Banking for the Kingdom of Heaven

Hello everyone. We’re back safely from our nearly month-long mission trip on the river Horton in the department of Pando, Bolivia. Twenty-eight students and staff chose to spend the mid-year vacation traveling in 2.5 by 12 meter wooden schooner with a 13-horse diesel engine. We stopped at a total of ten different communities where we visited the sick, distributed literature, did community service, kids programs, and gave Bible studies. I have several pages of my notebook filled with reminders that I will expand into fuller reports as I have the time.
Please pray for the school. We are a week into the second semester, and we are facing a number of deep challenges. The Lord is working in mighty ways, but we need special prayer that the Lord will raise up a standard against the enemy. We are also praying more fervently here, and have freed up an hour in the evening schedule to dedicate to prayer. This week Ruan is speaking in the evenings on the 3rd angel’s message, and I am presenting “Lessons on Milk” in the mornings from Hebrews 5:11-14 and 6:1-3. That passage has really spoken to my heart this last month, and goes along beautifully with Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 2. If we do not desire the sincere milk of the word, it is plain that we have not been born again, for all babies naturally desire milk. They live for it. They seek it with tears. And in partaking of it they grow. And it’s amazing how quickly they grow! If we’re not growing spiritually we haven’t been born again and we’re not really internalizing the milk. Interestingly enough, the very first thing on Paul’s list of ingredients in God’s milk in Hebrews 6 is repentance from dead works. Repentance is a gift from God. We need to ask for it, and when it comes, we need to swallow it down in complete humility. The Lord has asked me to do that a few times this month already. It’s hard to conquer pride, but when you finally surrender and confess and forsake what the Lord is calling you to leave behind, it is so liberating! I feel a special urgency to seek the Lord more fully and to truly understand and practice the first commandment of Mark 12:29-31. My prayer is that each one of you will join me in this.
I’ve also just started to teach social studies this semester and we are studying AT Jones’ book Empires of the Bible (you can download it for free online). History is coming alive for me like never before!
The following is a story from last May. I hope it is a blessing and a challenge to look for the leading of the Lord’s hand in the middle of the inconvenient and annoying circumstances of life.

Banking for the Kingdom of Heaven 5-4-2011
As the school chaplain and director of religious activities, I’m also the treasurer for our company of believers from Yata. At the end of each month I take the book of accounts along with the tithes and offerings to turn in to the pastor in Guayaramerin. Well, I was running a bit late with April’s accounts because I was traveling last week in order to process more of the seemingly eternal documentation required for my two-year residency. When I finally got back and went to leave the tithes and offerings with the pastor so he could turn them into the Eastern Bolivian Conference, he just gave me the account number and told me that from now on I would make all the deposits!
When I arrived at the bank it was only mid-morning, but the line of customers was worse than at the DMV back home. I took my line ticket, and it was F-162! The electronic screen above the teller read “now serving T-29.”
What? I thought. How does that work?
Just then I noticed a ticket that someone had dropped on the floor. I picked it up and it read T-46! Yes! But alas, I soon noticed that those who went up to the counter when a T-ticket was called were all senior citizens and pregnant mothers. So I left beloved T-46 on top of the ticket machine and exited the bank with my original ticket. I’d run a few errands and check in later on the progress of the line.
When I came back in the afternoon, the F line was just approaching the 70’s, and the waiting crowd now occupied the covered sidewalk outside of the bank as well. Come on! What’s the deal! I don’t want to wait here all afternoon!
I decided I’d wait awhile and see how fast the line was moving. I sat down just outside the front window, positioning myself so I could check the line inside without having to get up. I was about to get out some papers and do some grading when I noticed a lady sitting nearby and the Holy Spirit reminded me about the pamphlets I had in my backpack.
You should give her one!
Okay... But what, just like that? Out of the blue?
You can make conversation!
Right. Easier said than done!
I was trying to think of something to say when she got up to look through the window.
“Long line isn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah!”
“What number are you?”
“F-146.”
“Hey, at least you’re ahead of me. Do you like to read? Here’s something to help pass the time” I handed her a GLOW tract.
“Hey, that’s a good idea! The time always goes by faster when you have something to occupy you.”
I wasn’t sure if it was indeed keen interest or the small print, but she seemed to be very studiously pouring over the pamphlet. Not noticing any squint in her eye, I chanced that it was the former. After a few minutes she finished reading, and felt I should give her another one. While I debated, I looked through the window at the screen and she followed my gaze. Now serving F-73.
“Not much progress is there? You needed something longer than that little pamphlet to last you for this line, huh?”
She laughed. “I need a book like this!” she indicated the thickness of a multi-volume set of encyclopedias.
“Well, I don’t have anything that size, but you’re more than welcome to read any of these other pamphlets.” I spread out half a dozen more tracts on various topics.
“Oh! Thank-you!” She selected one, read it straight through, and took another. After finishing the third she took a break from reading. We checked the line again, and I realized that I really had no hope of making it before closing time. I was going to leave, and voiced the same, but I felt like I should keep talking to this lady.
“Do you come here often?” I asked what immediately seemed to me a dumb question. Banco Union is the federally controlled bank where nearly everyone has to do at least some of their banking.
“No, I’m just here from Cochabamba to visit my sister.”
“Oh wow, that’s nice. How long will you stay for?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow.” We continued chatting and she asked me where I am from and what I do here in Bolivia and I asked her about Cochabamba. She told me about her kids and how she’d gone through some hard times. Once she was really sick and almost died, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her kids without a mom and asked the Lord to spare her life. He did, and ever since she felt like it was God who holds her up and keeps her going, but there were a lot of things she didn’t understand about God.
“Like what?” I asked her.
“Like, if I were to die tomorrow, what would happen to me?”
It was about then that I really wished I had my Bible with me. But God is good for His promise, and the Holy Spirit just kept bringing texts to mind. For every question she had, there was a text. (Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 12:7 and 9:5-6, Job 7:9-10 and 14:10-12, Psalms 115:17, Ezekiel 18:4, Matthew 10:28, John 11, 1 Thess 4, etc.) Sometimes I didn’t remember the exact reference, and I realized, I need to learn this stuff better!
We talked for over an hour, and I will never forget the smile on her face as she heard the truth that death is a sleep until the trumpet sounds in the resurrection at the second coming of Christ, and that God doesn’t send people to hell or purgatory when they die. And I thought, man, I thought I was coming here to make a deposit for God’s work and I got mad and frustrated because of the long line and apparent waste of time, when all along God had a much more important deposit for me to make! God is just good like that!

Showdown

Well, this has been a long time in coming. It still isn't written to my satisfaction, but I decided that you all needed to hear "the rest of the story."
Please keep in mind that this all happened toward the end of last school year. I have many more stories to tell from this year. God is working in exciting ways! My prayer is that each of you let him work His ways in your hearts and lives every moment of every day. Jesus is coming soon! I know it, not merely because of the signs of the times, but because He himself said so (Revelation 22:20). And the Word of God has the inherent property of being self-fulfilling: it does what it says! When one comes to believe and experience that personally, life gets a lot more exciting!

Part IV: SHOWDOWN

“If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams…” Duet 13:1-3 (emphasis mine).

The next morning dawned overcast with colorless gray clouds blanketing the sky. When I arrived at the aula A, most of the faculty were already present and seated around the classroom tables, arranged in a large circle.
“Do you have the voice recorder?” someone asked me. We had agreed the night before that it would be a good idea to document the meeting, just in case we needed an accurate record later of exactly what was said. We had also asked the pastor to attend the meeting, as Saúl was a member of the church in Guayaramerin, and these were clearly issues that could affect his membership status. We also hoped to thus avoid any rumors that otherwise might arise in town should we need to ask Saúl to leave the school.
I returned to my room to fetch the Dictaphone along with several extra batteries. When I returned, we prayed and then reviewed our strategy. Keila gave each staff member a piece of paper with one of the questions that we had formulated the night before, and Salim then went to fetch Saúl.
Typically, if students get in serious trouble, they have to meet with the administrative council of four members and most students find that intimidating enough. I wondered what Saúl must be thinking as he entered to face the entire staff! After prayer, Salim began the meeting by telling Saúl how much we were worried about him and that we were meeting with him out of concern for his salvation as well as the influence he was having on other students. Next we began with the questions.
“So why did you decide to return to study here this year?” The story that Saúl proceeded to tell us was quite ordinary in content, if not in length, as he explained his reasons for coming here, beginning with his freshman year.
“But what brought you here this year? What is your purpose in this place?” Salim had to refocus him on the specific question. He got real quiet for a moment and then answered with one word:
“God.”
“You are sure that God wants you here?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Lately I’ve been studying about the Godhead, and I realized that I have to really know Him… yes, know Him… Even though many people are sure that He exists, that is not enough.”
In the context of the Juan Carlos letter about knowing “the unknown God,” I wasn’t sure how to take the otherwise innocent-enough comment.
At this point Salim got to the heart of the issue and asked Saúl outright if the reports were true that he had come back this year (2010) for a specific person and/or purpose apart from what he had mentioned so far.
“Yes.” He replied. “But that purpose is completed.”
“So you did have another purpose that brought you here apart from what you have told us up to now?”
“Yes. I’ll explain more clearly.” And again he launched into his reasons for coming to the school his freshman year, which he claimed were partly to get away from his mom who had always been controlling and overly protective. Yet he still seemed to be avoiding the question.
“So how did you know that you needed to come here for a specific person?” Salim prompted.
“Because of a dream” he said softly. I thought of some of the remarks that Yani and Juan Carlos had made regard their comings and goings from the Internado respectively.
“I was sure that the dream was from God,” Saúl continued. “Now I don’t know, because lately many have told me that I shouldn’t base my actions on dreams.[i] But at that time I prayed a lot and I took the dream as divine.”
“And what was it exactly that made you take the dream as divine? What were your reasons?” we asked.
In response, he proceeded to tell us the circumstances leading up to the dream. During the vacation of 2008, he was helping his mom move some belongings by boat from one town to another. During that time, he made a mistake (of which he didn’t give details for personal reasons). After his mistake, according to Saúl, he felt remorse and spent a long time in prayer, not only asking God to forgive him, but also praying for all the people who he knew. Afterward he fell asleep and dreamed about a stranger, a man in a white shirt and black tie explaining the Bible to Damaris. Afterward, the scene changed to something obscene, and he awoke. Disgusted with the final image of the dream, he prayed and told God he didn’t want those images in his head! When he fell asleep again, the same dream reoccurred, but without the bad ending. The dream was so vivid that when he awoke he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
About two months after the dream, Saúl returned to UETIRG for the 2009 school year. He still couldn’t forget about his dream, but it wasn’t until some time had gone by that he connected the new teacher Juan Carlos with the man he had seen explaining the Bible to Damaris in his dream. He claimed that this realization came to him during a deja vu moment in Yata one Sabbath afternoon when the actions and dress of Juan Carlos somehow reminded him of the man in his dream. Around that same time, he was able to begin bible studies with a lady who he had prayed for the night of his dream, and he saw that as an answer to his prayer and evidence that the dream that followed had been from God.
In response we shared verses like 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 and asked him how he could believe the dream was from God when part of it had been impure. He admitted that this was a problem, but was sure that his dream was related to things that happened later on. Besides, he had dreamed the same dream the second time without the obscene part, in apparent answer to his prayer.
“But don’t you think that if the dream were from God he would have gotten it right the first time?” He agreed that that made sense. We also asked Saúl if he had ever seen Juan Carlos talking with Damaris as he had seen in his dream, and he said that he hadn’t, yet he would not relinquish his claim that the dream had already been fulfilled. I wondered if perhaps he looked on himself as a symbolic fulfillment of his own dream since he had given Juan Carlos’ book to Damaris, but I never asked him to confirm this. In any case, it turned out that the dream about Damaris and Juan Carlos was not the one he had initially referenced as his reason for returning to UETIRG in the present school year of 2010.
Apparently in July of 2009, about a month after Juan Carlos had left campus, Saúl had another dream in which he had seen Keila. (While he did not elaborate on the details of what he saw in the dream, he made it clear that it was because of this dream that he had returned for another school year.) He said he remembered talking to Keila afterward and wanting to tell her about his dream. Instead, he asked her opinion on Juan Carlos and his teachings. Somewhere in Keila’s response, she mentioned that she was “still a babe in the gospel,” and that phrase was apparently sufficient to warrant Saúl's return. The implication was that his purpose in returning in 2010 had to do with Keila. In a way this made sense, as she was the director of religious activities that year, and influencing her would be a way to affect the whole school. Keila, however, is not so easily influenced as he may have imagined. We asked Saúl if his second dream had also been fulfilled, and he said it had, and then revised his statement to say that it was being fulfilled right now in this meeting! That seemed like a spur of the moment interpretive decision on his part and we drilled him with some more questions on how he could know this. He couldn’t explain to us his reasons, but he did not recant his conclusion.
So now was the time to draw him out on what he really believed. We continued the meeting with the questions we had planned. I asked Saúl to look up 2 Timothy 3:13-17. We read it together, and then I asked:
“Do you believe that ALL of scripture is inspired by God and that it helpful for all of the reasons that the text mentions?”
“Yes.” That was encouraging. If that were true, at least we would still be able to reason with him from the scriptures. The next few questions passed in the same way, with Saúl agreeing with the biblical position. When we got to the question about the Sabbath, however, the differences began to arise. He claimed that the Sabbath has been fulfilled, or that it has another fulfillment, and tried to use Hebrews chapter three to support his theory. We pointed out the inconsistencies of his argument using the same chapter, and brought in some additional texts and arguments to supplement, all with little apparent impact. At one point in the conversation, Saúl even suggested that God’s main purpose in creating our world was to show the plan of redemption to the angels. This seemed to corroborate, or at least favor Juan Carlos’ assertion in the letter that God had predetermined the fall and that it was part of His original design for us. (Essentially saying that God made the mess we’re in.)
We continued to reason with Saúl from the scriptures, but as I saw him there, his arms crossed and his face dark and hard as flint, I must confess that I had little hope for a breakthrough. Yet, the more he tried to explain himself, the more mixed-up and uncertain he seemed to be, and finally, it seemed, he began to realize it.
“What is your understanding of faith?”
“That’s something I still don’t really understand. Can we skip to the next question?”
At this point we were about an hour and a half into the interview and we came to the question on tithe.
“Do you believe in tithe? We know that tithe is first mentioned in Genesis 14:20. Do you believe that tithing is a commandment from God that still applies to us today?”
(Long pause). “Yes.”
“Why? Why do you believe it? There are some people who say it was just for the Jews.” (Another long pause).
“Well, the truth is that I’ve tithed as a tradition. I haven’t studied the topic. Juan Carlos said no, tithe doesn’t apply now, and he had his explanation. I’m still uncertain about this topic too. I want to ask all of you, and teacher Ruan… I want to hear all the topics, and I want you to show me from the Bible, and disprove all the bases that he put.”
“That’s the reason we’re here” Ruan said.
Finally, a little softening! Keep working Holy Spirit!
By the time we adjourned the meeting over an hour and a half later, things were looking more promising, but there was still a lot that needed to happen. Since Saúl had voiced his doubts to many of the other students and had even shared some of Juan Carlos’ material, we needed to give a detailed presentation biblically exposing the errors and dangers of his teachings. Since the last letter he had sent was so blatantly contrary to everything the Bible teaches about the nature of God, the fall, sin, and redemption, we decided to make that the focus. Once we showed Juan Carlos’ final product, there would be no need to wade through his previous, more convoluted teachings. The fruit would identify the root.
We scheduled the meeting for first thing after breakfast the next day. Since most of the new students knew very little of the history, we shared just enough so they could understand the situation before getting into the doctrinal aspects. The meeting went very well, and we could sense the Spirit of God with us. My favorite part came after we had rebutted the letter point by point. One staff member spontaneously began to read a scripture passage warning of rampant last-day deceptions similar to what we had just experienced. When he finished, another teacher across the room arose and read a relevant biblical passage. When he finished, another followed with another text, and so it continued for about 15 to 20 minutes with the majority of the staff participating, reading straight scripture. All of it tied together beautifully.[ii] The students were visible affected. It was incredible! God’s word is so eloquent and powerful and so apropos!
In worship that evening we made the call for complete consecration to God and invited all students and staff to get rid of anything in their lives that could be separating them from Him. We made a bonfire outside in the middle of campus, and the students and staff went to their rooms to collect anything that they might want to burn. All of us were waiting to see what Saúl would do. Would he take advantage of this opportunity? What was my surprise when Saúl was the first student to arrive at the fire and cast in all of his books and other materials from Juan Carlos. Other students also burned materials from Juan Carlos, and others took the opportunity to burn other books and materials that they knew were not pleasing to God. It all added up to quite a little pile! When everyone was gathered, Saúl stood up and made a public confession and apology for his subtle undermining and rebellion and for confusing the minds of many of his classmates. Afterward we all joined in singing hymns of praise and consecration. Oh, where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and there is victory! We were singing the last song when I felt someone grab my shoulder.
It was Saúl. He apologized to me personally[iii] and we hugged. There were tears in his eyes as he told me:
“Teacher, thanks for not giving up on me. I could have lost my salvation!”[iv]
So will we all if we are not grounded and settled in the truth as it is in Jesus.[v]


[i] I remember Saúl telling me about some dreams that he had during the 2009 school year, and proposing that they contained some kind of significance or perhaps divine guidance. He didn’t tell me any details about the content of the dreams, but I remember cautioning him not to become fascinated with the novel and sensational, nor base his beliefs and decisions in emotions and manifestations. “Guard your thoughts and your imaginations. Test everything by the Word of God,” I told him. “That is our only safe standard.”

[ii] Some of the passages read included Col 2:2-10, 2 Thess 2:1-4, Acts 20:28-30, 1 Cor 3: 10-13, 1 John 2:18-22, and 2 Pet 2.

[iii] When he apologized to me, Saúl took the opportunity to remind me of a document that he had showed me in 2009. “I’m pretty sure that visualization was the technique Juan Carlos was using with that story I shared with you last year,” he told me. (Visualization is one of the spiritual exercises used in spiritual formation, a process touted by many of today’s mainstream churches as a new way to bring life and power into your spiritual experience. In this exercise, first practiced and taught by Jesuit founder Ignatius Loyola, the object is to meditate upon a story from the Bible, imagining the sights, sounds, smells and other sensory details until it seems that you have entered into the scene and are able to converse with the characters of the story. It is basically a self-induced hypnotic trance.)
During the 2009 school year Saúl had asked my opinion on a document that I later came to realize was a letter from Juan Carlos, commentating on the story in John 8, of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. At the time he shared with me, I knew next to nothing about Juan Carlos or what had happened previously, but I remember telling Saúl that it seemed to me that the article was missing the point of the story, and that we have to be careful not to get caught up in speculation about extraneous details that are not given in the scripture. In fact, we are told that “it is a masterpiece of Satan’s deceptions to keep the minds of men searching and conjecturing in regard to that which God has not made known, and which He does not intend that we shall understand.” (The Great Controversy 523) Saúl was fascinated at the time, however, and kept coming back around to the same questions. We were getting nowhere, and he finally dropped the subject.

[iv] Please continue to pray for Saúl. He is volunteering with us at the school this year and seems to be doing well, yet one does not easily leave behind all the effects of such deception.

[v] Ellen White makes the following statement in Early Writings: “I saw that we are no more secure from false teachers now than they were in the apostles' days; and, if we do no more, we should take as special measures as they did to secure the peace, harmony, and union of the flock. We have their example, and should follow it. Brethren of experience and of sound minds should assemble, and following the Word of God and the sanction of the Holy Spirit, should, with fervent prayer, lay hands upon those who have given full proof that they have received their commission of God, and set them apart to devote themselves entirely to His work. This act would show the sanction of the church to their going forth as messengers to carry the most solemn message ever given to men.
God will not entrust the care of His precious flock to men whose mind and judgment have been weakened by former errors that they have cherished, such as so-called perfectionism [SEE APPENDIX.] and Spiritualism, and who, by their course while in these errors, have disgraced themselves and brought reproach upon the cause of truth. Although they may now feel free from error and competent to go forth and to teach this last message, God will not accept them. He will not entrust precious souls to their care; for their judgment was perverted while in error, and is now weakened. The great and holy One is a jealous God, and He will have holy men to carry His truth. The holy law spoken by God from Sinai is a part of Himself, and holy men who are its strict observers will alone honor Him by teaching it to others" (101.2).

Hello everyone! As usual, all my prepared updates are late… You would think that they are arriving by ship, not email! So here are a few current hot items of interest before the warmed-overs. :)
This Sabbath we will be attending a district wide camp meeting. Ten of our students will make a public declaration to commit their lives completely to the Lord in baptism! The next day we leave for a month-long mission trip into the interior to conduct medical clinics and evangelism. I also just found out today that JAC, the Bolivian version of GYC was founded this month and will hold their first conference next year in Santa Cruz! That is a direct answer to prayer! Since I attended GYC in Baltimore last January I have been praying for just such a development here in Bolivia! (There is more to this story too!) We also have a couple of incredible opportunities for further expanding the work here in Bolivia, including a large parcel of donated land for another school like the one here. More details will follow… but probably not until I get back from the jungle in August. Thanks for all your prayers and support. May God bless you all and keep working us over…and over: until we shine like the stars, and mirror his image like polished pictures of silver.

Jordan. June 1, 2011
“…and [if] in the land of peace, [wherein] thou trustedst, [they wearied thee], then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” Jeremiah 12:5 b.

