A miracle in Santa Cruz’s Soccer Stadium: Estadio Ramón “Tahuichi” Aguilera

Kicking off our set on the Estadio Ramón “Tahuichi” Aguilera stage

My journal entry read: “Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Flyingbow Mission Trip , Day 2, Saturday March 24” …

While the rest of the group decided to go to some tourist spots outside of the city, Tony and I (a little jet-lagged from the long flight the night before) made the call to rest and to prepare for the large concert/outreach event at the Estadio Ramón “Tahuichi” Aguilera (main Santa Cruz Soccer Stadium) that evening. ROJO (“Red”), the top Christian rock band in South America from Mexico was the headlining act. We were invited as guest artists to open for them for this evangelical crusade. We are learning that everything takes a little more time in Bolivia, and we didn’t want to risk getting back late (by joining the Gideon’s Canada team) and being a little rushed for our 6 p.m. load-in and sound check with a concert start at 8 p.m. This ended up being a really good call, because the rest of the missionary group of 29 ended up getting back to our hotel after 6 p.m. that evening …

My day was spent doing a final tweak of our set list on Pro Presenter, setting up my effects on my travel rig of effects (Zoom pedal and Boomerang Looper), taking a much needed nap, working out and swimming in the outdoor hotel pool. Later that afternoon, Tony and I (along with our Bolivian translator/road manager David and his wife) arrived by taxi to Estadio Ramón “Tahuichi” Aguilera at 5:45 that evening to scout out the venue. We were surprised to observe a large line-up of young people already winding their way along the side of the stadium. They were wanting to get the best seats to see ROJO. We could tell this was going to be a big event. We were escorted through the back stage field level entrance and proceeded to wait for our sound check. David, our translator, was very helpful in communicating all our performance needs to the sound company. It was soon apparent that there were more delays …

The final minutes before the official start of the event were pretty crazy as we sourced out power (220 volts in Bolivia), set up our gear and barely managed a sound check before the program started with opening acts, dancers and musicians. A local evangelist/pastor, Nelson Matto, preached a powerful Gospel message. Our role on the team for this event was to provide a 20-25 minute set of music immediatly following the message while the rest of the team handed out bibles in 5 stations scattered throughout the stadium to those who made commitments to Jesus. Our set started slowly and reflectively with “Holy, Holy, Holy” followed by “Passion”. While we played, all over the stadium young men and women were giving their lives to Jesus – it was truly an incredible thing to witness God at work in this way. We then picked up the pace in celebration with “Iyale” – the stadium of 14,000 came alive clapping along the world-beat West African beat. The energy was awesome. Our set closed with our rock rendition of “Everlasting God” – a great way to worship God and set up ROJO’s set.

Truly God worked a miracle in Estadio Ramón “Tahuichi” Aguilera that evening! T

It was incredible to see 1600 + youth give their lives to Jesus!

Tony and I after our set

Enjoy these live video clips of the “Iyale” and “Everlasting God” performances …