Oblivia

Banking for the Kingdom of Heaven

2011-08-06T15:39:00.001-04:00

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

2011-06-09T14:39:00.001-04:00

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).

2011-06-07T15:19:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-04-05T15:34:00.005-04:00

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

2011-03-15T15:23:00.002-04:00

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

2011-02-21T10:59:00.002-04:00

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

2011-02-15T14:52:00.002-04:00

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.

Learning from the Engineer of True Education

2010-10-05T16:49:00.002-04:00

Preface trestle

“This train is bound for glory, get onboard and I’ll tell you the story…”

Just imagine one of those high wooden bridges with two iron rails, and here you are, at that point where the span departs from terra firma, wondering if you should risk the crossing. I know, it takes time to pick your way across these oily ties, taking care not to slip between the cracks, and there’s always the chance the train will appear while you’re out there in the middle. Well, it’s a decision you will have to make, but by way of encouragement, the best of what I have to say lies on the other side of here, and this train of thought is not likely to come back your way anytime soon!
For those of you who may have wondered what ever happened to me, at least now you know that I’m still here, or back here, (after a few weeks stateside in August for my cousin’s wedding and grandparents’ 60th anniversary) chugging along, sometimes whistling, sometimes steaming, sometimes ha-chooing, but always chugging—water if nothing else! (It’s the only way to survive when the humidity makes the air drinkable!)
Quite a train of events has passed since I wrote last. Little by little I’m learning that I have to quit trying to be the engineer if I want to avoid derailments, and that every time I give up the controls to God, He does some radical conducting! I just pray for vigilance to recognize and preempt any Sundance stunts and hijacking bandits’ attempts to uncouple me from the engine and my amazing Engineer!
Hey, how about that, you’re almost across already! Before you know it you’ll be on the caboose, and from there it’s just clickity-clack and a little car hopping and you’ll be all caught up to speed.

7/14/2010 Anteater or Ant Eaten?
“For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Matthew 7:2

I’m walking down the driveway on my way to Yata for my Wednesday afternoon Bible study when Oso and the other dog that the kids call Pollo Frito, or “Fried Chicken” crash off into the brush, barking hard enough to strip every tree in the jungle. These dogs are no hounds, but their ruckus is clearly the baying of the chase, and although Fried Chicken is braver than his name, his yelps and howls sound like something dying.
On the way home we find the body. Not Pollo, but a little oso hormiguero, or anteater, lying in the ditch. The dogs just left him there after a good drag, the way little kids leave their bedraggled stuffed animals lying in the dirt when they tire of the fun and games. I take a closer look and notice that the carcass is already swarming with ants! Now there’s a parable for how your diet can come back to bite you! (Ironic how what we spend our lives consuming often becomes the very thing that consumes us.) I’d like to think that the ants only want to bust out their buddies who got slurped up alive—or slurped up a live straw—but more likely they’re present for a more practical purpose than to revenge their cousin’s obliterated colony, though they do seem to dance as they carry away the morsels of the giant enemy’s flesh, and I imagine each little armored warrior bragging to his comrades about the dismantled foe, and planning in which halls and tunnels to hang their gory trophies.

Know the Word… 7/23/2010

“Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the way of the evil one, from the man that speaketh froward things.” Proverbs 2:11-12

When Daniela found a new pink shirt while shopping with her girlfriends during summer vacation, she didn’t think to ask anyone about the meaning of the single English word emblazoned across the front. After all, the shirt fit good, and her friends all agreed that it was cute, with the letters prettily choreographed in glitter. Besides, Daniela was learning a little bit of English, and the word clearly read beach, which as she had learned in class, means playa in Spanish.
Unfortunately, however, Daniela’s beach was spelled with an “itch,” and nobody was around to tell her the difference until after her purchase. She was already sporting her new shirt when I happened to pass by with a couple of other teachers and we quietly broke the news to her. No one can tell me that Hispanics don’t blush! I felt sorry for the poor girl. What a diabolical deal, to pay for self-deprecation, to buy what is effectively an advertisement of self-exploitation! Hopefully she learned that it’s not a good idea to take ownership of something you don’t understand, or even what you think you understand, unless you know that you can completely trust the source!
But Daniela is not the only one to mortify herself with words. Even after a few years of practicing Spanish, it’s still easy to make a fool of yourself, from the common slip of the tongue, to the flat-out malapropism of a word because you honestly thought it meant something else. For Jeff, the former type of mistake turned a fellow’s broken huesos (bones) into his broken huevos (eggs), a phrase vulgarly understood the way “broken balls” would be in English. You can imagine the outburst that ensued! I made a similarly awkward mistake in class the other day when I read originador (originator) as orinador (one who pees). (Why do all the changes tend to be to the crude and the foul? Or are those just the ones we notice and remember?) Fortunately I caught my mistake almost before the students did, so at least I knew what we were laughing about.
Unwitting malapropisms, on the other hand, are harder to detect—especially when what you said still made sense but didn’t communicate the idea you thought it did. I had this problem in Yata not too long ago when I used the phrase estar pendiente to try to communicate how we should wait on the Lord. In my experience I was sure I remembered hearing the word used in contexts that communicated that idea, yet when I looked it up in the dictionary later I realized that of the phrase’s many definitions, “to pay very close attention to,” is probably the nearest to my intended meaning. Well, I thought, that’s not too far off; we do need to play closer attention when we wait on the Lord. But then I realized that the definition “to pay close attention” is usually used in the sense of “watching out for” or “taking care of” and then I understood the confused looks that had followed my spiel about “taking care” of God!
Yet all this talk of not knowing words makes me ask myself: How often do I play the fool in my spiritual experience because of my failure to truly know the Word? How often do I wear God on my shirt while people read an opposite message? Can more study and more practice alone exorcise the pride of my spiritual malapropism? Have I learned the given definitions of God well enough to incorporate them properly into today’s sentence, this year’s paragraph, and my life’s story? (For “…we spend our years as a tale that is told” Psalm 90:9).
I want the divine character to be woven into every plot and subplot of my life! May it be the rising action and the conflict resolution, the climax and conclusion, but most of all, may it be readable for what it is!

Education Reform 9/12/10

“In the education and training of youth, the great object should be the development of character. Every individual should be fitted rightly to discharge the duties of the present life, and to enter at last upon the future, immortal life. Moral, intellectual, and physical culture must be combined in order to have well-developed, well-balanced men and women.” {YI, March 31, 1898 par. 1}

How does one incorporate the formation of character into the education curriculum? One thing is certain; merely talking about it in class doesn’t suffice! Intellectual development without an accompanying instruction in moral and physical lines is a surefire way to raise a majority of little devils, cunning and intelligent to do evil, diabolically wise in self-seeking and self-exaltation, and with a superabundance of time to develop and perfect their mischief, due largely to their lack of useful and practical employment.
In our staff meetings this final trimester, we have been going through Studies in Christian Education by E.A. Southerland, a part history and part handbook on Christian educational reform. There is no way I can share in one email everything I’ve been learning, but here is a brief summary. Some of the important reforms we’ve learned about include a solid training and practical application of health reform, physical labor and training instead of athletic programs, a rural school location with land for the purpose of agriculture, the place of the Bible in the curriculum, and student self-government and democracy. In all my training in education at the university, I heard little to nothing about any of these topics as being important, or even a small part of education, with the exception of the last, which was given some minimal attention and inadequate depth in application.
I have been amazed by how much of modern education is still steeped in the forms and practices that were instituted in the days of the counter-reformation. The early protestant reformers realized that the key to their success lay in reaching the minds of the youth through education. As a result, they instituted a widespread educational reform that in a single generation converted many countries into protestant nations, creating the catalyst for the rise of democracy, free market enterprise, and free thinking. Realizing that the authority of the Catholic Church could never be enforced upon such societies, the champions of the counter-reformation focused largely on infiltrating and slowly changing education back to the old forms. Southerland quotes from Rosencranz and Painter, noting that to accomplish this, Catholic educators (especially those of the Jesuit order), concentrated on exclusively cultivating the memory of students in order to minimize freethinking and clear judgment. In addition, external motivators such as emulation and competition were heavily promoted. Southerland, again quoting Painter, notes that in the Jesuit system of education “’nothing will be held more honorable than to outstrip a fellow student and nothing more dishonorable than to be outstripped. Prizes will be distributed to the best pupils with the greatest possible solemnity.’” I don’t know about you, but I see too much of that attitude alive and well in most of today’s schools!
Through reading Southerland, I was also surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson was a founding father, not only of the United Sates, but also of education reform in the United States. Unfortunately, the changes he instituted at Virginia University are nowhere to be seen today. As many critics have pointed out over the years, many of our problems today can be traced back to the overall failure of our educational system. Yet although there are occasional voices of reform that are guiding in the right direction, things like standardized testing or better funding are more often offered as a panacea to our educational ills.

Planting Prep 9/15/10

“No nation will long survive the decay of its agriculture” Thomas Jefferson, as quoted in Pagan vs. Christian Education, p. 43.

The dry season will soon give way to the rains, and with the rain will come spring planting. But planting involves a bit more than merely poking some seeds into the ground. First, one has to uncover the earth from its patchwork quilt of scrub-brush, grasses, vines, shrubs, and other variously assorted foliage and thorned greenery that has thickly blanketed the fields despite the drier weather. Shaving the face of Mother Nature with a machete leaves a lot of stubble and the barbecho grows back pretty fast if you don’t follow up your cutting with a good burn. The fourteen acres (approximately) of last year’s rice and corn chaco all has to be cut and burned again, or anything new we plant will live a short life before asphyxiation. Ideally, the ground should be plowed as well, but we have neither tractor nor oxen, and although there are plans to buy the latter, lack of funds make that unlikely to happen before this year’s planting.
Although the rice from last April’s harvest should last us until next school year, we are expanding the fields for next year as well as the number of crops. Soybeans, corn, and yucca (a root similar to potatoes) are among the likely candidates. With that in mind, we cleaned a new sizable tract of jungle on the western edge of campus.
Recently we received a visit from a Brazilian agriculture professional who gave us a lot of tips for how to improve our farming. Some of the volunteers met him while visiting in Brazil and invited him to come see the school. He was really excited about what we’re doing, and mentioned that our program reminds him of the Adventist high school that he attended as a young man in Brazil that also put an emphasis on technical skills and practical learning. He really believes in that kind of education. He now owns a plant nursery and agricultural supplier, and he donated a number of plants. We’re hoping to continue the friendship and that he will help us continue to improve our still inadequate farm.

A Small Army 9/15/2010

“With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world!” (White. The Faith I live By 332.4)

Today we helped rozar (think razor in reverse) Doña Rufina’s chaco. All the trees had been removed in previous years, and there was only grass and shrubs to cut, so I knew the work would go fast, but still I figured it would be at least a couple day’s work. I, however, had underestimated our workforce! There were about 20 of us, a small army, all well trained in wielding the machete! The work began with pizazz. No one stopped to worry about how everyone else was working. Everyone just picked a section and cut like mad, and when one worker started getting too close to another, he would go find a new section to level. Within a couple of hours I was amazed at how much we had done. By the time we had to leave, almost the entire field was cleared!

Class Projects 9/24/10

“The times demand an education which will produce men and women capable of doing things” (Southerland 11).

How does one make language and literature class itself a practical experience where the students are applying what they learn to real life needs? That is a question I’ve been asking myself this year, but I didn’t come up with very many great ideas until I started to pray about it. Since then, God has blessed me with some fun ideas and I’m really excited about the projects that we’ve been doing in my junior and senior language classes recently. Since we only meet for class once a week, the class is geared more toward independent study and project-based learning. Although it can be challenging at times, I like this approach for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that most people learn best by doing. Here are a few of our current and future projects:

1. “Always prepared” project, based on 1 Peter 3:15: (“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”) In this project I asked students to pick a topic from a list of biblical doctrines and teachings and do an extensive investigation, making sure to consider and address common questions, doubts, and oppositions that correspond to their topic. They were required to memorize seven key biblical passages on their topic, and prepare a written defense in preparation for an oral presentation for the morning and evening worships during the week of Sept. 19. In the presentations, each student answered questions from one or two teachers who posed as interested or confused co-workers, friends, neighbors, or random acquaintances. I had no idea what this project would look like in the final presentations, and looking at it now, I’ve realized both students and teachers needed a little more coaching on how to go about the presentation to make it more beneficial for the audience. That said, I’ve been pretty happy to see the preparation that many of the students put into this project, and a couple of them have even thanked me already for making them do it. Over the course of the week I’ve realized that I need to do some additional studying of my own! I believe that all Christians should be able to give a clear and calm explanation not only of what they believe, but also why, and how each belief impacts daily living.

2. Poetry recitations: Most of my students were not to happy when we first started to study poetry and I told them they would need to choose (or write) and memorize a piece to share with the rest of the school. Many of them had never done such a thing before, and I was surprise how nervous it made them. I was even more surprised, however, by the energy and enthusiasm that most of them put into the project. The following poem was written by one of my seniors, and he gave a very heartfelt recitation. I’ve provided a translated version that doesn’t quite do it justice.

Señor, he aquí un pecador
Alcides Piérola Landivar, 4º, UEITRG 2010

Señor, he aquí un pecador,
Que necesita de un salvador
Estoy cansado y agobiado
De solo pensar en mi…
Pues lo único que consigo
Es ser un infeliz

Oh Señor, he aquí un pecador,
Que necesita de un salvador
Lo que he vivido no ha tenido sentido
Enseñame a hacer tu voluntad
Pues ya no quiero vivir de vanidad

Padre, he aquí un pecador,
Que necesita ser como su salvador
Amando y obrando,
Ayudando y sirviendo a los hermanos
Pues para eso fueron hechas las manos

Oh Jesús, he aquí un pecador,
Que te da gracias por ser su salvador
Nunca entiendo ni comprendo
La vida santa que diste por mi,
Solo te pido que yo la de a otros,
Así como tú la diste por mí.

Lord, behold me here a sinner
Alcides Landivar translated by Kody Kostenko

Lord, behold me here a sinner
who is in need of a savior.
I am tired and frazzled
from thinking only of me.
the only thing that it gets me
is a whole lot of unhappy.

Oh Lord, behold me here a sinner
who is in need of a savior.
My life has been meaningless!
Teach me to do your will,
for I no longer want to live in vain.

Father, behold me here a sinner
who needs to be like his savior.
Loving and working,
helping and serving others,
that’s why you made these hands.

Lord Jesus, behold here a sinner
thanking you for being his savior.
I can never completely understand
the holy life you lived for me.
I only ask that I can give it to others,
just as you gave it for me.

3. Youth devotional book: Another project we’ve been working on started at the beginning of the year with the journals I asked the kids to keep. Many of them wrote about personal experiences and life reflections that were both touching and inspiring, despite the often-improper mechanics and incoherent organization.

4. Digital Devotional Reading: I’m really excited about this idea, although I’m not sure we’ll have time to finish it this year. I want the kids to record themselves reading chapters from Steps to Christ, the Great Controversy, and the Desire of Ages. Each student can read a certain number of chapters, and then they can be put together on disc. I’d like to get a hold of some cheap ipods or the equivalent and have the kids fill them with audio books and sermons and then give them to the people in Yata who have difficulty reading.

Bugged. 9/21/2010

“…Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Romans 12:19

I get stung often enough that whenever I see a wasp or hornet on a flat service I am always overcome by an urge to take preemptive revenge (a paradoxical, yet I think, accurate phrase). Yesterday, however, the plan backfired. Or perhaps I should say, the wasp backfired, and nailed me with his best and last shot on the side of my pointer finger. Within minutes my entire hand inflated up to the wrist like a latex-glove balloon, and I could feel my pulse throbbing to the tip of my finger. Nor was it a brief discomfort of an hour or two! Despite a charcoal poultice, my hand stayed painfully swollen all day long. Playing the piano for choir was difficult, as was bushwhacking with the machete all afternoon. This morning my hand was still swollen, and I couldn’t help but think of how I often defend myself in little ways by lashing out at those who hurt me and realized it’s a good way to live life with a swollen hand and a whole lot of pain. Let God stick up for you when you are wronged. His hand is better made for swatting wasps and hornets.

Go Foward
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise” Proverbs 6:6

After work I realize I’m out of drinking water in the house, so I hike out to the spring to refill my 20-liter jug. As I wait for it to fill, I notice a line of large red ants moving rapidly over the spongy forest floor. The ants themselves define a highway I would have never seen, running along crisscrossed sticks and strips of bark and crossing the spring itself on a span of two overlapping dry leaves that curl into an almost-perfect tunnel. How do they know where to go? How do they find the road without a guide? They travel at highway speeds, despite packing what appear to be larvae.
I think God’s people should be more like the ants. Though we live in a world where the roads to true happiness, peace, joy, and fulfillment seem virtually unmarked, how often might the path become clear to the onlookers if we could all move forward together in harmony, moving effortlessly along even under load, guided by our Unseen Guide.

Direct from Bolivia (after a few months of reveiw)

2010-06-29T11:20:00.001-04:00

April Fools. 2010

“The Life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace (Eph 1:7).

I awake while it is still dark with the sensation that a small animal is brushing against my leg. A rat? A tarantula? I strike at it blindly, but the offending creature merely flops against me like a landed trout. I strike at it again, this time with both hands. Suddenly, I realize that the animal I am trying to kill is really just my other hand! My artery was pinched off completely at the elbow. I quickly clench and extend my fingers like a hydraulic pump to get the stagnant fluid moving. A million tiny needles prick my dead arm back to life.
How vital is the circulation of the blood! Moving blood unites and coordinates the body in action. It powers grip and grasp, sensation and control. It gives the members life. Without it, I am a fool, while the limbs are foreign intruders and dead weight, rats or flopping fish.

Dual Planting. April 11, 2010

An agriculture professor from the public technical college in Riberalta asked if he could bring his class to the school this weekend to do their practicum. He had brought his class last year and said it was a really good experience for them. They arrived Sabbath morning and attended the church service and a few of them even accompanied us on our house visits in Yata in the afternoon. Alexander and Gabriel, two of the Riberalta visitors, accompanied my group and seemed to enjoy the songs and scripture reflections. At one house we read from Ecclesiastes how Solomon found that all the riches and pleasures of this world do not bring happiness or satisfaction.
The next day we started work at 6:00 a.m. Students and visitors divided into two groups: one began to plant our banana chaco while the rest of us tried to finish harvesting the last hectare and a half in the rice chaco. The morning went quickly, and in the afternoon the groups changed jobs to give the students a broader experience. In the banana field, I soon discovered that I was the only non-visitor in the group as everyone turned to me to ask for tools, where to plant, and how to organize the work. I took them all down to the tool shed to check out shovels, hoes, and machetes. Back at the site I shared my limited knowledge on banana planting. We dug the holes deep and wide so that the roots can establish quickly in the loose soil. The field had not been completely cleared of tree trunks and debris, and frequently I had to be the voice of conscience against tool abuse: “please don’t use the shovel handles as pry-bars to move fallen logs!” and “don’t twist the ax like tha…” snap! Too late! I went to look for another ax.
After a while, I finally had things more or less organized and we started to advance when I realized that in my preoccupation with directing the work, I had neither prayed silently, nor aloud with the group, for God’s guidance and blessing. That was a wasted opportunity. I thought. Sorry Lord.
Fortunately, God had plans in spite of my negligence. They were a talkative group, and it wasn’t long before several of them started to quiz me on extra-agricultural topics.
“So which Bible character do you want to meet first when you go to heaven?” one of the girls surprised me with her question. Before I could respond, one of the boys piped up. “I want to meet Job!” I thought he said.
“Job? Yeah, I’d like to meet him too” I replied.
“No! Not Job! Job’s daughters, man! You know, the most beautiful girls in all the land!” he laughed.
“I want to meet Solomon because he had hundreds of women, and he was the wisest man who ever lived” the compañero smiles at his one-upmanship, and I saw that the conversation could deteriorate quite rapidly.
“But Solomon was unhappy because he realized that seeking pleasure was vain and that true wisdom is in seeking God. Like the reflection on Sabbath, right?” It was Alexander, from the Yata visits who redirected the conversation!
The questions continued: “Does your church forbid marriages with unbelievers?”
“Well, actually, the Bible itself counsels against marriage with unbelievers (Amos 3:3, Mark 3:25), and as a church we believe in following Bible principles.”
“Your church promotes vegetarianism doesn’t it?” We continue to talk about different topics from healthful living to the philosophy of Christian education. They seem impressed by the school atmosphere and the work-study program.
As the afternoon sun maxed out on its ferocity, the majority of the visitors gravitated to the shade. I continued to dig, and although their work period was over, three or four of the visitors clustered around, and the questions kept on coming. They wanted to know how old I am, how I survive as a volunteer, and how long I plan to stay here. Soon I was merely standing on my shovel, but somehow I felt like I was still planting...

God’s alarms. May 11, 2010.

“…He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.” Isaiah 50:4

Last night I asked God to decide when I should wake up to spend some time with Him, so I couldn’t complain when I awoke to the cry of the neighbor’s baby at 3:45 a.m. That was the first alarm: God started early because He knew it would take awhile to rouse me. I knelt up in my bed to pray. Bad idea. I soon awoke the second time, face down in bed. I doubt I’d prayed one coherent sentence. I tried again and the next thing I knew I awoke with the rising sliver of a moon shining on my face. Wow. I thought. I make Christ’s disciples look good! They couldn’t pray for one hour: I can’t even handle two minutes! I knew if I didn’t get out of bed I would never wake my sleepy head in time to study and pray before the day began, so I got up and splashed cold water on my face, drank half a quart of water, and went to my desk.
As the horizon lit up with the forerunning rays of the sun I prepared to take a short walk to the corner of the driveway. The thermometer registered 14º C, (about 57º F) but with the high humidity the cold seeps into your core and chills your bones, like biting a Popsicle. Strange how it can feel good to don a jacket in this jungle!
I walked down the driveway and smelled God’s goodness in the crispness of dawn and heard it in the song of the birds and saw his glory in the trees and on the grass that shone with silver dew, and in each little cloud of my condensated breath that was His ever before it passed through my nostrils.

Dust on Dust

“For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return” (Genesis 3:19) “For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told… So teach us to number or days, that we may apply our heats unto wisdom.” (Psalms 90:9,12).

“There’s an accident” someone exclaims, and all the people lean forward and crane their necks, and those on the right side of the bus raise in their seats to get a view.
“Who could it be?” the woman across from me asks. Is it mere morbid curiosity, or is it the dread of personal disaster? She looks worried. Perhaps she has a familiar or other conocido who frequents this stretch of highway.
I’m on my way back from Guayara, and we’re just approaching the small community at kilometer 21 when I hear the announcement. At first all I see is a motorcycle seat, and I know this is going to be bad. Bits of bike are strewn from the stakes in the narrow part of Route Eight to the village just beyond, where I see the remains of the twisted frame embedded in the crunched hood of a Volvo. The windshield is collapsed inward and cracked in the design of a spider’s web.
Trucks of police and a crowd of people throng the scene. As we slowly navigate the accident, I suddenly glimpse the prone corpse of the cyclist. He is lying on his back, facing the vast blue sky, looking too peaceful and perfect for such carnage. The paramedics pull a white sheet over his head and neatly folded arms. The blood seems lost in the red dirt of the road.
“At least he no longer has to suffer in this world,” Lyli says.
He’s just left all his suffering with the living.
Back at the college we have news that Dorca’s uncle died today. I think it might be the man on the road, but its not.
Later, in the shower, as I shed the grime of the day, I wonder how they bury the dead in Bolivia. If the corpses aren’t cremated in the morgue, I’m sure they’ll clean them up. There is altogether too much dust in this land: Too much dust, and too little of God’s breath and spit and sculpting hand.

In Spite of Myself. 6/19/10

It’s 1:30 p.m. I’m droggy and my whole body feels heavy like a typical Sabbath afternoon after a big meal and a hot morning full of services. The last thing I want to do is go visiting in Yata, especially considering that the truck is out of commission and we’ll be walking the six kilometers in full sunlight. At least I have about 45 minutes until we leave. I grab a book and sink into my hammock: The Heavenly Man. I’m immediately ashamed of my lousy attitude as I read about the joy and zeal of brother Yun, a leader of the persecuted house churches in China.
By the time we arrive at the beautifully shaded vacant church property in Yata, my shirt is soaked in sweat and smudged with the dust of the road. All I want to do is jump in the creek. But the hardships the Chinese believers endured in order to share the Word come to mind, and I am re-ashamed at my selfish weakness. I really have so little experience in suffering for Christ. It is nothing to sweat for the Lord!
At the first house I’m impressed to ask Doña Rufina if she has any Bible questions or specific topics she would like to discuss.
“I’m Catholic” she responds. I'm not sure if she understood my question, so I try to clarify, but she remains uninterested. “But I like it that you visit and sing and read the Bible. How can I deny you that?"
When we ask Don Angel and his niece Zulema if they have any Bible questions or topics of interest, she just smiles, but he takes advantage of the opportunity immediately.
“Why is it that there are people who go against the Lord and say the world is going to end in 2012 when the Bible says that no man knows the day nor the hour, not even the angels in heaven?” (Matthew 24:36).
“Well, the very existence of such deceptive and erroneous theories is an evidence of the last days.” I explain. We read Matthew 24:11 and look for other texts like 1 John 4:1, and 2 Corinthians 11:13, 14.
Half an hour later we move on to the next house, where Frieda has some questions about the H1N1 vaccination. Apparently some recent propaganda labeled the shot as the mark of the beast! I tell Frieda I don’t know much about vaccinations, but I can assure her that it isn’t the mark of the beast. The mark of the beast is Satan’s counterfeit for God’s mark, or seal. (Revelation 7:2,3; 14:6-7; Exodus 20:8-11, and Ezekiel 20:12). It’s an intense topic and requires a solid biblical background. She says she’s up for it, so we set an appointment for Wednesday morning. Frieda is blind and her daughter will join the study to look up the Bible verses for her. She seems even more excited than her mom. Funny how we’re so often afraid to bring up the apocalyptic topics when the end of the world is of such popular public interest!
It’s already 5:30 when we leave Frieda’s. We were supposed to head back to the school by 5:15 to arrive before dark, but I really feel that I should go visit our last family. I feel bad I’ve missed Don Ignacio the last couple weeks because we always run out of time. There are just too many houses to visit in a couple of hours.
Another group is passing on their way back to the school, and I tell my kids they can either return with that group, or come with me. I have no takers. Ni modo. Alone, I jog the couple hundred meters off the main road and down the path between shoulder-high grass to Don Ignacio’s hut.
“Buenas tardes” I call out. The place seems empty. I’m about to dismiss my impression to come visit Ignacio as a whim of my own invention when I suddenly see a little boy sitting on the patio.
“Hola, ¿cómo te llamas?”
“Ignacio” he says. This must be junior.
“Donde está tu papa?”
Dad is bathing in the creek, and the boy motions down the hill behind the house. He’ll be back any minute. I strike up a conversation while I wait. Junior is in fourth grade and attends the public school in Yata. Right now they’re on vacation.
“Do they teach you about the Bible there?”
“Yes.” He says.
“What are your favorite Bible stories?”
“I don’t remember any.”
“Not even one? Who’s your favorite Bible character?” he looks at me blankly
“Do you know what a ‘character’ is? No?” I explain. He can’t think of any.
“How about I tell you about the boy David? There are some great stories in the Bible!” He grins and nods his head. I tell about David the shepherd boy when he defended the flocks from the bear. Junior says he’s seen a bear before. I ask him if he was afraid. He says no, his dogs were with them and they were hunting the bear.
Don Ignacio come up from his bath in the creek behind his hut dressed in nothing more than a towel, but he seems genuinely happy for my visit. His eyes squint to slits as he smiles, showing a solitary tooth, and he laughs as I dramatize the climax of David’s confrontation with Goliath.
It’s after 6:00 by now, but we have a prayer before I go. I ask Don Ignacio if he has any prayer requests. He says yes, and then starts praying. It takes me a second to realize what’s going on because he mixes some direct address to me into his prayer, thanking me for my visit. I leave running. Just as I reach the main road, a pickup truck is passing, and they stop and give me a free lift! I pass my students right before my ride drops me off at the entrance to the school driveway. I wait for them there.
“Teacher! You beat us! We should have stayed with you to visit the last house!” I just smile.

Prayer List:

The church project in Yata. We’ve dug the postholes for a temporary thatched roof church while we await God’s timing to build a permanent structure.
The radio. We have the option of requesting a transmitter for our tower (which we are in the slow process of erecting) to repeat the signal from the Adventist radio station that recently opened in Guayaramerin.(They are still waiting on equipment to do their own programming.)
Bible studies in Yata.
Corenelio and Susie and the project in Las Amalias
For the doors to open to obtain Spirit of Prophecy books in large quantities at an economical price.
For the Holy Spirit to come in power upon God’s people and finish the work!
Today I'm looking into printing some Spanish Glow and Signs literature for the churches here in Guayara. The price I was quoted was $120 for 20,000 pamphlets.

2010-06-15T12:50:00.001-04:00

When we ought to be shameless. Colombia Missions Conference. Sabbath, February 20, 2010.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes” (Rom 1:16).
After church we go door-to-door giving surveys to probe the neighbors’ interests in health and exercise classes and stop-smoking seminars. A trendy looking young man answers one of the first doors we knock on.
“Don’t worry, its nothing religious…” I hear an echo of my tendency to palter in my friend’s hasty clarification. “We’re just doing a quick survey on health and fitness.”
Why do we so often tend to proselytize with an apology? We operate with a defeatist attitude, under the assumption that people don’t want to hear the gospel, sometimes before we even ask them! But why wouldn’t they want it? Could it be because we ourselves seem hardly sure if we really want it, because we are so often lackluster and equivocating, lax and halfhearted? If we have really experienced the power of the gospel it would seem we would be willing and excited to share it, and able to present it in practical, tangible power. Indeed, such is our duty and our mission: “From door to door [God’s] servants are to proclaim the message of salvation. To every nation, kindred, tongue, and people the tidings of pardon through Christ are to be carried. Not with tame, lifeless utterance is the message to be given, but with clear, decided, stirring utterances” (8 Testimonies for the Church, 15.5). This is no call for half-hearted repetition of regurgitated truths that have been masticated for us by others and that we pass on out of a sense of guilty obligation! This is the heartthrob of a personal, daily experience of the creative power of God transforming our lives and out flowing to the benefit of all those around us!
As Ellen White points out in the book Education page 233, too often we underestimate the power of authentic enthusiasm to command interest and attention. The arch bishop of Canterbury once asked a famous actor how he managed to so powerfully impact his audience while speaking of things imaginary while gospel ministers seem to affect their audiences so little by speaking of things real. “’With due submission to your grace,’ replied the actor, ‘permit me to say that the reason is plain: It lies in the power of enthusiasm. We on the stage speak of things imaginary as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’”
Do we really believe the word of God? Do we really care about the world around us? Or are we simply posers, and thereby quiet opposers of righteousness? “But we are Christ’s!” we say, and we are! We are His backstabbers and assassins. May God forgive us and grant us repentance and His power to live a deeper, authentic experience.

Faith: Alive, Growing, and Green. February 20, 2010.

The university campus grounds are immaculate. I’ve never seen so many creative tree sculptures in real life (only in advertisements). One is cut in the shape of an open hand; another has the word faith engraved into its foliage. Perhaps my faith, too, emerges from a cooperation of personal growth with God’s careful pruning.

Trials and Errors. April 14, 2010
“Kowing this, that the trial of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing” (James 1:4).

I’m assuming its normal for a boarding high school teacher to receive a sheaf of schedules at the onset of a school year, but not everyone gets a personalized schedule with their name on it in Monotype Corsiva font! If that isn’t anomalous enough, Sunday is a school day, while every Wednesday is dedicated to community service. The students are divided into various work groups named after the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance… (Gal 5:22) The fruit of the spirit is not monocot nor dicot, but nona-cot). I lead el grupo amor. ;) Each group participates in community service projects every other Wednesday. (On their “off” week, students stay at the school where they have the option to work or attend a study hall in the morning, with a mandatory study hall in the afternoon. If they need to go to town, they also have the option to submit a solicitud, which the administrative committee grants or denies at their discretion.) Service day provides the students with real-life, sermon-in-shoes opportunities to share the love of Christ with others. This does more to break down prejudices and open hearts to the truth than could all the best-prepared presentations and exhortations of the millennium.
When we visit Don Ángel, he is laying in his hammock, his shoulder-length white hair falls unkempt around sunken cheeks and a nasty cough wracks his body. He has a rice chaco to harvest, but he doesn’t have the strength to do it. The stocks are dry and the weight of the ripe grain bends them to the ground where they will rot with the next rain. (I wonder if harvests like the one in John 4:35-38 work the same way?)
I love the harvest! Breathing the morning air is invigorating. Maybe its because the oxygen molecules are closer together. The day soon heats up, however, and I begin to drip sweat and soon become a nectar feeder for all insects with a stinger with the next half-mile. I’m a walking bee’s nest with a constant buzzing in my ear, and the occasional deeper drone of the larger wasps with the big stingers. They’re the more aggressive ones because they don’t die when they sting, unlike the honeybee kamikazes that at least compensate by paying the ultimate price for the pain they inflicted. I’ve learned to notice the difference in the tickle of the wasps and the different walk of the little sweat bees with their irritating miniature straws. To distract myself, I wonder how many hours of work are in one bowl of rice. I try to work the problem out loud, including the clearing of the land, the planting, the harvesting, and the threshing, but I get stuck when I have to estimate the number of bowls in a hectare (2.47 acres).
While I try to learn patience under the hot sun, the only clouds in the sky are made of buzzing insects, Joel, our senior senior (he’s 21 years old and the only student this year who was here during my first stay here in 2005-2006) is learning his own lessons on patience and self control. Here is a translation of his story more or less as he told it in church during testimony time April 17, 2010.
“Teacher Ruan and I were coming back from Guayara. He was feeling kind sick with a headache, and I was in a bad mood in general when we arrived at the tranca (checkpoint) I think the police officer needed some money. Maybe he had a debt to pay off at the billiards club, or maybe he was short on the month’s rent, or maybe he was just in a foul mood. Anyway, Teacher Ruan was a natural target because he’s a gringo and so everyone thinks he must be made of money. The officer asked for Ruan’s Bolivian driver’s license.
‘I have an international license’ he said. I was in the truck waiting and I saw them out there giving Teacher Ruan a hard time and I suddenly had one of those moments where my blood gets hot, and for those of you that know me, when I get angry it can happen really fast, I just snap… so I got out and went and stood behind teacher Ruan, like a bodyguard (and he struck the pose, legs apart, arms crossed, chest out, with a stern scowl on his face.) ‘And who’s this guy?’ the police asked ‘Oh, just a compañero’ The police kept on about how teacher Ruan needed a Bolivian license and Ruan kept telling him patiently that the international license has always sufficed in the past, but the police wouldn’t listen to him. Finally I just snapped. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! You need to go read your own constitution.’ After that I went and got in the truck again. A minute later they called me in.
‘What do you mean, disrespecting a police officer like that? Who do you think you are?’ I think it made him even angrier that I’m Brazilian and I told him he didn’t know his own laws. He hit me hard in the shoulder to try to provoke me to fight him, but I wasn’t going to open my mouth again. They called in another police and he took me to put me in the town jail until 9:00 that night. I think they were hoping Teacher Ruan would pay to release me, but he just let me go. When I got to the jail they took my pants and searched me. They always just keep whatever money you have on you for them.
‘I’m going to give you five’ threatened the first officer, tapping his baton
‘I’ll give you ten’ said the next one, and they threw me into a cell with eight or ten other prisoners. The first thing I noticed in the entrance of the cell was a sign that said if you don’t pay us 20 pesos, each of us will give you 20 patadas (kicks). But before anyone asked me for money, one of the prisoners called me over and told me to fan him with a towel. Soon another one came over and told me to fan him too. Finally, the cell leader, a tall, light-skinned guy with tattoos all over his body called me over.
‘Where are you from? ‘You’re a Christian aren’t you?
‘Well, yes. Why?’ ‘It’s obvious. You’re not belligerent or full of attitude like most guys that get thrown in here. What are you in for?’
‘Disrespecting a police officer’ When he heard that, one of the other prisoners said, ‘So you’re a Christian huh? Haven’t you ever read James 1:26? If any man among you seems to be religious, and doesn’t control his tongue… this man’s religion is vain?’ Here I was in jail and God used another prisoner to rebuke me for my lack of self-control. It was a lesson I will never forget.”
(Ruan picked Joel up from the jail later that evening).

Turning. April 16, 2010
“Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, until He come rain righteousness upon you” Hosea 10:12.
Today I occupied myself like an original aborigine and turned soil in the banana chaco. Tilling the soil: It’s a simple but strenuous activity that gets you back to the roots of human labor, among other, more literal roots like the stumps of downed shrubs and clumps of sub-sod mesh. Yet what a difference a timely turning makes! Turn the soil and the plants grow faster, higher and more fruitful. Turn the tortillas and they turn out perfect, neither burned nor raw. Turn to God and leave behind bad habits and he will make you grow and turn you out perfect, neither burned nor half-baked, neither barren nor stunted.

The Heavens Declare. May 14, 2010.

“He tells the number of the stars, he calls them all by their names…Praise him, sun and moon: praise him all you stars of light.” (Psalms 147:4, 148:3). The stars are so bright out here they seem to melt themselves and blend together in blotches that run into the Milky Way. When you look up through the tree branches, it looks like God has decorated the jungle for Christmas. So many lights, the centers of a myriad solar systems, and yet most of us wouldn’t notice if a third of them disappeared in the darkness. We’re barricaded under panoplies of tile, shingle, and tin, and we’ve replaced God’s lights with street lamps, strobes, and business signs.
I saw four shooting stars. Estrellas fugaces as they’re called in Spanish. Sounds like stars full of gas. Celestial flatulence? It makes me laugh. But wow, was the Psalmist ever right about the heavens and their declarations. God’s glory is blazing in every constellation. My neck is sore from looking up. Shoulder blades make poor pillows. But the vastness of space amazes me… and that God’s voice placed each star! I’ve heard they occur in patterns along the planes of what look like sound waves.
There’s so much I don’t know. I want to learn it all. Thoughts come to me like stars shouting, like reflections shooting past so fast I’m left without a recollection. One thing I’m sure of, if I could write one stroke for God’s goodness for every star in the universe, it would be but a residue of His benevolence and His sentiments for us.

Playing (Possum) With Fire. May 6, 2010.

“Flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22)
“We had a casualty in the fire” Josh announced when he arrived at the teacher’s meeting today. During the afternoon work period the boys had burned in the banana chaco and a possum decided that his alternate defense mechanism would work better than running. By the time he realized his mistake it was too late. Josh found its charred carcass among the ashes. Instinct is not always a bad thing, but when it comes to salvation from the fire, to trust to instinct is to burn.
(Bizarre fact: the Spanish name for possum is chupacara, or to transliterate, “sucker face.”)

“Come over and help us!” May 16, 2010.

Susie and Cornelio Moro and their eleven-year-old daughter Abigail are leaving us within the next few weeks to go live in Las Amalias, a small indigenous village of about fifty people, a boat ride of several days upriver into the interior.
This last December, Cornelio visited the village with Max, Noel, and a couple other students, the former of which wrote about the experience in his journal for my class. We have two students, Rodolfo and Paulina, who hail from the village. There is no airstrip in Las Amalias, and at the beginning of last school year Rodolfo and Paulina received their acceptance letters via airmail, chucked out the window of the mission plane.
“These people really need help,” Cornelio told me. “Steve (the mission pilot working with us here) and I were meeting with the chief, and I was watching the chief’s son chew on this bone with raw meet on it, one of those bones that’s bent like your elbow like you see in the caveman cartoons… and he dropped it, I guess he was tired of it or something, and this dog came and started to eat it and the kid decides he wants it again and takes it up from the dog and starts to chew on it again. Then the mom comes out and she realizes that baby has dirtied himself and so she scraps the excrement with sticks that she proceeds to throw on the ground right where everyone walks.”
But the people want to learn and they want to change.
“What’s the biggest plane you guys have?” they asked Cornelio. “We want to make an airstrip long enough for your biggest plane!” (Aerostar 600 A).
“Okay!” Cornelio says.
“That’s a lot of work!” he tells me later. “These people have no trucks, no tractors. They’ll be clearing everything by hand. Maybe with a chainsaw at best.”
But it seems the villages are willing to do whatever it takes to get the healthcare and instruction they so desperately need, be it physical or spiritual. They say they receive a pastoral visit only about once a year, and occasionally a gringo Baptist minister also visits, but he always spends the night in his boat.
“You are the first one to ever stay with us in our houses” The villagers told Cornelio. “Please come back! We want to know more about the Bible and about God. We’ll build you a house and we’ll build a church.”
So how did it all get started? School directors Ruan and Tara Swanapoel recently wrote the following background story.

“God has led us to start our first daughter ministry deep in the jungle - opening the work to Seja Indians. It is a beautiful story that has developed over the last two years and is still unfolding.”
“About two years ago a group of us flew to a jungle village called Ingavi. The purpose of our trip was to scout out a good location for a future mission project while at the same time offer medical and dental care to the villagers. The plan was to spend one day in Ingavi and the next day in another village. By early afternoon I realized that half of us would have to stay the night in Ingavi since the line of people awaiting attention was not shrinking. So Susie, our girls’ dean, Joel, one of our students, and I decided that we would stay the night in order to provide more care while the others went home for the night.
The line for medical attention finally ended by early evening and we were invited to dinner, another story in and of itself. We were just finishing our meal when our host came running over to us saying that someone just arrived from a nearby village called Las Amalias, and they needed urgent care. We hurried over to the village hall that served as the makeshift medical clinic and were met at the door by a whole extended family of Sejas. They looked remarkably different from other Bolivians and the fact that they were dressed didn’t change the fact that they looked barely civilized. But there was no time for cultural studies now. One of the men held an unconscious toddler hanging from his arms. The toddler had a high fever and was very weak from vomiting and diarrhea. With no way to know what the cause of the illness could be we started to treat the fever and to pray. We only had liquid children’s Tylenol as a fever reducer, the toddler was unable to keep it down. We wiped him with alcohol wipes, with cool rags, we tried more Tylenol, we prayed more, but nothing would work. Even though he was still breathing he was not responsive. Finally Susie thought of a cold water enema. It worked! The fever dropped and he started responding. Our goal was to keep him alive for the night and fly him and his dad to the hospital the next morning. We had to do three more enemas during the night to control the fever. He made it! Praise the Lord! The next morning we took him to the hospital where they diagnosed him with a severe digestive tract infection and started him on antibiotics. In about a week he was ready to go home. I know that it was God who kept us in that village that night, because He had a plan.
Before leaving Ingavi, I left some applications to our school with plans to return later to interview prospective students. When I arrived a few months later there were 2 young people from Las Amalias whom had come to Ingavi in order to be interviewed. Come to find out later that one of them is the chief’s son and the other the teacher’s daughter. They both were accepted and are still studying with us.
Since then we have maintained contact with the people of Las Amalias. Some of our staff and students went on a mission trip to the village during our summer vacation. Seeing the needs of the people made us long to do more to help them and introduce them to Jesus.
Well the time has come. After talking to representatives of the village and Susie and Cornelio, we decided that they would move to Las Amalias to spearhead the work there. Cornelio, Joel, and Clint left last Wednesday (May 19th) with plans to build a house and start organizing the work. Susie and their daughter, Abigail, plan to join Cornelio and Joel in a couple of weeks.
The current plan is for Susie to provide medical attention while Cornelio helps to improve agricultural practices and the sanitary conditions, all the while building relationships and doing personal evangelism. We will miss Susie, Cornelio, and Abby. They are an integral part of our team, but we are really excited about the opportunity to start reaching into the vast jungles of northern Bolivia. We want to ask you to join us in prayer that God will continue to guide us as we labor for Him. We also want to make an appeal for everyone to consider if maybe the Lord is calling you to serve Him in Bolivia. The need is so great, and the workers so few. Maybe the Lord has a place for you here.”

“Hundreds are waiting for the warning to escape for their lives. The world needs to see in Christians an evidence of the power of Christianity. Not merely in a few places, but throughout the world, messengers of mercy are needed. From every country is heard the cry: ‘Come over, . . . and help us.’ Rich and poor, high and low, are calling for light. Men and women are hungering for the truth as it is in Jesus. When they hear the gospel preached with power from on high, they will know that the banquet is spread for them, and they will respond to the call: ‘Come; for all things are now ready.’ Luke 14:17.” {8T 15.5, 16}

Prayer List

1. The churches in Guayaramerin and the launching of the radio program.

2. The Las Amalias project.

3. For movement on the church building project in Yata. We just finished a five-night series on Steps to Christ last week and there are several studying for baptism. We're going to need a building soon!

4. A lot of people have been sick here at the school lately and there have been several confirmed cases of malaria.

5. That God will open the doors for literature evangelism here. I've been looking into getting the books. There will be more on this later.

As always, thanks for all your prayers and support. May we all continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Kody Kostenko

Colombia Missions Congress

2010-04-27T15:02:00.001-04:00

Prologue Jog:

By now you should know how these things go: this is the warm-up to another verbal marathon. The good news is, it’s divided in stages, and I saved the last half for next time. Besides, no one says you have to run. You can walk, jog, crawl, summersault, or my personal favorite, skip: just read the parts that look interesting. The sections this time are all short stories and reflections from my trip to Colombia in February. (The dates of each section correspond to the time of the story, not of the writing. In other words, they’re dated by the occurrence of the event, not by the occurrence of my over-heated cerebrum.)
It’s hard to believe that two and a half months have already gone by since February 16-21, when I was privilege to help staff an international missions conference in Medellín, Colombia. I even had the opportunity to speak in one of the afternoon workshops. Normally I would have said “no thanks” and made some excuse about not being able to speak Spanish, but its miraculous how the Spirit of God can put the words in your mouth and a smile on your face as He impresses your mind with the infinite love, mercy, justice, and power of God.
The theme of this year’s congress was Entrega Total, or Total Surrender, and the conference banners and bulletins pictured the silhouette of a young man kneeling before a cross formed by the words of Matthew 16:24. Speakers David Gates, Steven Bohr, Rimberto Parada, and others, challenged attendees to a fuller commitment to Jesus Christ and service to others.
In the cultural Christianity of today, too many of us have forgotten the true meaning of the cross of Christ. When Christ said, “Take up your cross and follow Me,” He did not mean for us to hang crucifixes on our necks, key chains, and rearview mirrors while continuing to live self-centered and self-seeking lives. To take up the cross means to go against the grain of human nature, to die to self, and to sacrifice your life to work for the salvation of others.
Recently we took the kids bridge jumping at kilometer 31. It’s not a really high bridge, six meters, maybe seven when you jump from the top of the railing, but its enough to intimidate a few of the more acrophobic. Julio in particular just couldn’t bring himself to make the drop. He clung to the railing for close to half an hour, peering down at the water, sometimes leaning out, but never letting go.
“Just take the railing with you!” we teased.
When it comes to the Christian life, it’s all or nothing. We have to take the plunge; we have to be all in. We should be unashamed of radical commitment. Who cares if people say, “oohh, he’s really gone off the deep end!” Who’s afraid of the deep end? God specializes in the deep end! Is not the deep end where God Himself dwells? “He discovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death.” His “judgments are a great deep” and His “thoughts are exceedingly deep.” (Job 12:22 Psalms 36:6, 92:5). And yet He longs for us to experience more of that depth. He came to give us life and that more abundantly (John 10:10). He longs to grant us according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man; to dwell in our hearts by faith, that being rooted and grounded in love we might be able to comprehend the breadth, and length and depth, and height, and to know His love that passes knowledge that we might be filled with all His fullness (Eph 3:16-19). I don’t know about you, but I long for a deeper experience. But all too often, I’m like Julio on the bridge. I know I have no control in a free-fall and I am afraid to let go of my guardrails and just jump.

God’s Wings. February 16, 2010

There are six of us in the twin-engine Aerostar 600 A, piloted by Capitan Jeff Sutton, director of GMI’s aviation program here in Bolivia. As we climb through the early-morning fog, I notice that the reflection of the cockpit cabin is mirrored in the chrome just behind the prop on the right wing, and it seems a good reminder of what holds us up.
I think of James 1:23-25, Exodus 20, and Psalm 91:4, and I wonder if the Divine Law, as a transcript of God’s character and a monument to His creative and sustaining power, is the chrome on the wings of the Almighty.

“By Their Food You Shall Know Them”

About six hours later we descend into Medellín, Colombia’s version of Interlaken, Switzerland: green and pristine, a slice of paradise in the mouth of the mountains.
When we arrive on the university campus, my host, Señora Isabela, the girl’s dean for off-campus housing, is waiting to greet me and take me to her apartment where her whole family gives me a warm welcome, and she shows me my room and the shower. After I clean up, she asks me what I would like to eat. I’m not picky I tell her: I’ll eat anything as long as its vegetarian, though I also try to avoid dairy products. So she serves me a full-course meal with a huge bowl of fresh-cut mangoes and several whole-wheat peanut-butter sandwiches on the side. Afterward she won’t even let me clear my plate from the table, and I don’t know what to do with this first-class treatment. Later, when I ask if I can borrow an iron to press my clothes, she tells me to just leave them out and she will iron them. If I were Pastor Steven Bohr himself I wouldn’t have been treated better.
One morning I leave the house early to attend the 7:30 meeting, and since the family doesn’t seem to be up yet, I figure I’ll skip breakfast. Not so. I’m helping to set up chairs for the morning workshops when Jerry tells me there’s someone looking for me. I go outside to find a distressed Isabela packing a complete breakfast-to-go.
“No no no, mi Kodito, we can’t let you go hungry! That’s terrible! You need to have your breakfast!” As if that isn’t enough, she takes me to the nearby University breakfast bar and buys me grape juice and empanadas. If I had a better tan and spoke better Spanish everyone would think she was my mom!
My friend Lyli doesn’t fare as well. Her host (who happens to be a pastor) forgot to tell his wife that they were going to have company. When Lyli arrives, the Señora is so upset about the surprise that all she can manage is to show Lyli her room before disappearing into the inner recesses of the house without even a word of greeting. No supper, eight hours, and no breakfast later, poor Lyli is starving and, I would think, sorry she ever came to Colombia. Instead, she tries to make the best of it.
“God knows,” she tells me. “Maybe I need this experience.”
“Maybe your host needs a smack on the head!” (Apparently I have as much to learn about Christianity as the pastor’s wife).
Thankfully I remember that I have a couple granola bars in my backpack, so she at least has something to take the edge off her hunger while we work all morning setting up the school’s booth and manning the registration booth. I want her to come to “my” house for lunch, but she feels bad coming without an invitation.
Later, over a plate of rice, lentils, plantain, and salad, I tell Isabela about Lyli’s situation. She is horrified, and scolds me for not making Lyli come for lunch while she packs up a plate to go.

If Every Home Were a Hospital…

There would be a lot more homeless people. On the other hand, maybe home hospitals would drop the cost of health care. One thing I’ve noticed in South America is there seems to be a lot more in-home medical care. For example, the abuelita, Isabela’s mother, is suffering from high blood pressure, and the doctor stopped by this evening for a consultation. I ask if that’s normal, and they say it depends on the doctor, but most are quite willing to make home calls. I’m not surprised, considering Isabela invites him to stay for supper. I wonder if the greater number of home calls is more about convenience, or more about the fact that the hospitals here aren’t always the clean, healing machines one might expect. In any event, I was thinking about what defines a hospital and I somehow got stuck on the word hospitality—not surprising perhaps, in light of my current context. But what does hospitality have to do with hospitals? It seems like a typical English Learner question: difficult, but logical. Upon a little reflection, however, I would respond “more than you might think!” Hospitality is treating even visitors and strangers as if their lives depend on it, being solicitous and attentive of their needs, and letting them go feeling better than when they arrived. If every home practiced true hospitality, maybe there would be more real Christians and fewer sick and homeless among us.

Unwitting Walk. February 19, 2010

On my way to the University campus for the morning meeting, my head must have been in the clouds (or so it seemed to me as I inhaled traffic fumes) because I turned right at the corner instead of taking the direct route straight to the east entrance. I considered turning back, but I was already over halfway up the block to the next street, I decided to keep going.I had just turned left for the University when a security guard in a maroon suit called to me from the corner. Oh no, I thought. Did I just walk on someone’s lawn, or break some neighborhood code? (It hadn’t taken me long to discover that Medellín’s orderly appearance is largely the result of legislative rather than personal initiative.)
“Brother!” he greeted me. “Can you pray for me?” Whew what a relief. That’s easy! Wait, is this guy serious, or is he making fun of me? With my shirt and tie and my Bible in my hand, I suppose I looked prayer-worthy.
But as I approached I could tell by the look in his eye that he was serious.
“Of course!” I replied. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Javier”
“Any requests in particular?”
“Yes, for my family.” And he proceeded to explain an all-too-typical tale of family tragedy. I put my hand on his shoulder and said a prayer for him and his family. As I turned to leave I remembered I had some Centinela tracts with the title “Does God care when I’m hurting.”
It wasn’t until I’d almost reached the University entrance that I remembered that a mere two hours earlier I had asked the Lord to guide every facet of my day and give me opportunities to share His love with those around me! It amazes me how God can use us in spite of ourselves!

February 20, 2010. Walls. You see them everywhere here. People say that the Hispanic culture is a lot more open, but you sure wouldn’t guess it by the architecture. Granted, we’re in a big city, and one has to take precautions against thieves. But you would think that in broad daylight one could at least open the gate between the church and the street, and if not every day of the week, at least early on Sabbath morning. But then there wouldn’t be this colorful pilgrimage or worshippers wending their way along half a kilometer of walls and fences, a living metaphor of the straight gate and narrow way and the few there be who find it.

Mass Email gone Massive…

2010-03-23T13:50:00.003-04:00

Preamble Ramble. March 22, 2010:
What do the following have in common: Weeds in the garden, stacks of ungraded papers, trees to prune, and tales to be told? Well, other than all sharing space on my interminable to-do list, they all get taller as time goes by! (except for the stories, which I always pass on with pin-point accuracy rooted in reality down to the last nitty-gritty detail!) Actually, as I think about it, perhaps that is my main problem in life right now, summed up in one word: detail! As a teacher, you can’t ignore the details, but you have to learn to pick and choose your battles. For those of you who know me, I’ve never been good at picking much of anything (other than my nose, and certain kinds of fruit) so I invariably end up letting the battles pick me, which as some of you may know, is a good way to get yourself killed.
For example, I was recently elected to be the director of campus maintenance, something I could easily allow to turn into a full-time job. I have two student workers right now, and I’ve kept them busy organizing and cleaning the tool shed, repairing broken tools, and taking inventory, as well as helping me with the mowing. I’m also suddenly receiving requests to fix people’s light switches and unplug everyone’s sink. Every work period (morning and afternoon) I have a bevy of students that gets sent to me for work assignments, and it is real easy to get bogged down walking them through the details of each job I want done. But you can’t over-explain the work assignments I’ve been finding out. I assigned some girls to level a recently cleared area so that it can be cut with the push mower later on, and I failed to mention that they should not fill the hole with the valves that control the water system for the staff duplex. (Which, by the way, was quite some distance from the area I asked them to level! They probably heard the word “holes” and went looking for holes to fill!)
A slip of the tongue in class two weeks ago cost me hours of time this week. The literature class that I teach is for both juniors and seniors, and I attempt to tailor assignments to each level. We meet for class only once a week (officially), but I have to plan and explain enough homework to keep them busy until the next Thursday. On Mondays I supervise a two-hour guided-study session where I can answer questions and give individual help. The theory behind this setup is to encourage self-motivated, independent learning and responsible time-management in the students.
Anyway, in my brilliance, I decided to design my class with some built in weekly homework including journaling, reading, and vocabulary building. Unfortunately, as I was assigning the number of pages the students were to journal, I used the word hoja instead of página.. A página is your normal, regular page. An hoja on the other hand is the entire paper, both front and back. So when I gave the seniors five hojas and the juniors four, you can imagine their response. But students always complain, I know that. And I’ve learned I shouldn’t change my mind on account of a few complaints, especially on the first day of class! You make a decision and you stick to it, otherwise those rascals will run you and your classroom! So they wrote. Eleven seniors and eleven juniors. Twenty-two notebooks. Ninety-nine hojas. One-hundred-ninety-eight pages.
“I don’t have to read all of these completely” I told myself. “I’ll just read a page or two of each, make a few corrections and comments, and move on.”
An hour later I had wallowed through one and a half notebooks. But boy, did those kids write! A few of them really surprised me and went all-out. At the beginning of class we had sung the hymn “Santa Biblia,” followed by a mini-lecture on the importance of thinking about the lyrics and a phrase-by-phrase analysis of the first verse. One of my senior boys responded with ten pages of journal analyzing and explaining the lyrics of one of his favorite hymns one line at a time, interspersed with personal experiences, stories, and commentary. It was one of the finest pieces of work I’ve seen in a high school literature class, not only because of the creativity and relatively error-free syntax, but also because of the spiritual maturity and depth. Another student had several short, creative essays on everything from current politics and how Bolivia fits into the One World Order, to chive, a typical Bolivian seasoning made from yucca.
Of course, not every journal was such a joy to read, but they were good diagnostic material, and I’ve compiled a list of things we need to work on, one of which is the everlasting sentence. Most students are quite adept at splicing a dozen circles’-worth of tangents into one very fierce string of unorganized thoughts with enough barbs to hang you up with your reading comprehension until the cows come home.
So between grading journals, teaching class, giving piano lessons, and directing campus maintenance, I’ve been keeping occupied. I’ve been meaning to update you all with one of these mass emails for the last four weeks now. If you thought my emails were long before, I apologize. (I did take out the section about the mission congress in Colombia, because I haven’t had time to finish writing it yet) Hey, at least you don’t have to read 22 of these! I still have three of last week’s journals waiting for me.

The following takes place between March 2, 2010 and March 22, 2010. (Sorry Mr. Bauer :).

March 2, 2010

School starts in eight days, and we are feverishly trying to complete the girl’s dormitory and the classroom buildings, buy more desks, tables, and chairs, clean up campus, and do the initial paperwork, including the annual curriculum plans that must be submitted to the government. More students have arrived in the past two weeks, and its good to have the extra help with the construction and with reclaiming campus from the jungle. A couple weeks ago Mr. Cornelio and the kids harvested the first stage of the rice we planted last fall, and in between thunderstorms, the girls dry out the kernels on tarps while the boys help pour the floor of the girls dorm underneath more tarps, thunderstorms or no. (We pour with wheel-barrows, just to clarify, and advance at about 2 rooms a day.)
Today I am in town buying diesel for the generator (about $2.44/gallon), checking prices on sinks, and looking for two-inch schedule 40 PVC pipe for the girl’s dorm bathroom. Unfortunately it is nowhere to be found, so it looks like a trip to Brasil may be in the works, otherwise we’ll have to order the pipe from Santa Cruz, unless we decide to just go with the cheap thin stuff. The school truck is out of commission for a while with some kind of electrical ailment, so getting supplies to the school is a bit more complicated. Thankfully one of the brothers from the church has hauled a couple of loads for us with his truck. Other than that, we’re stuck hitch-hiking or taking the busses.

March 3, 2010

On my way back from town yesterday, I was waiting at the parada de los pobres for the bus, when a big square of a man offered me a ride on an equally square truck, loaded with cargo well above the cabin. Offering rides is normal here, and everyone charges five Bolivianos (same as the bus) for the thirty kilometers out to the school. I wasn’t sure how he planned to secure my 55 liter tank of diesel, but as the bus was another 15-20 minute wait and might not even be willing to take my fuel, I decided to go for it.
“Your tank will ride here, and you sit here” he said, indicating a solitary tire, the only article visible above the tarp-covered mountain of cargo. I sat on the tire with the diesel cradled between my knees. We took off, and it didn’t take me very long to realize that I was in for a wild ride. Mr. Square was a Jehu, but even worse, his method of avoiding the potholes was a jerky swerve at the last possible second. He reminded me of a kid fresh of the merry-go-round. Is he trying to throw me off of here? I wondered. I felt rather like a mounted officer on the front lines, or a solitary camper trying to hold down the tent in a bad storm. I could envision having to ditch the diesel to avoid toppling to my doom. Fortunately, there were some cargo straps to cling to, and the inertia of 55 liters also worked to my favor, and we soon passed the worst section of road and arrived at la tranca. While we waited for the officer on duty to lift the gate for us, another truck pulled up beside us, and the driver offered me a ride.
“That would be great!” I said.
“Hold on just a minute, and I’ll help you move your tank to my truck” he said.
“NO way!” it was Mr. Square. For some reason, he was adamant that I ride with
him.
“Nothing against you,” I said. “I’m just nervous about riding up here with no way to secure all this diesel. It almost fell off back there!”
“Don’t worry!” he said. “The road is good from here on, and I’ll drive slow.”
The other driver had backed off at this point, and since I had no one to help me move the tank to the other truck, I stayed put. As we started down the road, I realized that “slow” for Mr. Square was more like the fast end of normal, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his driving reflected an insecurity about his likely pedestrian pace. Thanks to God, we arrived at the entrance of the school driveway without incident.
So, in other news, I’ve been upgraded to a different house this school year, complete with a shower and flush toilet, the latter of which leaked at the base until I reset it this morning. That and a few dozen million other projects are crying out for attention and I wonder if I will ever have time to prepare for my classes: literature 3 and 4, voice choir, and piano lessons. And yet here I sit writing you this update…
I also want to start a book-selling program (also known as colporteuring) for students who are interested, I just don’t know where I’ll find the books I want. I did find out I can get some nine-volume sets that include Steps to Christ, Ministry of Healing, Counsels on Stewardship, and the Conflict of the Ages series, all for 100 bolivianos, or about $14.00, but they all have the same cover design, not exactly ideal for selling door-to-door. The container in the States that we’ve been planning to bring down here has boxes of donated Spirit of Prophecy books, but it will cost thousands of dollars to ship, and who knows when that will happen. I guess God does, and He has his timing. I’d like to coordinate with the churches in Guayara, but the pastor there is resistant to anything outside of the official church program, and so Keila tells me that if I start a colporteur program I’ll probably have better support from the local pastor if I invent another name for it. Funny how a difference in a name can change a person’s mind without changing much of anything else at all.

March 4, 2010

Turns out to be a good thing I went to town Tuesday and even better that I came back the same day. Yesterday all the bus companies started striking. They’ve blocked the road into town and won’t let any vehicles go in or out. It seems the government just passed a law that any driver of public transportation who is pulled over and found to be under the influence will be jailed, have his vehicle impounded and his license suspended for life. In retaliation, all the bus syndicates have declared a national huelga. Ruan got into town yesterday by taking some back roads on his dirt bike, and he says the men at the tranca are guarding the road with rifles and drinking their cervezas as they please.

March 7, 2010

The roof sheeting from Santa Cruz still hasn’t arrived for the Girl’s dorm, but it should be here any day. Raul, one of our 3rd-year boys from La Paz said the girls should be happy about their incomplete habitations — they’re going to have a million-star hotel! The girls aren’t laughing.
I’m not either, as we hike the two kilometers out to the portable asadero, pushing a wheelbarrow full of tanks of gasoline and water, a sharpening kit, block and tackle, and machetes. My socks are slipping with every step, farther into the toes of my rubber boots where they chafe against the blisters I won on this same hike last Friday. I’m on my way to move another downed log and set up the saw to cut more 2x2’s for the pearling on the roof of the girl’s dorm. The world’s a sauna, and I think the portable sawmill should rather be called an asandero, because I’m asando(roasting) after a mere 15-minute walk, and it’s still early. The sun flashes through the foliage like gold eyeteeth, and I trudge through a corridor of steaming green that sweats just from the simple exertion of feeding itself. Like the sun, the grasses show their teeth and punish my skin as I brush against the orilla. This is my third day in the last four of working with the sawmill, and my forearms are red and cut like the future stakes that I know are grazing out here somewhere in this madness of snarled pasture, returning to its natural state only months after its baptism by fire.
When we arrive at the downed log via the path I had the kids blaze with their machetes, it takes nearly the whole morning just to move it into position using the block and tackle and a tripod of hardwood four by fours. The next step is to set up the saw. The frame is light, and assembles quickly, but it takes the rest of the morning to get everything square. We return to the school for a hot lunch of steaming rice and beans, refill our water bottles, and hike back out to the work site. The kids are really slowing down by this point. One boy in particular has a very rotten attitude about today’s work requirements...(to be continued)

March 9, 2010

As soon as I grabbed it I knew there was something drastically wrong. My tortilla was crusty! You know, the kind that crack when you fold them, or shatter when you try to wrap your burrito. I don’t want this tortilla, I want a nice soft one that I can fill with my beans and salad! I told myself. But it was too late. I had the tortilla in hand, and I would eat it, si o si, as I well knew from childhood programming.
And then came a brilliant epiphany: this tortilla was a lot like the leftover piecrust mom used to bake with sugar and cinnamon! No sooner thought than said, my idea gave rise to an invitation from Tara to retrieve the missing ingredients. (We were eating our takeouts from the cafeteria at Ruan and Tara’s house, as we often do.) So, I went to the cupboard, fully expecting to soon indulge myself with a creative, impromptu pastry. The cinnamon was an easy find, but alas, the sugar was another whole rummage- around.
“Where would I find the sugar?” I had quickly tired of scanning the shelves of various containers and bolsas of seasoning, flour, and other varying culinary supplies.
“In the plastic box there on the left” Tara informed me.
The plastic box on the left however, was full of medio-opaque bolsas, forcing me to read the labels in order to ascertain the contents. Flour, baking soda, milk powder, unknown substance: I quickly ran out of shelf space to place the baggies as I removed them from the box, so I replaced them all in the box, and took the whole mess to one end of the table, right next to a stack of books and papers. Bad mistake. As I lifted one of the bags, another bag fell against the side of the box, poofing milk powder all over the papers and books. I lifted the offending bag to refold the open end and clip it more securely when Lyli interrupted “Kody, look out! It’s still spilling!”
Sure enough, some more milk powder caught in the wrinkles at the folded end of the bag were cascading into the plastic box. After finally subduing the rogue milk-bag, I went to dump the loose powder out of the box.
“Just put it in the cat’s dish” Tara suggested. “She likes it.”
I approached Marmite’s bowl on the floor next to the stove and bent down to empty the milk powder. Thwack! I had failed to consider the overhead cabinets that extend out past the stove and over the animal’s dishes, and my head rebounded from the bottom cupboard door, like a ping-pong ball according to Tara, although I contest that my rapid reflexes enabled me to withdraw from the point of impact with such rapidity.
Finally I uncovered the bag of sugar at the bottom of the box: simply large, brown crystals, but it was sugar nonetheless, and I would have my pastry. The bag was unopened however, so to avoid further mishaps, I handed it to Lyli to open, which she did without incident.
At last! With a sprinkle of sugar crystals and a dash of cinnamon over my crusty tortilla, I opened my mouth for the first delicious bite, when Lyli, who at this point was in the middle of an animated story, said something that made me laugh one of those short, spontaneous snorts that exits through the nose, right over my uplifted tortilla. Sugar and cinnamon scattered all over the table.
By this time, all of us were laughing, and I felt like a complete fool.
I would have been better off to just be content and eat my tortilla plain and crusty!

“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I (or my tortilla are in), therewith to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound… (Philippians 4:11-12).

March 22, 2010.

I had big plans to finish this email today. I was going to write some stories from working with the sawmill as well as tell you about the mission congress in Colombia last February. But, things just happened, and looks like it will have to wait. I hope that something you read in all this madness was a blessing and an encouragement. Thanks again for all of your prayers and support. Please pray for our students and for this school year that we may do the will of God and experience His transforming and creative power working in our lives in a visible, tangible way, every moment of every day. Blessings!

Jet Streams.

2010-02-17T13:11:00.000-04:00

2/2/2010

We leave the house at 3:40 a.m. for Sacramento International. Four hours of sleep is not a good way to start a 23-hour trip! I’m reminded that the immune system is most active when you’re sleeping and that airplanes are like bacteria test tubes,
and I resolve to nap today as much as possible. But I’m going to try not to sleep the whole time because I’m taking some GLOW tracts with me, and I’ve been praying I’ll meet some people who want to hear the good news!

United flight 410, departing from Sacramento to Denver.6:00 a.m.

The kids are up early in Sacramento this morning. I can see their flashlights glowing under the wrinkled sheet of morning fog, and I wonder what books they are reading. Joe, (I think that’s what he said his name is) in the seat next to me, is reading The China Study,the same book I have tucked inside my computer bag. The book makes for a great conversation starter about health and the original diet. Turns out Joe’s brother has heart problems, and the plant-based diet prescribed by Dr. Colin Campbell pretty much saved his life, so he let Joe in on the good news. I
mention how it’s interesting that God’s plan for our diet in the beginning still makes the most sense today.

Joe and his wife are on their way to North Dakota, the state where I was born, the Siberia of the U.S. It seems like we’re flying over Siberia as the first rays of sun light up a frozen wilderness. Joe’s wife is a kindergarten teacher and so when they ask where I’m headed I tell them a bit about UETIRG and our program there and contrast it with the memory-based Bolivian system and our own teaching-to-the-test tendencies in the U.S. I want to talk more, but its early, and I can tell they’d like to sleep. So I watch the landscape. The Rockies are beautiful! Here and there I see lakes so clear they could be windows into other worlds.
As we approach Denver we fly over textured farms with plowed fields, striped like layered cake, or stratified stone. A jet crosses close below us, sketching a white line across the sky.Strange how we can cross paths with so many people and leave only a wire of a cloud that still somehow calls attention to heaven.
When we land, Joe and his wife wake up, and while waiting to dock at the gate we talk some more and wish each other safe travels. Joe still has The China Study in his hand and I notice he’s using a pen for a marker. As we debark, I give him the Glow tract called “A Day to Remember” and tell him he can use it for a bookmark. Original diet, meet original Sabbath!

Denver to Miami, United flight 266, 10:17 a.m. mountain time.

We’re flying over a landscape dressed in polka dots. It seems a lot of people out here farm in circles, and I wonder if that’s ever a problem. Maybe it facilitates crop rotation! I laugh at my own ridiculous imagination. But sadly, that’s about as ignorant of farming as we’re becoming these days.

Miami to Santa Cruz, Bolivia with a stop in La Paz. American Airlines 922. 10:25 p.m. eastern time.

I’m surprised to discover that my seat assignment is 9C, the aisle side of the row right behind first-class. Because it’s by the emergency door, there are only two seats in our row. I’ve never had this much legroom on a plane before. There are no seats in front of us, so I have to stow my computer bag in the overhead storage, but first I take out my Bible and my water bottle.
My seatmate is standing while he waits for everyone else to board the plane. He is tall with a hard face, and hardly seems to acknowledge me when I say hello. I figure it will be a quiet ride. That’s okay, because I really want to sleep! I settle into my chair and am about to close my eyes when he asks in very good English if I’m going to La Paz.
“No, I’m going on to Santa Cruz” I respond.
“Really? That’s where I live.” He says. He starts to ask what I’ll be doing there, and then he stops, and pointing to my Bible asks:
“Are you a missionary?”
And just like that we’re into a conversation about the high school where I volunteer, and what a blessing it has been. At some point we switch from English to Spanish, and he seems more comfortable. He is surprised that the church organization doesn’t support the school financially, but I tell him that God has always provided and we’ve never lacked our necessities. We’ve had food or money arrive the very day that we finished our last meal. The flight attendants have strapped into their jumper seats right in front of us, and they can’t help but overhear our conversation and when I glance at them I can tell they are listening.
Later, when the flight attendants pass by with the supper I ask for the vegetarian meal I ordered on my reservation. The attendant apologizes and says that vegetarian meals are only provided on longer flights. My seat mate Señor Salomon asks me if I’ve always been vegetarian.
“What do you eat to replace the meat?” he asks.
“Nuts, beans, and other legumes.They have all the protein in them your body needs” I tell him.I’m surprised when Guermo, the flight attendant, brings me a whole-wheat roll and a huge salad with spinach and shredded carrots on a tray with a real napkin and real silverware. On the side is a bowl of mixed nuts! They’ve been listening to everything! I talk some more with Mr. Salomon about diet and health. He says he avoids meat during the week, (he means red meats: fish and chicken don’t count) but on weekends they still eat carne. Mr. Salomon owns a paint distribution company that’s an affiliate with Sherwin Williams. He’s on his way home from a trip to Milan, Italy. He says he’s a Christian, and that he wants to witness to other business owners.
“But for them to listen to anything you say, you have to be successful” he tells me. “When I first started, it was all about the money. God had to humble me a couple of times. Once my factory burned down and I lost everything. I had insurance, but they only covered half of my loss. Now I realize the most important things are God’s approval and the approval of my wife and family.”
When I exit the plane in Santa Cruz, I hand the flight attendant a GLOW tract. Mr. Salomon waits for me to clear customs and then offers me a ride. He and his wife ask me more questions.
“What do Adventists believe about the carnival?” they ask. It’s about a week before a big carnival notorious for its debauchery, where many people party themselves into a stupor. I tell them we believe that followers of Christ will respect their health and their bodies and will avoid putting themselves in places where they will be tempted to let sensuality and fleshly passions reign unchecked."
“Oh, that’s good.” He says. “The people here in Bolivia need to be taught that, because they grow up accustomed to the carnival, and it really is a licentious disaster.”
When we arrive at his house, Mr.Salomon has his driver José take me by the paint business, Casa Color,so I’ll know where it is. He wants me to come by later
to pick up some paint for the school.
“Make sure you send me pictures” he said, and handed me his email address and cell number. After showing me the business, José drives me right to the door of my destination.

