Greetings all, and happy holidays to
you! I apologize for the lack of communication the last few months, but I
certainly appreciate those who have not forgotten us and have lifted us up
continually before the throne of grace. Lord knows how we need it! We give Him
all the glory for bringing us safely to the end of another school year. We
finished with a flurry of activity and are so thankful for the change of routine
and scenery over the next couple of months.
This has been a year of
unprecedented blessings, including a good number that have presented themselves
in the form of trials. I can’t tell you about all of them yet, but I know they
are all recorded in heavenly high definition, and will no doubt be open for
review sooner than we imagine. In the meantime I’ll share a few blessings in
summary.
Right now Lyli and I are visiting her parents in Mexico. We
had expected to spend this vacation at the school in Bolivia, but we received
an invitation and flight to a mission summit at the MOVE (Missionary Outreach
Volunteer Evangelism) Bible school in Belize, only a few hours away from the
folks in Mexico. Lyli was ecstatic. She hadn’t seen her parents in nearly two
years, and it was about time! God is so good, much more than we deserve!
We spent 10 days this month at MOVE, attending seminars on
topics ranging from accounting and education to welding and small engine
repair. What encouragement it was to hear the testimonies of other volunteers,
including our good friend Warren McDaniels who is starting a new Bible
missionary college in northeastern Argentina called BEAM (Blueprint Education
to Advance Missions), to our knowledge the first school of its kind in that
country!
A SKETCH OF WHERE WE’VE BEEN AND WHERE
WE’RE HEADED
The Toyota Tundra that God gave us at the beginning of the
year is running like a champ and has been quite the missionary truck. With it
we were able to open the colporteur work in a number of communities as well as
the city of Riberalta. On Sabbath
afternoons during the second semester, Lyli and I took a group and drove to the
prison in Guayaramerin, where by God’s grace we formed three separate Bible
study groups in different cellblocks, all with a very positive response. On our
way to the prison we dropped off another group at a cattle ranch to give Bible
studies to Maribel, the mother of two girls in our primary school. On November
21 she and her oldest daughter were baptized along with seven of our boarding
students on the same day that we dedicated our new school chapel!
Next year we intend to extend our outreach to serve the
communities around us, and God certainly seems to concur. Within the next
couple months, Steve Wilson, a pilot friend of ours with his family will move
to the school to open the aviation program. During the last few months they
have already made several medical evacuation flights, including a six-year-old
boy who spilled a kettle of boiling water on himself while
his mom was distracted in the other room.
We have cleared a good portion of the
old runway that was dozed out several years ago, and Lord willing, the airstrip
will be finished and authorized for use some time during this next school year.
In addition to the med-evac flights, the plan is to organize students and staff
into flying missionary squadrons to do medical work in the villages over the
weekends. Please join us in prayer for missionary volunteers and funds to
continue the work.
I also dream that God will send someone to open a small
lifestyle clinic close by to work independently but in connection with the
school. A house with a few guestrooms and equipped to do hydrotherapy and
message would be sufficient to open many doors in the community and also
provide our students with invaluable learning opportunities in medical
missionary lines. Our frontage property with the main highway is one possible
location.
The agriculture program is another area that needs a lot of
help, but we have reason for encouragement. This year our rice harvest fed us
the entire year and planted next years’ fields with surplus to spare. A brand
new Massey-Ferguson tractor, brush hog, and disc-plow is taming the jungle down
nicely. The Lord sent us an agriculture
enthusiast from South Africa, and although he was only with us for about six
weeks, the garden showed a marked improvement with his patient attention. His
name is Clinton Herman and he is currently working on residency papers in Santa
Cruz, and plans to be with us this next school year.
Work while there’s daylight
“I must work the works
of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”
John 9:4 KJV
A number of weeks ago, the radiator on our diesel generator
sprung a leak, and by the time we realized what was happening the motor seized.
The diagnosis was $1000 worth of damage. God provided the needed funds almost
immediately, as well as wisdom and understanding to Cornelio and Edwin to be
able to take apart and put the machine back together. While we waited for the
parts to arrive, Mr. Antonio, our carpentry shop teacher, kindly lent his
personal generator, and it was enough to give us light and pump water.
Unfortunately, Antonio’s generator broke down as well, and we would have been
left in the dark, were it not for a third generator that arrived this school
year with Edwin, a graduate of the MOVE mission program in Belize. The third
generator is smaller still, however, and barely keeps the lights lit. The
frozen bananas and mangos went bad, and the water pump has been limited to
operation during hours of direct sunlight when our solar panels are working at
maximum efficiency. Miraculously, however, rainy season seemed to be on hold.
The rain and overcast skies disappeared during the two weeks that the generator
was down. Without this gracious intervention, we would have been hauling all
our water from the creek. As it is, we have been hauling some water for washing
and for the construction site.
It is incredible what softies we are
in this generation, even when we live in the bush. The week after graduation we
were in the dark again. Friday afternoon we had a monstrous electrical storm
pass directly overhead, and lightening fried the motherboard on one of the
inverters on our electrical system. Our solar system is unusable in the
meantime. We were right in the middle of end-of-the-year paperwork, and in
order to finish we had to move the office to a friend’s house in town where
five of us worked all day to finish the necessary documents. Amazing how
dependent we are on light and power to work and get things done. So often we
take it for granted. How much longer will we have the favorable conditions that
we now enjoy for spreading the gospel? As Christ said, we must work while it is
day. Day lights a burnin’! Let’s not waste a minute of it!
So what comes next? Only God knows, and we trust him to show
us the way. After nearly seven years at the Bolivia Industrial School, we sense
a possible change in the wind, but for now our tentative plan is to return to
Bolivia in February.
One possible change is to move off-campus to the village of
Yata to work more directly with the parents who send their children to our
school while continuing to teach half-days. Whatever we do, we sense an urgency
to work with greater efficiency, determination, joy and dependence on God then ever
before. Jesus will come and it can’t be long now, we can see His shadow on
the threshold!
