After four years of inflicting my mission trip stories on the readership of the Times-Gazette, I am now asked, pretty much wherever I go, if I have any trips coming up.

The answer is yes ... I think.

LEAMIS International Ministries, the Sewanee-based, interdenominational group with which I've traveled for several years, is not planning a trip to Kenya in 2007. I don't think they are through with the country yet, but there just wasn't a church that had the right combination of needing our services and being ready to host a team.

LEAMIS is, however, planning a trip to Bolivia, in South America, during the summer of 2007.

Although LEAMIS is a very small organization, it has a terrific relationship with a much larger missions group called Christ for the City International (CFCI). The first LEAMIS short-term trip in which I participated, to Nicaragua in 2003, was a partnership between LEAMIS and CFCI, and we were working with a long-term CFCI missionary based in Nicaragua. CFCI sometimes asks LEAMIS founders Debra Snellen and Gail Drake to conduct training sessions for its staff.

In this case, CFCI identified a pastor in Bolivia whose church could benefit from hosting a LEAMIS short-term mission team and put him in touch with Gail and Debra. They're trying to work out the specifics -- but it's a painstakingly-slow process. I don't know all the details, but I suspect part of the problem has to do with the fact that Latin American countries tend to be polychronic -- placing much less emphasis on schedules and punctuality than the monochronic cultures of the U.S. and Western Europe.

When we were in Nicaragua, there was a day when we broke up into small groups and did some door-to-door visitation. I happened to be in the same group with the church pastor. I don't speak much Spanish, but I did understand him inviting the first few people we visited to come to the services at the church at 4 p.m. At 4 p.m., we were still on the road visiting people, only now the pastor was inviting them to services at 5 p.m.

I have to remind myself that a polychronic culture isn't necessarily better or worse, just different. You have to learn to adapt if you want to do any good in mission work.

Bolivia is a country of dramatic physical contrasts. Parts of it, including the capital city, La Paz, are located high in the Andes, so high that it would probably take a day or two for us to adapt to the thin air. But other parts of the country are located in the Amazon basin. I'm not sure yet where the church with which we would be working is located.

Unfortunately, I can't really commit to the Bolivia trip or start raising money until I have some definite dates and can coordinate them with work. I had hoped to send out a fund-raising letter to friends and family before now, especially since some people need to make year-end charitable donations for tax purposes.

I have to keep telling myself that if I'm meant to make the trip, God will get me there.

John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government and other topics. His home page is lakeneuron.com.