I find myself dismayed today at the passing of yet another month! Oh how I long for the day when I will no more be confined by time and can bask in the eternal! Yet the constraints of time frame even that wish, and my hope is still in a day.
We’re already hip deep into the year, and with each day that flows or surges by I feel that the river-bottom underfoot falls farther away. What faith will it take to slog through these days? Will we wet ourselves to the chest, or must we hold our breath until death takes it? How many more steps? Or dare we hope that the river will part before our steady tread (quadrupled soon with hands) and drop us to dry land? I cannot know what will happen to me in this great slosh: the Jordan is beginning to swell. But I know what land lies beyond the river, and the King who reigns there, and so whatever the cost of the crossing, it will be cheap enough!
Yet I am too quickly frustrated by mere ripples, too quickly wearied by the silt, or worried about the depth or width of the river. I feel so unprepared for what lies ahead.
We must be buried with our Lord in Jordan. For some of us, it may take seven burials like it did for the haughty Naaman. And yet I think he had more faith than many of us. God requires a complete death to self, to the world.
This morning as I read from Early Writings the message is so clear, and so apt: “Time is almost finished. Do you reflect the lovely image of Jesus as you should? Then I was pointed to the earth and saw that there would have to be a getting ready among those who have of late embraced the third angel's message. [Yet how many of us even know and understand what the message of the third angel is? I know I have a lot more to learn!] Said the angel, ‘Get ready, get ready, get ready. Ye will have to die a greater death to the world than ye have ever yet died.’ I saw that there was a great work to do for them and but little time in which to do it.” {EW 64.1}
Those same words are repeated a few pages later: “Get ready, get ready, get ready. Ye must have a greater preparation than ye now have, for the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. Sacrifice all to God. Lay all upon His altar—self, property, and all, a living sacrifice. It will take all to enter glory” (66.2, emphasis mine). Wow. What does that really mean? I feel I know so little of giving, of real self-sacrifice and unselfish service. And yet, “those who reject the privilege of fellowship with Christ in service, reject the only training that imparts a fitness for participation with Him in His glory. They reject the training that in this life gives strength and nobility of character” (Education, 264.3). Lord, give me a heart to serve!

Some like it blunt. Feb 27, 2011.

This last Sunday we were working to clear the church building site in Yata when a man walked over from across the street to see what we were doing. He told us he was from Guayaramerin and had stopped by to visit family. (“My sister is the fat lady who lives across the road” was the way he put it). Such candidness is typical with many Bolivians, and they seem to appreciate it when you respond in kind.
“Are you building a house?” he asked
“No, we’re building a church,” Ruan replied.
“What kind of church?”
“An Adventist church.”
“Oh, today is like your Monday isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“And Saturday for you is like Sunday.”
“That’s right”
“Why do you keep Saturday instead of Sunday?”
“Because the Bible says that Saturday is God’s Sabbath day.”
“It does doesn’t it”
“Yep. And it doesn’t say anything about Sunday.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t. Why then do all churches keep Sunday?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yep.”
“Because the emperor Constantine proclaimed himself a Christian and made a decree to venerate the pagan holiday of Sunday, claiming it was to honor Christ’s resurrection. And most all of the churches have obeyed him to this day. So you have to decide, do you want to obey God, or Constantine!”
“You’re right!” he said. They chatted a bit more and he left, and we haven’t seen him since. We’re really looking forward to the day when the church will be finished and more people will stop by and ask about the truth!

Well everyone, here is the anticipated part 3... just to warn you however, there will have to be a part four to finish up the story...As usual, I can't keep up with life when it comes to telling the interesting stories... I haven't told you any of the stories from this year yet! Thanks for all your prayers and support. It's not easy being chaplain, part of the Admin. committee, and teacher... but God is good. I know he doesn't allow any trial to come without providing the strength to meet it... I just pray that I can be a quicker study...it's not only not fun, but also dangerous to have to keep repeating the same lessons!
"Great peace have they which love thy law and NOTHING SHALL OFFEND THEM." That verse often reminds me that I apparently don't love the law of the Lord as I should... May God grant more love. :)
P.S. (I had a problem with the formatting copying and pasting from Word, so the endnotes might be hard to follow. If you see the letter(i) in parenthesis, check the end of the document to read the endnote.)

PART 3: Antichrist Strikes
“Now we beseech you, brethren…That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;” 1 Thess 2: 1-3.

“Hey Kody, we need you to read a letter and let us know what you think. Saúl asked Lyli to print it for him yesterday, and praise the Lord she had the presence of mind to save a copy on her computer. It’s a letter from Juan Carlos.”
Oh great. More trouble! I thought. With the Yani incident still fresh in my mind, I was really curious to see what the letter would be all about. At Ruan and Tara’s house, I began to wade through the nine-page epistle. After a short salutation, it began by quoting Acts 17:22-31, followed by the reasonable claim that in this passage Paul is giving a summary of the gospel. Next came an admonition to memorize the passage and meditate on it, letting the words become your “rational worship,” or as some versions say “reasonable service:” That phrase from Romans 12:1, in its original context refers to submitting and surrendering ourselves to God, but Juan Carlos’ application seemed to imply that knowledge (memorized scripture in this case) is a valid substitute for surrender and sanctification. This first problematic statement was immediately followed by a second:
“I just want to concentrate on a specific phrase from Paul’s discourse,” he continued. Interestingly, the single phrase of his choosing was the inscription from the pagan altar in the Athenian Areopagus, ‘to the unknown God.’” In the rest of the letter he more fully defined and explained his concept of the “unknown God.” He used an eloquent and wordy style, sugarcoated in fragments of bible verses taken out of context and familiar phrases such as “the great controversy” that feel comfortable but, upon analysis, are diametrically opposed to his argument.

The teachings of the letter can be summarized as follows:
1. The purpose of existence is to know the Unknown God
2. The Unknown God is defined as the “greatest mind” of the universe, and thus immaterial.
3. God the Father and God the Son therefore are merely manifestations of the Unknown God, this Greatest mind, and they will one day cease to exist because they will no longer be necessary when the Unknown God becomes truly known. (i)
4. The existence of everything began first in the mind or imagination of God. Nothing can surprise him (it?) because he knows everything, but has always kept at least certain important parts of that knowledge secret. (ii)
5. Knowing everything, God chose from all the possibilities of existence a single course of events (history), or line of existence, and that is the one that we have lived and are living in the world today.
6. Since God is love, we can assume that he chose, or predetermined, from all the possibilities, the best line of existence and the one that best serves his purpose for us, which is to know him. (In other words, God created sin intentionally in order to give us the opportunity to better know his mind! Does not this sound like the age-old deception of Genesis 3:5, “you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”?

The terrible implications of this basic framework are not hard to recognize, and the conclusions immerge clearly in the rest of Juan Carlos’ letter, although they are not all stated so explicitly as in the following summarized list:

1. God (The greatest mind in the universe) is the originator of sin and evil.
2. Therefore, sin is not really bad or wrong, because it comes from God. (In the letter there is no reference whatsoever to Satan, at least not in the sense of an “Adversary.”)
3. It follows logically then that there is no sinner, and hence, no necessity of a Savior or of any plan of redemption. Christ and his sacrifice therefore has very little significance, and his coming to this earth had no purpose other than that it was an attempt to help men realize their purpose of existence in knowing the “unknown God” In fact, the letter alleges that it was a failed attempt, because although “the face of Christ is now everywhere,” men today are farther from knowing the “unknown God” than they have ever been. (p. 3).
4. Since there is no sin or redemption, neither is there a final judgment or reward. In fact, everyone at the end will realize that they have played the part they were meant to play in the history of the world (p. 9).
5. Finally, since the plan of salvation outlined so clearly in all of scripture is not necessary, we need a new way of interpreting the Bible, and that is to “look beyond the words themselves and connect with the divine mind” (p. 8).

Wow! Unbelievable! This was far beyond anything previous that we had heard from Juan Carlos, and it clearly exposed what he was really about! After I read the letter we met with all of the staff and went over it again. How many letters like this had Saúl already received? Just how indoctrinated might he be? We didn’t know how much he may have communicated with Juan Carlos during the three-month vacation, but we doubted that Juan Carlos would have shared such blatant heresies without having conditioned his target to be ready to accept them!
As we talked, more troubling details began to emerge. Damaris, one of our teachers who graduated a few years ago when Saúl was still a sophomore, and who had also been one of his romantic interests, shared that Saúl had given her a book on justification and had pressured her to read it, urging that it was of the utmost importance. At the time she hadn’t paid much attention to the incident, dismissing it as another one of his attempts to get her attention. She hardly even gave the book a glance. As it turned out, the book was by Juan Carlos, and Saúl had given it to several students as well. He also told several of his classmates that he had returned to the school that year for a specific purpose, and it was beginning to appear as though that purpose was to recruit more followers for Juan Carlos. Limbert, Joaquin, and other 3rd and 4th year students had recently begun to approach staff members with questions on the Sabbath, tithe, the covenants, and other teachings that had previously been clear to them.
Worried, and not without some righteous indignation, we began to form a plan of action to determine whether all of this was really part of a sinister plot as it appeared to be. Obviously we needed to talk to Saúl. But how would we broach the issues? Someone suggested we pray about it. We all knelt and poured out our concerns to the Lord, and I was struck by the realization that this was the first time in months that we had all been together on our knees as a staff, asking God’s guidance! As we prayed, I took courage from the story of King Hezekiah and how he prayed over a disturbing letter from the King of Assyria that was also attacking the nature and character of God.(iii) I knew that God would give us wisdom. We figured Saúl would already have some idea about what was coming, and we decided we should start by making it clear to him how much we care about him and his salvation. We wanted to be sure he knew that we were meeting with him because we were deeply concerned for him as well as those that he was influencing. Next we would ask him why he had decided to study here again this year and continuing with a series of questions on his personal beliefs, particularly in regard to the doctrines that had recently come under question. Each staff member chose a question to present so that one or two people wouldn’t do all of the talking.
It was in the wee hours of the morning by the time we finished planning and praying and went to get a few hours of sleep before the morrow's conflict.

(i) It was after reading this letter that Ruan realized what Juan Carlos had been intimating in his week of prayer sermon on angels back in 2009 (See Part 1, “A Trojan Among Us.”) By taking the out-of-context phrase “took upon himself the form of a servant” from the well-known passage about Christ in Philippians chapter two and connecting it with the thesis of his sermon that angels are “servants of God,” Juan Carlos was attempting to strip Christ of his divinity by making Him merely a created being like any of the angels!

(ii) This idea that God holds back essential knowledge from us is one of the very first accusations that Satan made in heaven. He wanted to enter into the secret councils of the Godhead. He was jealous of Christ, and spread lies and discontent to win over the other angels. He continued with the same rhetoric in the garden of Eden, claiming that God had forbidden the fruit because He wanted to hold back special knowledge from the human family. It is also noteworthy that this motif of secret knowledge and mysteries that can only be known by a select few, the initiated, is central to many popular clubs and organizations that at their highest levels are merely modern versions of ancient pagan cults, and thus Luciferian.

(iii) 2 Kings 19:10 “Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
19:11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered?
19:12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; [as] Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which [were] in Thelasar?
19:13 Where [is] the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah? 19:14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
19:14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
19:15 And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest [between] the cherubims, thou art the God, [even] thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.
19:16 LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.
19:17 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,
19:18 And have cast their gods into the fire: for they [were] no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.
19:19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou [art] the LORD God, [even] thou only.”

A Missionary of Another Nature

Hello everyone! Things have been insanely busy here with classes starting and a short-term mission group arriving from Weimar Academy to help build the church in Yata as well as hold an evangelistic series. The clutch on the truck went out, and we have had a number or other unexpected challenges, but the truck is working now, and God is blessing in spite of all the challenges.
It's always amazing the way most of the students are when they first come here brand new. By the end of the year you don't really realize how much they've grown until you contrast it with the new batch the next year! Friday I had my first classes, and even though I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, the Lord blessed me with some good ideas, and I’m excited about my classes. In the afternoon, I installed some lights and switches in the dorm for Lyli and the girls. I'm no electrician, so it was slow going. But it was certainly satisfying to get it all hooked up and have everything work despite my incompetence and all the interruptions I had. At one point I had to leave what I was doing for about an hour, so I turned the breaker back on in the meantime. When I returned I forgot that I had turned the power back on and promptly proceeded to cut a wire. The sparks went half way to the ceiling and my wire cutters were left with a burned spot in the middle. Thankfully, I wasn’t hurt at all. Just startled!
Sometimes it can get very frustrating to have students interrupting every little bit to ask a question or ask for help with something. God is helping me to learn more patience. I thought of Christ with the multitudes and I wonder how he ever put up with it. Yet he always looked on them with compassion and treated them with such love. Of course there were times when he escaped to the wilderness for a short time to have a rest too! On Thursday I had several students ask me to make them some metal dowelings to use to bunk their beds. I had them measure the size and bring me a model made from a stick, and then I found some old pieces of rebar and cut them to size and ground off the rough edges on the bench grinder. It was not a long or hard task, but in the moment it can seem so frustrating to have people ask little favors when you feel so busy and have so many things on your to-do list! Anyway, I often have to remind myself that I'm not here to get a list of certain quotidian tasks accomplished, but to minister to others.
Later I spent about an hour cutting a trail between the kitchen and the garden so I could get through to the kitchen with a wheelbarrow load of green papayas from a tree that had fallen during a recent storm. I also needed to take the compost from the kitchen to the garden as it had been piling up and no one else had gotten to it yet. When I emptied the compost, I found plastic trash mixed in with it and had to pick it out by hand! Yuck! So later that evening after worship I brought the compost bucket in with only the trash remaining that I had picked out and carried it around to all the kids to show them how unpleasant it is and ask their cooperation to not mix the trash! (We went over this many times last year and they never seemed to learn, so I thought the olfactory reinforcement might be useful this time!)
On Sabbath we took invitations cards for the evangelistic meetings to distribute in Yata. I had the kids make them for the Friday night activity. On the 6 km walk there and back (the clutch on the truck was still out at that point) I talked to one of the new students who is full of questions about the Bible and what Adventists believe. She grew up in Argentina, but her mom is Bolivian and they recently moved to Guayara. They found out about the school through her grandma who lives in Brazil and happened (I think providentially) to have her bus break down at the entrance to the school. Anyway, the school year seems to be off to a good, although hectic start. We ended up with about 45 students in the high school and 26 in elementary. There are a couple more who still may arrive. I had a neat conversation in Yata today inviting people to the meetings. They asked if we’d heard about the earthquake in Japan and it made for a nice conversation starter. I pointed them to Luke 21 and encouraged them not to ignore these signs that Christ’s return is near, “even at the door.”
And now for part two of my last story. I still didn’t get it all finished and part three will follow.

The Trojan Returns
“Satanic agencies are clothing false theories in an attractive garb, even as Satan in the Garden of Eden concealed his identity from our first parents by speaking through the serpent. These agencies are instilling into human minds that which in reality is deadly error. The hypnotic influence of Satan will rest upon those who turn from the plain word of God to pleasing fables.” {8T 294.1}

