, and say hello and ask them how they’re doing, and look them in the eye like they have this dignity that they’ve been given, that they don’t often get from other people. To be a part of that and show them that kind of respect, that kind of love, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is why I do this.’”

Working at Project Suma has had a lasting impact, not only on the women they help, but also on Deatherage and Bramer.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash.