April Fools. 2010
“The Life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace (Eph 1:7).
I awake while it is still dark with the sensation that a small animal is brushing against my leg. A rat? A tarantula? I strike at it blindly, but the offending creature merely flops against me like a landed trout. I strike at it again, this time with both hands. Suddenly, I realize that the animal I am trying to kill is really just my other hand! My artery was pinched off completely at the elbow. I quickly clench and extend my fingers like a hydraulic pump to get the stagnant fluid moving. A million tiny needles prick my dead arm back to life.
How vital is the circulation of the blood! Moving blood unites and coordinates the body in action. It powers grip and grasp, sensation and control. It gives the members life. Without it, I am a fool, while the limbs are foreign intruders and dead weight, rats or flopping fish.
Dual Planting. April 11, 2010
An agriculture professor from the public technical college in Riberalta asked if he could bring his class to the school this weekend to do their practicum. He had brought his class last year and said it was a really good experience for them. They arrived Sabbath morning and attended the church service and a few of them even accompanied us on our house visits in Yata in the afternoon. Alexander and Gabriel, two of the Riberalta visitors, accompanied my group and seemed to enjoy the songs and scripture reflections. At one house we read from Ecclesiastes how Solomon found that all the riches and pleasures of this world do not bring happiness or satisfaction.
The next day we started work at 6:00 a.m. Students and visitors divided into two groups: one began to plant our banana chaco while the rest of us tried to finish harvesting the last hectare and a half in the rice chaco. The morning went quickly, and in the afternoon the groups changed jobs to give the students a broader experience. In the banana field, I soon discovered that I was the only non-visitor in the group as everyone turned to me to ask for tools, where to plant, and how to organize the work. I took them all down to the tool shed to check out shovels, hoes, and machetes. Back at the site I shared my limited knowledge on banana planting. We dug the holes deep and wide so that the roots can establish quickly in the loose soil. The field had not been completely cleared of tree trunks and debris, and frequently I had to be the voice of conscience against tool abuse: “please don’t use the shovel handles as pry-bars to move fallen logs!” and “don’t twist the ax like tha…” snap! Too late! I went to look for another ax.
After a while, I finally had things more or less organized and we started to advance when I realized that in my preoccupation with directing the work, I had neither prayed silently, nor aloud with the group, for God’s guidance and blessing. That was a wasted opportunity. I thought. Sorry Lord.
Fortunately, God had plans in spite of my negligence. They were a talkative group, and it wasn’t long before several of them started to quiz me on extra-agricultural topics.
“So which Bible character do you want to meet first when you go to heaven?” one of the girls surprised me with her question. Before I could respond, one of the boys piped up. “I want to meet Job!” I thought he said.
“Job? Yeah, I’d like to meet him too” I replied.
“No! Not Job! Job’s daughters, man! You know, the most beautiful girls in all the land!” he laughed.
“I want to meet Solomon because he had hundreds of women, and he was the wisest man who ever lived” the compañero smiles at his one-upmanship, and I saw that the conversation could deteriorate quite rapidly.
“But Solomon was unhappy because he realized that seeking pleasure was vain and that true wisdom is in seeking God. Like the reflection on Sabbath, right?” It was Alexander, from the Yata visits who redirected the conversation!
The questions continued: “Does your church forbid marriages with unbelievers?”
“Well, actually, the Bible itself counsels against marriage with unbelievers (Amos 3:3, Mark 3:25), and as a church we believe in following Bible principles.”
“Your church promotes vegetarianism doesn’t it?” We continue to talk about different topics from healthful living to the philosophy of Christian education. They seem impressed by the school atmosphere and the work-study program.
As the afternoon sun maxed out on its ferocity, the majority of the visitors gravitated to the shade. I continued to dig, and although their work period was over, three or four of the visitors clustered around, and the questions kept on coming. They wanted to know how old I am, how I survive as a volunteer, and how long I plan to stay here. Soon I was merely standing on my shovel, but somehow I felt like I was still planting...
God’s alarms. May 11, 2010.
“…He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.” Isaiah 50:4
Last night I asked God to decide when I should wake up to spend some time with Him, so I couldn’t complain when I awoke to the cry of the neighbor’s baby at 3:45 a.m. That was the first alarm: God started early because He knew it would take awhile to rouse me. I knelt up in my bed to pray. Bad idea. I soon awoke the second time, face down in bed. I doubt I’d prayed one coherent sentence. I tried again and the next thing I knew I awoke with the rising sliver of a moon shining on my face. Wow. I thought. I make Christ’s disciples look good! They couldn’t pray for one hour: I can’t even handle two minutes! I knew if I didn’t get out of bed I would never wake my sleepy head in time to study and pray before the day began, so I got up and splashed cold water on my face, drank half a quart of water, and went to my desk.
As the horizon lit up with the forerunning rays of the sun I prepared to take a short walk to the corner of the driveway. The thermometer registered 14º C, (about 57º F) but with the high humidity the cold seeps into your core and chills your bones, like biting a Popsicle. Strange how it can feel good to don a jacket in this jungle!
I walked down the driveway and smelled God’s goodness in the crispness of dawn and heard it in the song of the birds and saw his glory in the trees and on the grass that shone with silver dew, and in each little cloud of my condensated breath that was His ever before it passed through my nostrils.
Dust on Dust
“For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return” (Genesis 3:19) “For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told… So teach us to number or days, that we may apply our heats unto wisdom.” (Psalms 90:9,12).
“There’s an accident” someone exclaims, and all the people lean forward and crane their necks, and those on the right side of the bus raise in their seats to get a view.
“Who could it be?” the woman across from me asks. Is it mere morbid curiosity, or is it the dread of personal disaster? She looks worried. Perhaps she has a familiar or other conocido who frequents this stretch of highway.
I’m on my way back from Guayara, and we’re just approaching the small community at kilometer 21 when I hear the announcement. At first all I see is a motorcycle seat, and I know this is going to be bad. Bits of bike are strewn from the stakes in the narrow part of Route Eight to the village just beyond, where I see the remains of the twisted frame embedded in the crunched hood of a Volvo. The windshield is collapsed inward and cracked in the design of a spider’s web.
Trucks of police and a crowd of people throng the scene. As we slowly navigate the accident, I suddenly glimpse the prone corpse of the cyclist. He is lying on his back, facing the vast blue sky, looking too peaceful and perfect for such carnage. The paramedics pull a white sheet over his head and neatly folded arms. The blood seems lost in the red dirt of the road.
“At least he no longer has to suffer in this world,” Lyli says.
He’s just left all his suffering with the living.
Back at the college we have news that Dorca’s uncle died today. I think it might be the man on the road, but its not.
Later, in the shower, as I shed the grime of the day, I wonder how they bury the dead in Bolivia. If the corpses aren’t cremated in the morgue, I’m sure they’ll clean them up. There is altogether too much dust in this land: Too much dust, and too little of God’s breath and spit and sculpting hand.
In Spite of Myself. 6/19/10
It’s 1:30 p.m. I’m droggy and my whole body feels heavy like a typical Sabbath afternoon after a big meal and a hot morning full of services. The last thing I want to do is go visiting in Yata, especially considering that the truck is out of commission and we’ll be walking the six kilometers in full sunlight. At least I have about 45 minutes until we leave. I grab a book and sink into my hammock: The Heavenly Man. I’m immediately ashamed of my lousy attitude as I read about the joy and zeal of brother Yun, a leader of the persecuted house churches in China.
By the time we arrive at the beautifully shaded vacant church property in Yata, my shirt is soaked in sweat and smudged with the dust of the road. All I want to do is jump in the creek. But the hardships the Chinese believers endured in order to share the Word come to mind, and I am re-ashamed at my selfish weakness. I really have so little experience in suffering for Christ. It is nothing to sweat for the Lord!
At the first house I’m impressed to ask Doña Rufina if she has any Bible questions or specific topics she would like to discuss.
“I’m Catholic” she responds. I'm not sure if she understood my question, so I try to clarify, but she remains uninterested. “But I like it that you visit and sing and read the Bible. How can I deny you that?"
When we ask Don Angel and his niece Zulema if they have any Bible questions or topics of interest, she just smiles, but he takes advantage of the opportunity immediately.