I remember being briefed about what had happened with Juan Carlos sometime after I arrived at the school in August of 2009, but I had no idea of just how profound and far-reaching his influence had been over some of the students. It wasn’t until nearly a year later when something very strange happened that I began to understand the seriousness of what we were dealing with.
When he first arrived, most of us had no idea who he was or what he had come for. He just showed up one Friday evening in August of 2010, just as we were welcoming the Sabbath. He introduced himself as Yani (pronounced almost like Johnny), a systems engineer from Santa Cruz. He had thick black hair and a plastic smile and smelled of too much cologne. Lyli and I showed him to the unoccupied room across from mine and made sure he was comfortable and had what he needed. Minutes later, Saúl, one of our seniors, showed up and began to converse excitedly with Yani as if he were a long-lost friend. That is pretty normal behavior for Saúl however, so I wasn’t too surprised, and went to the cafeteria, leaving them to converse alone, something I may not have done had I been present for Yani’s conversation with the directors and some of the staff directly upon arriving. When they asked Yani where he was from and how he had heard about the school. His response was that “he came to know about the school through a friend of his in the church in Santa Cruz.”
“Oh really? Who is your friend?”
“His name is Juan Carlos.”
“Really? What’s his last name.”
“Martinez Estrada.”
“Oh. He’s from Mexico, right?”
“Yeah.”
This was immediate cause for concern. What was Yani here for? (1).
He went on to share that he had come into the church from a Catholic background as a result of the sermons of Stephen Bohr, a name he must have known we would be comfortable with. Our concern continued to grow when, in church the next day, Ruan asked the congregation for a definition of the gospel and Yani quickly responded that it is “information to save us.”
On service day that week Saúl was going to sell granola in Guayara, and Yani decided he would like to go along. In the truck, I noticed he and Saúl off in a corner, deep in conversation. Yani was making some signals with his hand, and Saúl was staring at them intently, as if hypnotized, or at least extremely impressed. Trying to mask my concern, I moved closer and nonchalantly asked what they were doing.
“Oh, it is a logic game. I make these gestures following a pattern, and he has to guess what comes next.” Yani replied. Maybe it’s just an innocent mental exercise afterall, I told myself, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that there was something very strange about this guy (2). I stayed close for the rest of the trip, making occasional comments to counteract what I perceived as some imbalances in what he was saying. For example, he was explaining that according to the Bible we should stay single. Scripture is clear that one option is not more righteous than another, yet he seemed intent on convincing Saúl that celibacy is the way for God’s true people.
During the first part of the week, Yani had confined himself to his room where he seemed to dedicate all of his time to reading and prayer,(3) apart from meals and plenty of conversations with Saúl. Saúl even showed up late to his English class, according to his teacher, “because he was in Yani’s houses talking with him. He (Yani) is very secretive in his discussions with Saúl which is not the way Jesus taught.”
On several occasions I found opportunity to casually approach Saúl and Yani during their conversations to try to ascertain what Yani was teaching, but I couldn’t put a finger on anything definite. At times he would seem to focus too much on a certain aspect of a truth, but that can happen in any theological discussion, and when I would bring out the balancing scriptures he would always seem to agree. Still, I felt that there was something odd about the whole dynamic. Yani moved and acted “like a robot on a mission,” as some of the staff put it. He made no effort to take part in any of the school activities, although I did manage to convince him to attend our education workshop on Sunday afternoon. On one occasion I also got him to take a break from his reading and get some exercise raking up the grass that I was cutting behind the house. He consented, but he only lasted about half an hour before he went inside to shower and re-perfume himself, commenting on how hard country life is. Later I invited him to join me in the chaco during one of the work periods, and he agreed at first, but later said that he needed to prepare for a meeting with the directors. He wanted an opportunity to “speak about grace” to all of the students, a request we were not comfortable granting. After his meeting with the directors the next morning, Yani agreed to end his visit to the school, and I accompanied him to town. Once in town, the first thing he did was to ask for the address of Mequias, the young man who Juan Carlos had discipled here in Guayara. Thankfully, I don’t know where Mequias lives, so I left him with one of the church elders, explaining to him the situation. Eventually Yani was able to meet with Mequias, and while I have no idea what the two of them talked about, within another month Mequias had denied the Sabbath, tithe, and other key doctrines and had to be removed from his post as teacher at the Adventist school in Guayara and disfellowshipped from the church. He retaliated by airing a slanderous denouncement of his employers on the local news, claiming that they had taken tithe out of his paycheck without his consent and claiming that the students at the school are mistreated. Church officials and the conference attorney came and easily answered the legal accusations, but the church itself continued divided. Mequias frequently visited many of the members of his home church to gain their sympathy, and many were confused by the arguments that he presented. To what extent that division and confusion continues, I don’t know, but I am sure that it continues to this day.
Meanwhile, back at the school, things would soon come to a crisis. To be continued in part 3).

1. The directors would later receive an email from one of the volunteers in Santa Cruz, apologizing for Yani’s unexpected arrival and explaining that he had appeared suddenly at the airport just as the mission plane was leaving for Guayara, and had insisted that he was supposed to go to the school. The email also warned that Yani was one of Juan Carlos’ disciples, and had been involved in the divisions and dissensions in the churches of Santa Cruz.

2. Recently I have been reading The Omega Rebellion by Rick Howard, a pastor who before his conversion spent five years studying and practicing spiritualistic and eastern religious practices. The following passage reminded me of this incident with Yani and Sammy on the truck and revived my old suspicions about what was really going on. I’m still not sure if the “logic exercise” was innocent or not, but either way, I think it is important to be cognizant of the following: “I discovered through the study of and the actual practice of meditative techniques that all the religions and occult theories that enabled their followers to contact the world of the supernatural used certain meditative practices that eventually led to an altered level of consciousness. I discovered that it was essential to learn these techniques to get to that certain mental level where I was able to contact the supernatural worlds. To leave my body in astral projection or to have any of numerous supernatural experiences, this unique corridor of the mind must be reached through certain meditative practices. These practices always involved a focusing of the mind on one thing to the exclusion of anything else. It could be reached by focusing on sounds such as music; or through chanting and repetition or recitation of words; through the sensation of touch; or the use of visual exercises. I learned that the most effective and most rapid method of attaining an altered level of consciousness was through the creation of mental images… and sustaining that image” ( p.50).

3. At one point, Carrie, one of the teachers pressed him to share with her “what he had been studying, and he said grace. She asked him to share with her what he had learned and he said it would take too long. She asked him for a short summary and he said he hoped to share it with the whole school this week. Carrie asked if he had talked to Keila or Lily, who are in charge of the worships here, about sharing with the school and he said he hadn’t but that God would provide a time for him to share. He said he knows that his trip here is not to be in vain and he feels like he has this message to share with everyone.” (Quoted from an email that Jason Churchwell, Carrie’s husband wrote about the incident.)

A Trojan Among Us

Hello everyone! I’ve been back at the school for almost a week now, busy getting settled in and ready for the school year. I don’t remember if I told you that this year I am the campus chaplain and so am part of the administrative committee. This week my duties have been more janitorial in nature however, cleaning staff housing, fixing broken tools, and cutting back the indefatigable jungle that always goes on a blitzgreen during our rainy-season vacation. Even though several of our graduates stayed on to take care of the place, it’s way too much work for three or four people with the over 30 acres of rice, yucca, corn, and banana to take care of, not to mention having to cook, carry water, and hand-wash clothes. The mowing was lower on the priority list for obvious reasons, so the other day I went to empty the compost bucket and couldn’t even get to the compost pile because of the tangle of foliage. The trail to the spring was in slightly better condition.
I have had time for some more administrative-like duties, however. I met some parents and prospective students over the last week. I’m still not sure what our enrollment will be this year, but I think it should be comparable to last year. I know the primary school enrollment is already up to 22.
Sabbath afternoon we walked to Yata and visited several families, including most of the members who were baptized last year. Without the weekly services at the school chapel, most of them just didn’t meet together to worship during the vacation. From what the boys told us, some of them have been struggling. I took advantage of the opportunity to encourage them from the Word and call them to revival and reformation. We had a blessed time together. Please pray for the members of Yata, that they will find a deeper and more committed experience in the Lord and receive the Holy Spirit. Change comes so hard without it.
Well, that’s the quick update. Now for some material I started writing a LONG time ago, but I think you will still find interesting, and I hope, edifying.

