I am Lisa Miser. I am a 35-year-old mom of 3, Natalie (7), Jubilee (3), and Moses (1). My husband, Scotty, and I met here in Bolivia as single global workers in 2003. We got married in 2005 and have been here ever since, trying to figure out just what it means for us, the Misers, to be used by God to bring His hope to the people around us. I love reading, baking, taking walks, and coffee. This last year has brought some huge upheaval into our lives, including, but not limited to: building a house in a third world country, making a major job/ministry change after burn-out, and adoption (our Bolivian son, Moses)! God has kicked up the sanctification mode a few notches…
I live in La Paz, Bolivia. For 8 years, my husband and I were part of a church planting team that helped to get our church, Mallasilla Bible Church, started right here in our neighborhood. I helped with the women’s ministry and did some teaching there, but mainly hoped to be an encouragement to the church through friendship and hospitality. We have recently changed organizations and now are supported by Network of International Christian Schools (NICS). Our church meets in the cafeteria of Highlands International School where my husband now works as the middle school science and math teacher. We are just dipping our toes in this new role, desiring to be a resource for the school, as we have the most years under our belt as global workers here. Our main desire is to reach out to the many non-Christian families that attend the school, as well as continuing to be active in our church. And, obviously, the majority of my time is spent investing in and caring for my sweet children.
Although I see the Lord at work in the body of faith around me, what stands out most to me is what He has done in our own lives. A little over a year ago, Scotty and I had come to the end of our rope in our lives here in Bolivia. He was angry and depressed and we had both struggled for years with the roles that we were in, usually feeling like we just weren’t any good to anyone. We took a quick trip back to the US for some counseling and healing and the Lord miraculously gave us a renewed vision for La Paz and a new job (teaching) that fits our skills, gifts, and desires. We were in the middle of the adoption process at that time and before too long, our son finally came home and the dream of building our own home here (which we had been wanting to do for years) finally came to fruition. We are blown away by God’s faithfulness to us, His provision for us, and the way that He shows His grace even when we are sure we must not deserve it. Truly, it is not based on what we do, but only on the redeeming work of Christ! Our lives are hardly free from struggle, but we feel so confident in where the Lord has led us as a family in this past year.
Will you pray for the ongoing transition we feel we are in? Scotty has been overwhelmed by his first year of teaching and it has surely been a change for all of us for him to have such a rigid schedule for the first time in our marriage! I am still learning to be a mom of 3, which comes with unique challenges as we’ve brought our adopted son into the family. Praise God, he is a happy little guy, but I know there are some issues he has that I don’t yet understand. And, the stress of building a home in a third world country has been much greater than we could have imagined. We are desperate to be in our new home so that we can begin to reach out to families on a more frequent basis-our current apartment is busting at the seams just with us in it. Pray that the Lord will show me specifically how He wants me involved in ministry at the school. We are realizing with a very full time job and little kids, it is hard to continue being involved at the church, but don’t want to lose those relationships we worked so hard at for so many years. How do we do this??