verb
1 campaign,
electioneer, stump, barnstorm.
2 poll, question, ask, survey, interview.
3 seek,
try to obtain.
“For the Son of man
came to seek and to save that which was lost…” Matthew 18:11
“Teacher, are we going to go canvassing* tomorrow?” Abigail and Yarra
eagerly bombarded me with questions as soon as I answered their knock on the
door. Why yes, and it seems you are
getting a head start on it tonight aren’t you?
“We heard that the truck is
broken down and won’t be going, but we can pay for our bus passage!”
“Don’t worry, I was planning that we would go anyway” Their enthusiasm
made me smile. “We will meet briefly in the classroom after breakfast and from
there we’ll walk to the entrance.”
As usual, the next morning I had one thing after another to attend to.
As often is the case, I felt so unprepared and incapable for the work ahead of
me and breathed a plea for some divine aid. I was still finishing breakfast and
cramming my lunch, water bottle, and canvassing supplies in my satchel when
there was another knock on my door. I opened to see all five of my canvassers
in a row, spiffed-up and ready to go. They weren’t about to wait in the
classroom for me to show up!
“Well, since you’re all here why don’t you come in and we’ll pray and
read something short.” The selection from Colporteur
Ministry spoke of the importance of the work before us promised that angels
would go ahead of us to arrange appointments and prepare the hearts of the
people. We prayed and I asked specifically that God would guide us to the right
part of town and that we would be quick to discern the opportunities given to
us. At some point that morning I also prayed silently for an opportunity to
witness while on the ride to town. I imagined talking to someone on the bus,
but if we didn’t catch the bus I figured God would make sure whoever picked us
up would be someone we could share with. It was now nearly 8:40 and we needed
to hurry if we were going to make the bus.
Wow, it is going to be a scorcher today! I am
going to get fried! I realized
as I left the house. Should I go back for
a hat? No, all of my hats are horrendous eyesores. I would definitely scare any
potential clients. I do have the European cabby-style hat that looks decent,
but it won’t shade my neck and ears. Lord,
please protect me so I don’t come back like a lobster! I prayed.
En route I had the kids practice their door-approach and presentation.
They are still pretty rusty. They prefer to fly by the seat of their pants, a
risky and ineffective way to “wing it,” as any child who has survived a “flight”
from the barn roof could tell you.
No sooner did we have the main road in sight than the 9:00 bus whizzed
by.
“Well Lord, so much
for making the bus.” Not more than ten minutes had passed however, when a dump
truck came chugging up the grade from the bridge at Tres Arroyos. We flagged it
down, but the cab was already occupied so we clambered up the narrow ladder and
over the side. It was dusty and noisy, but we were thankful for the ride anyway,
and even more so when we passed the bus, broken down on the shoulder about 20
minutes down the highway! Soon we were pulling into town.
Well
Lord, where do you want us to get off? As is often the case, I heard no clear answer.
Lord, when am I going to learn to
distinguish your voice from the clamor of my own thoughts? Am I really so hard
of hearing, or am I just too impatient? We kept chugging along for a couple of blocks,
and then the dump truck made a left turn and stopped along the curb. Well, this is where we get off, I guess. Is
this where we are supposed to work today too? Is this really the way it works?
Shouldn’t I hear a voice, or at least have some distinct impression or
something? I mean, how ridiculous to think that wherever the truck stops must
be where we are supposed to work!
We climbed down from the dump truck bed, and I approached the cab to pay
our fare. To my surprise, the driver only asked for 20 bolivianos for all six
of us, a 33% discount from the going rate! Praise the Lord! I handed him the
cash along with a couple of GLOW tracts and continued to survey the
neighborhood. Two entire blocks in this sector were all inside a gated compound
that serves as a base for naval officers. Could this be the place God wanted us
to work today? I wondered if we could get permission to go inside. Where could
I ask? Not a soul was in sight. I hesitated. Well, first things first. I needed
to appoint a meeting place within walking distance for the lunch hour, and I
needed to assign territory to the two other teams. I remembered that there was
a plaza just a few blocks away, and we headed in that direction. With our
rendezvous designated, and the other teams distributed to their respective
blocks, I found myself back on the naval base street with my student Gadiel. There
was one house between us and the base, and we went there first. It was an
in-home carpenter shop, and I admired some of the finer furniture I have ever
seen in these parts while I waited for someone to answer our hearty “¡Buenos días!” I could see some young men working in the back part of the workshop
adjoined to the house, but they paid us no mind. A young woman soon emerged
from inside however, and listened politely to our canvass, expressing interest
in one of the health magazines, but finally declined with the typical “no
money” rejection. I thanked her for her time and asked if she wouldn’t mind if
we spoke to the workers in the back.