A Trojan Among Us 3/09-10/10/10
“The experience of the past will be repeated. In the future, Satan's superstitions will assume new forms. Errors will be presented in a pleasing and flattering manner. False theories, clothed with garments of light, will be presented to God's people. Thus Satan will try to deceive, if possible, the very elect. Most seducing influences will be exerted; minds will be hypnotized.” {8T 293.4}

Espionage. Trickery. Deceit. Treachery. Sabotage. Turning turncoat. They’ve been on the list of most effective and most dishonorable ways to wreak havoc on enemy forces since man first began to war. Disguise yourself as a friend, infiltrate the defenses, and then cause an implosion. The scripture is clear that our great adversary in the greatest controversy ever waged will use such methods on God’s remnant people. He’s had a good long time to perfect his tactics since he invented war. He will send his agents with ever increasing frequency to masquerade as believers, and under the guise of spiritual leaders and instructors, undermine the very pillars of biblical faith and godliness while professing both. Some will even go so far as to deny that Jesus is the Christ! (1 John 2:18-19). Yet these wicked men will be so astute and misuse and subvert the scripture with such skill that God’s people will be divided and nearly destroyed (Acts 20:29-30). These charlatans are not like Jose Luís de Jesus Miranda, David Koresh, or Michael Travesser. Many of us seem to think that we will easily identify any antichrist attack, and assume that we will be among the few undeceived, even though the Bible declares that the final deceptions will be so subtle as to “deceive the very elect” if it were possible (Matt 24:24).
I grew up hearing the above biblical warnings, but they always seemed like some distant events that I would probably never experience personally. But not any more. I can now say that I have witnessed a very calculated and insidious antichrist attack from within the very school where I have been working for the last year and a half.
Toward the beginning of 2009, Juan Carlos Martinez Estrada came from Monterey, Mexico to work as a volunteer for Gospel Ministries International. He worked at UETIRG for the first two months of the school year. He had already been gone for as long by the time I arrived in August of 2009, yet the aftermath of his short stay has yet to be fully calculated.
An architecture graduate, Juan Carlos later studied theology at Montemorelos Adventist University for one year while living and working in the nearby city of Monterey, Mexico. Not long afterward, he contacted Gospel Ministries International with an interest in working at the school in Guayaramerín, but project leaders noticed his background in architecture and asked him to help with the construction projects in Santa Cruz instead. He agreed, and leaving his wife in Mexico, traveled to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. A few months later, however, with the school year imminent, the positions of boys’ dean and Social Studies teacher at UETIRG were still vacant, and Juan Carlos jumped at the opportunity. He came with recommendations as a good speaker with an interest in Bible work and evangelism (although the director of the RedAdvenir station had some misgivings.) He was friendly, jovial, helpful, confident, polished, and always willing to lead out in religious activities. He was also a keen observer, and quickly acquired a feel for the program as well as for individual personalities and interpersonal dynamics on campus. Within two weeks, he had won the confidence and respect of most of the staff and students, especially the boys. When he would preach, his dynamic speaking style held everyone spellbound. Even those students who didn’t have the biblical knowledge or the capacity to really follow his presentations listened as if mesmerized. He is well versed in the scriptures and the Spirit of Prophecy and quoted from them copiously, often from memory and in such quick succession that the mind was left without time to connect and analyze the passages. One simply remained impressed with his great knowledge and confident in his abilities and intentions. i It was not until some time had gone by that his true character and purpose began to come to light. “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matt 7:20).
When several of the boys began to talk about and demonstrate belief in salvation by works, the staff began to probe for where these ideas might be coming from. They soon discovered that, to all indications, the source was Juan Carlos. It made sense, as he often had ample time alone with the boys in the evenings. Looking back on it, several of the staff noted that, as a general rule, Juan Carlos didn’t much concern himself with the younger students, or engage in discussion with staff members who were settled in their faith, but targeted a select few, primarily the junior and senior boys. In fact, he asked permission to take a specific group of boys to Guayaramerin every Sabbath to do evangelism. The boys he wanted were the most knowledgeable and the most willing to help lead out in religious activities. Keila objected because she needed some student leaders to help with the outreach projects in Yata. Juan Carlos insisted on having certain individuals, however, and refused to be persuaded otherwise. In the end, they reached a compromise, and he took the three boys that he had most adamantly requested and began to visit the church members and give Bible studies in Guayaramerin.
There were other reasons that the rest of the staff began to feel uncomfortable with Juan Carlos. But it was one of those things that seemed more like “just a feeling” and they couldn’t quite pin down the concrete reasons for it. Ruan and Keila remember one of Juan Carlos’ week-of-prayer sermons in particular that seemed to be all about angels and their various roles. One of his key points was that angels are servants of God. He then quickly quoted from Philippians chapter two, cutting the passage short at the phrase that says Christ “took upon himself the form of a servant,” thus intimating, though he never said it outright, that Christ had at one point taken the form of an angel. (The logic itself is faulty, in addition to being unbiblical and out of context: not all servants of God are angles, and neither are all angels servants of God for that matter!) Juan Carlos did not develop the point or state it outright, however, and he mixed it in with such a plethora of red herrings about seraphim and cherubim that no one identified his preposterous and sneaky insinuation let alone its real purpose — until recently when some more things came to light. But I’ll get to that later in part II.
All was not well in the churches in town either. The pastor, at first happy for the extra evangelistic help, soon became disgruntled with Juan Carlos’ because he was causing divisions and seemed to be gaining undue influence over certain members. One of these was a young man by the name of Mequias, a sincere seeker who longed for something more than the superficial religion and hypocrisy that he saw rampant in the churches. He was attracted to Juan Carlos’ apparent depth, and to his call for reform and salvation through perfection, and soon he was an ardent follower, all too willing to vocalize what he was learning. The pastor finally took a stand and let Juan Carlos know that his services were no longer needed at the Guayaramerin churches.
At the school, Juan Carlos continued to disciple his favorite students. A key element in his approach was an appeal to pride. The boys began to feel that they were a special, privileged group with important new truths, and a mission to fulfill. Juan Carlos began to tell them that they were wasting their time in a study of subjects such as science and mathematics, and that all they needed was to seclude themselves in the jungle and study the Bible in preparation for preaching the gospel to Bolivia. This idea soon reflected in the boys’ attitude toward the school.
Nor where the boys the only ones Juan Carlos had talked to about the subject. Breaking his pattern of avoiding sharing with the staff, he approached Keila multiple times to convince her that the educational model implemented by the school needed drastic revision. Eventually he went so far as to tell her that the only real solution was to start the school over from scratch. On various occasions he alluded to dreams and other revelations as evidence. Keila, however, wisely refused to listen to his arguments in the absence of the other staff.
“If you have something new to share, why not present it to everyone at the staff meeting?” she would suggest whenever he brought up the subject.
“They won’t accept it” was his standard reply.
“How do you know? We have all been praying together that God will show us His methods of education. If you have some truth to present on the subject they will be happy to hear it.”
He refused, and related a dream he claimed to have had as evidence. In the dream, Tara had vocally opposed his views. He also cited biblical examples of when God’s people refused to hear truth.
“Maybe so, but that didn’t stop them from presenting it!” Keila noted.
At last, he reluctantly agreed to share his ideas with all of the staff.
In the meeting, Juan Carlos presented an interesting picture for his proposed educational reform. Among other things, he declared that the boys and girls should be educated differently. The boys would have special instruction in the scripture and in prophecy while the girls, he maintained, should have a more limited biblical instruction and concentrate more on learning domestic skills. Clint Wlasenko strongly contested that point. Tara, on the other hand, remained uncharacteristically silent, contrary to the dream that Juan Carlos had related to Keila.
Throughout the meeting, the staff also took the opportunity to uplift righteousness by faith, the only real theological difference that had been clearly identified up to that time. At one point in the meeting, Juan Carlos cited only part of Revelation 14:12, the part that says God’s people will keep the commandments, so Ruan pointed out that the text also says that they will have the “faith of Jesus.” Juan Carlos ignored this comment and repeated that God’s people will keep the commandments. Ruan again read the verse in its entirety, and Juan Carlos again repeated only the first half. It soon became apparent that the meeting was going nowhere.
Everything came to a crisis when Juan Carlos took twelve of the boys away from the Sabbath afternoon meeting and left campus to have their own worship out in the jungle. The directors were off-campus at the time, and when they returned that evening, they found everyone astir. While upset faculty recounted what had happened, several of the boys who had gone into the jungle arrived and zealously announced that they were going to quit school and go preach the gospel to all of Bolivia.
The directors called a general meeting with the upper classmen, Juan Carlos, and all the staff. As Ruan described it, at the meeting Juan Carlos said very little, but folded his arms, smiled smugly, and listened while the boys defended him. When asked what was going on and what were his designs in all of this, he just shrugged and with a slight smirk pointed to the boys. “It’s not me, it’s them!” he said, as if the boys had come to all their conclusions on their own. They, for their part, continued to staunchly defend him, claiming that the school was not teaching the pure truth because it offered other classes and subjects apart from the Bible. The staff tried to reason with the boys, but they only became angry, and the meeting quickly deteriorated. The administrative committee gave Juan Carlos an ultimatum: either fix the problems he had caused, or leave.
Juan Carlos chose to leave, claiming that he had been shown that it was God’s will. Unfortunately, the staff did not know where he planned to go, and did not send out any advisements to the church conference at that time. ii As it turned out, he traveled to Santa Cruz and La Paz where he repeated his tactics. After gaining devout followings, he began to make more drastic shifts in his teachings, generating controversy over doctrines such as tithe, the law, the Sabbath, the nature of God, the sanctuary message, and the judgment. Multiple congregations have split, and many members have rejected the truth and willfully left the church. Others have been disfellowshipped. Church leaders made various attempts to persuade Juan Carlos of his error and call him to repentance, but he was unwilling, and rather seemed to delight in his power to divide. At last he was asked to no longer speak within the Adventist churches here in Bolivia and he left the country to return to Mexico. He has retained contact with his followers here in Bolivia, however, and by this means has continued to cause strife and divisions. He also wrote a book and recorded a series of sermons on DVD to further indoctrinate his follower and to provide them with material to share with others in the church.
Meanwhile, back here at the school, the influence of Juan Carlos lived on. Several of the boys continued to hold the idea that they could be good enough to earn salvation through their own works, and Ruan dedicated an entire Sabbath school class to salvation by faith to try to counteract it. Of the three boys who Juan Carlos took with him to town every Sabbath, Saúl was the most heavily influenced. Samuel is outgoing and intelligent, with a curious mind and very keen powers of observation. He makes it his business to know everybody else’s, and he seems perfectly harmless. He would make an excellent spy. Juan Carlos probably thought so too. At any rate, unbeknownst to the staff, he emailed Saúl regularly throughout the remainder of the 2009 school year, trying to further indoctrinate him, and perpetuating the idea that Samuel had a special mission to perform. (Although that mission had now changed. Instead of leaving the school, he should stay and do his best to influence others.)
I still remember several conversations I had with Saúl that year, and they make a lot more sense to me now after hearing the background, and after the ordeal we had last September, which I will recount next time in part II.

