‘Then the nations that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD rebuild the ruined

places, and replant that which was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.’

Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano is one of the world’s oldest surviving airlines… just. Founded in 1925, the company was once one of South America’s largest and most successful airlines, flying to destinations in Europe and the USA and playing a pivotal role in Bolivia’s history. Now, it is a shell of its former self. After being sold to a failing Brazilian airline in the 1990s, it was gradually dismantled through disorganisation and embezzlement. In 2007, the airline was ordered to cease operations by the Bolivian government. And yet, the airline didn’t disappear – it lives on at its fourteen-hectare base through the faith of its remaining, unpaid staff. It’s a familiar story in Bolivia: a country who has lost every war it has fought and whose resources have been plundered, but whose pride remains unscathed. This is an airline frozen in time, clinging onto faded images of a glorious past and kept alive by dreams of a triumphant return. It’s only possible saviour may come in the form of its last operational plane, Ezekiel 36:36