“No problem” she obliged. “I’ll call
them.” I repeated the speech to the carpenter, and received the same response.
As we turned to go, the young woman called for us to wait.
“I found some cash!” she exalted.
“I’ll take that magazine after all!” As we left the house I couldn’t pass up
the lesson without making a comment to my protégé.
“See what we would have missed if we
hadn’t asked to speak to the workers in the back? That’s the blessing of
persistence and diligence in taking advantage of every opportunity!” The
mini-lecture was as much for me as for anyone as we approached the gated naval
base. Just as we were nearing the front gate, I saw a pickup truck with a
uniformed officer on it’s way out of the compound.
“Hurry! Let’s try to talk to this
gentleman before he leaves!” We caught him just at the gate and explained what
we were doing.
“Who would I talk with to get
permission to canvass inside the compound?” I asked.
“Permission?” he smiled. “Don’t
worry about it. You are free to go inside. There aren’t many people home today
though, and just be careful of the dogs. There are some biters in here. You
might want to go around the block and enter at the other gate.” We thanked him
and tried a quick canvass on him as well, but he was in a hurry and waved us
on.
We took his advice and started
around the block toward the other gate. On our way, there were two more houses
outside the compound and there were people home at each of them so I decided to
stop there first. After all, the man had said there weren’t many people at home
in the base anyway. You’re just stalling
because you don’t want to face the dogs. I reproached myself and again
doubted if I were not making the wrong decision. But I remembered my own sermon
on opportunities. Here I had people in sight, I better go talk to them. As for
the dogs, I would see them soon enough. The first house was a quick stop with
no results. We called at the second house, a clap-board shanty with the door
left ajar, and a little girl peaked out at us, followed by a heavy feminine
voice inviting us inside. The dingy, two-room house had a dirt-floor, two beds and
a table in one corner. There were three women in the house, and several
children, and I was surprised to recognize a taxi lady who had taken me to town
from the bus station and given me a ride on at least one other occasion. She
remembered me as well, we exchanged greetings, introduced ourselves, (her name
is Jovanah) and I began to explain what we were doing.
“Junior, come here” she suddenly
shouted into the next room. “I want my son to come listen to what you have to
say” she flashed us a gold-toothed grin. “Junior, come listen to these young
men and take a lesson from them and see that there are young people who are
doing something good and useful with their lives!” Poor Junior emerged looking
quite sheepish, but he greeted us and sat down on one of the two beds across
from his mother. The rest of the children gathered around as well. We began to
talk about the books and magazines, and soon all were busily scanning over the
materials.
“Oh, these are beautiful books!”
Jovanah exclaimed. “I like all of these, but I think for today we can only take
this one” she indicated Señales de
Esperanza, or Signs of Hope, a
book about the signs of Christ’s soon return by pastor Alejandro Bullon. “I
want to give this to my older boy” she explained. “He will be going to prison
soon and I want him to have something to give him hope. Do you have any Bibles
for sale?”
“I don’t have any with me today, but
I can bring you one.”
“Oh please do!”
“Do you have any songbooks?” asked
one of the little girls. “Sometimes I go to the evangelical church and they
sing hymns and I like it a lot. Can you bring us a song book too?”
I agreed to bring the materials the
next time I came to town. We spent nearly an hour talking to these hungry
souls.**
“I am so worried about Junior!”
Jovanah explained to us. “I hardly see him. First thing in the morning after
breakfast he disappears and goes with his friends and I don’t see him until
late at night unless he needs something. He doesn’t help around the house at all.
Just this morning I had to cruelly punish him because he got home late again
last night. I don’t want him to make decisions like his older brother and end
up in jail.”
“How old is Junior.”
“Fourteen.”
At that point someone arrived at the
house on a motorcycle and Jovanah excused herself to go speak to him. I took
advantage of the opportunity to make conversation with Junior.
“Don’t you have to go to school
today”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The teacher told me not to come.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t have a uniform.”
“Why don’t you have a uniform.”
“My mother won’t buy one for me.”
We didn’t get any further in our
conversation, but I began to wonder if there were not more to this situation
than what met the eye. In any case, their situation is surely a case for
prayer. When Jovanah returned she bought Signs
of Hope and we collected the rest of the materials form the children and
put them away and offered prayer for the entire family.
By the time we left Jovanah’s house
and proceeded to the naval base I had forgotten about the dogs…
TO BE CONTINUED
*The type of
canvassing we are doing here is door to door sales of health-magazines, bibles,
and inspired literature on the life of Christ, prophecy, and other topics. But above all it is the work of seeking out the needy and showing them the way to find hope and courage and salvation.
**I was able to stop
by the next week and leave a Bible. I still need to get ahold of a hymnal.