i Ellen White describes a very polished and impressive man who similarly used his gift of persuasion to confuse and deceive others: “The long night interviews which Dr. Kellogg holds are one of his most effective means of gaining his point. His constant stream of talk confuses the minds of those he is seeking to influence. He mis-states and misquotes words, and places those who argue with him in so false a light that their powers of discernment are benumbed. He takes their words, and gives them an impress which makes them seem to mean exactly the opposite of what they said.” {BCL 109.1}
ii Both the Bolivian conference and we here at the school have since sent out warning letters to church administrators on the union and division level.

Back in Bolivia

As of this writing I am back in Bolivia after an absence of two and a half long but very enjoyable months of travel in which I was privileged to see many of you, although briefly. I want to thank each one of you for your interest and support in my work here, whether it has been through donations, words of encouragement, your faithful prayers, or a combination of all of the above. May the Lord richly bless you all!
So much has happened since the last time I wrote. Some amazing things are happening. Not only here in the mission field, but everywhere I go I see God’s hand like I’ve never seen it before. There is a movement afoot, a spiritual awakening, and I want to be right in the middle of it! Over the last two months I have been to Colombia, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, the Generation Youth for Christ convention in Baltimore, and to various churches throughout the northwest and California, and nearly everywhere I go I see young people excited about serving others and sharing the Word of God.
In Bagota, Colombia, I met a group of young people who are working to penetrate the national television networks with programs on health and the Bible. In Honduras I met the Zwiker brothers from Switzerland. After attending the European Bible School, they felt impressed with the need for many other similar centers to equip young people as missionaries through practical instruction combine with active service for others. Together with José Suazo, they founded VIDA International, a Missionary training college that uses an English language school and agriculture program to impact the local communities. Damaris, one of our graduates from the high school here in Bolivia, continued her education at VIDA. When she came back to teach classes for us last year, she told us stories of doing medical-evangelism in a hostile community. Although she and the team she worked with faced fierce opposition, God worked on the heart of the local radio station director to give them an hour of prime time to share their program on health and advertise for their seminars on Bible prophecy. Not long afterward, some violent young men, stirred up by some of the disgruntled local clergy of other denominations threatened the missionary team with death if they did not leave. They arrived armed at one of the homes where the team was treating a sick man, but Damaris and the others were able to escape unharmed, passing by the gangsters as though unseen.
In Belize, a new and similar school will soon be opening. This December Jeff Sutton went there to search for land for the site, and the last I heard was that someone donated 80 acres complete with an airplane hangar and runway! In Baltimore a week or two later, I met some youth-group leaders from Belize and we were able to put them in contact with the new project. GYC Baltimore was another incredible experience. God’s Spirit was there! I had the privilege of joining a group for organized prayer, and I was surprised by the bond of fellowship I experienced with total strangers as we united in earnest prayer, seeking God through repentance and humble confession, and asking for the blessings of His Holy Spirit to transform and empower our lives.
Right in my hometown of Oroville, a Bible-worker and colporteur training school called the Oak is in the Acorn is involving local youth in active ministry. I was so encouraged to hear the stories of some of these young men, how God is using them to bring hope to people who are desperately looking for answers in these uncertain and difficult times. And all of this is just a quick overview. I have over thirteen pages of unfinished stories that I want to share with you, along with probably at least that much that I haven’t even begun to write yet. God is clearly working. Or maybe I should say, God’s people are finally letting Him work through them.
At the same time, of course, Satan is furious and clearly active to conquer human hearts, to bring in division, quarrels, confusion, deception, and compromise, and to preempt the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit with a false revival and interest in an experiential spirituality that is full of power, but void of true Christian love, that love which enables obedience to God’s holy law through a living connection with Christ (John 14:15, 15:9-15).
So, the new school year begins in a couple of short weeks, and the staff is arriving early to prepare and plan and seek the Lord together. We have a group coming from Weimar Academy to help build the church in Yata. They were only able to raise a little under half of the $20,000 needed to finish the project, but we should at least have a roof to meet under! A big thank-you to all of you who have contributed to that project.
Well, I have a flight to catch to finish the last leg of my trip back up to the school. I’ll try to get another update out before another three months go by. And by the way, if you have any exciting things to share that God is doing in your life, make sure to tell somebody! I for one would love to hear about it. May God bless and keep you.