“Why is it that there are people who go against the Lord and say the world is going to end in 2012 when the Bible says that no man knows the day nor the hour, not even the angels in heaven?” (Matthew 24:36).
“Well, the very existence of such deceptive and erroneous theories is an evidence of the last days.” I explain. We read Matthew 24:11 and look for other texts like 1 John 4:1, and 2 Corinthians 11:13, 14.
Half an hour later we move on to the next house, where Frieda has some questions about the H1N1 vaccination. Apparently some recent propaganda labeled the shot as the mark of the beast! I tell Frieda I don’t know much about vaccinations, but I can assure her that it isn’t the mark of the beast. The mark of the beast is Satan’s counterfeit for God’s mark, or seal. (Revelation 7:2,3; 14:6-7; Exodus 20:8-11, and Ezekiel 20:12). It’s an intense topic and requires a solid biblical background. She says she’s up for it, so we set an appointment for Wednesday morning. Frieda is blind and her daughter will join the study to look up the Bible verses for her. She seems even more excited than her mom. Funny how we’re so often afraid to bring up the apocalyptic topics when the end of the world is of such popular public interest!
It’s already 5:30 when we leave Frieda’s. We were supposed to head back to the school by 5:15 to arrive before dark, but I really feel that I should go visit our last family. I feel bad I’ve missed Don Ignacio the last couple weeks because we always run out of time. There are just too many houses to visit in a couple of hours.
Another group is passing on their way back to the school, and I tell my kids they can either return with that group, or come with me. I have no takers. Ni modo. Alone, I jog the couple hundred meters off the main road and down the path between shoulder-high grass to Don Ignacio’s hut.
“Buenas tardes” I call out. The place seems empty. I’m about to dismiss my impression to come visit Ignacio as a whim of my own invention when I suddenly see a little boy sitting on the patio.
“Hola, ¿cómo te llamas?”
“Ignacio” he says. This must be junior.
“Donde está tu papa?”
Dad is bathing in the creek, and the boy motions down the hill behind the house. He’ll be back any minute. I strike up a conversation while I wait. Junior is in fourth grade and attends the public school in Yata. Right now they’re on vacation.
“Do they teach you about the Bible there?”
“Yes.” He says.
“What are your favorite Bible stories?”
“I don’t remember any.”
“Not even one? Who’s your favorite Bible character?” he looks at me blankly
“Do you know what a ‘character’ is? No?” I explain. He can’t think of any.
“How about I tell you about the boy David? There are some great stories in the Bible!” He grins and nods his head. I tell about David the shepherd boy when he defended the flocks from the bear. Junior says he’s seen a bear before. I ask him if he was afraid. He says no, his dogs were with them and they were hunting the bear.
Don Ignacio come up from his bath in the creek behind his hut dressed in nothing more than a towel, but he seems genuinely happy for my visit. His eyes squint to slits as he smiles, showing a solitary tooth, and he laughs as I dramatize the climax of David’s confrontation with Goliath.
It’s after 6:00 by now, but we have a prayer before I go. I ask Don Ignacio if he has any prayer requests. He says yes, and then starts praying. It takes me a second to realize what’s going on because he mixes some direct address to me into his prayer, thanking me for my visit. I leave running. Just as I reach the main road, a pickup truck is passing, and they stop and give me a free lift! I pass my students right before my ride drops me off at the entrance to the school driveway. I wait for them there.
“Teacher! You beat us! We should have stayed with you to visit the last house!” I just smile.
Prayer List:
The church project in Yata. We’ve dug the postholes for a temporary thatched roof church while we await God’s timing to build a permanent structure.
The radio. We have the option of requesting a transmitter for our tower (which we are in the slow process of erecting) to repeat the signal from the Adventist radio station that recently opened in Guayaramerin.(They are still waiting on equipment to do their own programming.)
Bible studies in Yata.
Corenelio and Susie and the project in Las Amalias
For the doors to open to obtain Spirit of Prophecy books in large quantities at an economical price.
For the Holy Spirit to come in power upon God’s people and finish the work!
Today I'm looking into printing some Spanish Glow and Signs literature for the churches here in Guayara. The price I was quoted was $120 for 20,000 pamphlets.
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