P.S. I spent the weekend in Santa Cruz and then God blessed me unexpectedly with a flight with Pastor Gates to Guayaramerin! It was such a blessing to not have to be stuck waiting around in the big city! I’ve been at the school for a week now, helping with the construction and also helping interview new students for the coming school year. Tomorrow it looks like I will have the opportunity to fly to Colombia for a mission youth conference, so please keep that in your prayers as well. God bless you all.

Just Sharing the Blessings :)

2010-01-31T22:04:00.000-04:00

Two more days and I'll be back in for Bolivia, Lord willing! I’m excited! Being home the last few months has really been a blessing and inspiration though, as I’ve had so many opportunities to study and share and learn, I just have to share some of them with you! I’ve never seen a church so active in ministry before as the one here in Oroville! There are daily Bible studies in people’s homes and in the church, there is colportuering outreach, personal ministries, community services, and a church choir, all in addition to midweek prayer meeting and Sabbath vespers. Even more importantly is the Spirit behind it all. Things aren't perfect, but God's Spirit is moving! I definitely haven’t run out of things to do! God also provided me with a few days of work at a wholesale business that cuts up old wine barrels and resells them as planters, a redemptive aspect I find very satisfying!

When I was at Weimar a few weeks ago for a Hispanic Youth Conference, about 50 of us got on the Weimar Academy bus Sabbath afternoon and drove to Lincoln where we gave door-to-door surveys to probe people’s spiritual interests. In over half of the homes my friend Sean and I visited, the people spoke only Spanish. It was such a blessing to still be able to communicate. At one house, the young man who answered the door was interested in virtually everything on our survey.

“Health seminars?”

“Si!”

“Cooking and nutritional classes?”

“o si!”

“Seminars on how to manage your stress?”

“Si, seria muy bien!”

Finally we came to a break in the affirmations when I asked about stop-smoking seminars and he said he doesn’t smoke.

“Stop drinking classes?”

“Eso si, necesito eso!” he looked sheepishly at his wife.

We took a brief break in the survey as he invited us inside.

“It’s cold out there” he said. His name was Jose Luis, and he introduced us to his wife Patricia and their two little girls, Yaquelin and Sabata. We continued the survey and he said yes to everything else including Bible studies and prophecy seminars. He said his family is facing some really hard times right now and they are looking for all the help they can get. I asked if we could have prayer with them. He looked confused.

“Sure.” He said, “But how?” I was shocked to realize he and his family had no idea how to pray!

“It’s simple,” I said. “We just talk to God like we would to a friend, but also with respect as our Lord and Savior.” We made a circle, and after asking if they had any specific requests, we prayed what must have been their first family prayer.

“Thank you so much!” was all they could say as we were leaving, and their smiles made the 40º weather feel like 75. What a powerful blessing to be able to tell someone the good news that they can talk directly to God, that He listens, and He cares!

In just over an hour we had talked to three more families interested in Bible studies and several more interested in the health seminars. You cannot tell me that the Holy Spirit is not at work today! People are hungry! Sean and I kept thinking about a quote that Pastor Johnny Suárez, director of the Spanish radio programming Pan de Vida, had shared in his sermon a few hours before and we realized there is a big work to be done among the Hispanic communities here in the States!

Pastor Johnny told the story of two colporteurs from PUC (Pacific Union College) who started the Adventist work among the Hispanic population in the U.S. Not able to speak Spanish, they were frustrated until they met a bilingual Baptist pastor. He didn’t want any of their books, however, and instead of offering to help them, he challenged them to a public debate on the topic of the Sabbath.

On the day of the debate, the pastor received a letter from a Hispanic couple in a neighboring town asking him to come explain to them why Christians observe Sunday when their recent study of the scriptures showed Saturday to be the true Sabbath. “Perfect!” thought the pastor. “After this debate I’ll go up there and straighten these guys out too!”

At the debate, the minister thought he would be smart and make the colporteurs go first so he could refute everything they had to say. He hadn’t even bothered to seriously prepare, because he was sure that by merely listening to their arguments he would be able to point out their fallacies. The colporteurs, on the other hand, had fasted and prayed and prepared a presentation including over 40 biblical references. At the last minute however, they felt impressed to keep the presentation simple and stick to a few basic verses. As they began, they noticed the pastor furiously taking notes, but he soon put down his pen in amazement. When it was his turn to speak, instead of refuting the message he publicly confessed Saturday as the true Sabbath and gave his full support to the Adventist cause!

Pastor Suárez went on to share the following statement from Ellen White: "I was shown that the Hispanic work will be placed as the forerunner, and will march as the head of the cause of God in the United States." (Declaration of Ellen G. White to Abel Sánchez in California, 1913.) – The Untold Story, 100 years of Hispanic Adventism by Dr. Manuel Vásquez. Interamerican Publications, 2000, pg. 21.

This statement was probably surprising in 1913 when the Hispanic population was comparatively low. Now however, the Hispanic population is skyrocketing, (the US Census Bureau in 2002 reported* the U.S. population to be 13.3% Hispanic, and a 2004 press report predicts that percentage to nearly double by 2050.) But while the numbers are interesting, what impresses me even more is the open and receptive spirit one generally finds in the Hispanic community.

Incidentally, I talked to the pastor of the Hispanic church in Lincoln, and he promised immediate follow-up on all the contacts we made and asked for our contact information.

“If there are any decisions for Christ, we’ll be sure and let you know” he said. I’m looking forward to an email!

As we drove home that evening we sang scripture songs. Sean is gifted with a mind for numbers. He used to keep track of license plates, always watching for the new series when they would come out. Now, whenever he sees a license plate number it reminds him of a Bible reference.

“Did you know,” he tells us “that the Bible is organized in chiastic structure? At first I didn’t realize it, because you have 66 books, 39 in the old, and 27 in the new. But if you look at it again, you realize you have a group of 12 books at the end of the Old Testament: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah and the rest of the Minor Prophets! We would do well to study the chiastic center of the Bible!”

When he said that, I got really excited. Recently I had been studying some of the Minor Prophets and I had been blown away with the exactness with which their message speaks to God’s church of today. For example, the book of Amos talks about a people who claim to look for the coming of Christ (5:18-22) but are living like the heathen around them (1:1-15, 2:2-12), have rejected the spirit of prophecy (2:12) and have introduced mixed styles of worship and music that produce tumult and confusion (3:9, 5:23, 6:1-6). Again and again you the see the repeating motif of Samaria (a mixture of God’s people and the world, 2 Kings 17), its “tumult” (3:12) and its mountain, where the temple of Gerizim mixed pagan practices with the worship of God, (4:1, 6:1-6, 8:14). And then check out this reference! “Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, Saying, when will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the sabbath, that we may sell wheat…” It reminds me of the days when I used to count down the hours until it would be sundown so I could “have fun!” For all of God’s people who have lived like this, the prophet says “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.” (5:18). What a tragedy! Have you ever looked forward to something with great anticipation only to discover in the end that it was the exact opposite of what you had hoped? It’s devastating! Oh how I pray that doesn’t happen to us with the Second Coming! The remedy? Repentance and real heart work.If you haven’t studied the Minor Prophets lately, go take a look! It’s some powerful stuff if you apply it to your own life and don’t just think it was only meant for the ancestors! It is a blunt straightforward message that calls for soul searching, humility, and repentance. It also promises the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last days (Joel 2:28-29)

Speaking of the Holy Spirit, last week I had the opportunity to preach at the Oroville Seventh Day Adventist church, and I knew the only way I could do it would be through Holy Spirit power. My presentation didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped, but God really blessed in spite of myself. The title of the message was Acts-pansion: The rapid growth of the church in the book of Acts and how it can happen again. Have you ever been tempted to doubt the word of God that the gospel will be preached to all the world (Matt 24:14) when the world population will grow by 75 million this year alone? We get so excited about a million member increase in church membership, but we are falling seriously behind! What really stood out to me from my study more than anything was just how vital the Holy Spirit is to accomplish the work and what we need to do to receive it. (We have to pray for it, for one thing, as Christ does in the book of John. According to Peter we must also “repent and be baptized …in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). The word remission here means a lot more than simply forgiveness as anyone who has experienced the remission of cancer can attest! There’s a lot more I could share here, but I know some of you already heard my sermon, so I won’t repeat it!

Thanks to all of you for your continued prayers, support, and encouragement. God is providing for our needs for new teachers this year! I just got off the phone this morning with an old friend who is a math teacher, and she and her husband are planning to come in July! She already speaks Spanish fluently, so that is a huge blessing. The only vacancies that haven’t been filled yet are for another primary school teacher and for a high school science teacher (chemistry and physics). Please join me in praying for the students and staff of UETIRG this year and also for the gift of repentance and humility and the further outpouring of the Holy Spirit in all of our lives.

One more thing: we’re still trying to get a crate (think semi-trailer size) container of supplies shipped to Bolivia. The contents include much needed equipment, a truck, and literature to use in outreach, and other miscellaneous items. If you feel impressed to help ship the crate you can make donations to the BEM (Bolivia Education Ministry) account at GMI (Gospel Ministries International.) Go to the How to Help tab on the top right of the page. Or just call GMI directly at 423-473-1841.

May the God of peace keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus!

01-11-10

2010-01-11T03:02:00.003-04:00

Today seems almost apocalyptic in its binary and chiasmus, reminiscent of both Revelation and the quasi-prophecy of science fiction. Today, time is a palindrome, and no matter what worldview you take, the ending digit is the same as the beginning.

Ten years ago we thought the world was ending. Maybe we were right. We just didn’t realize it would take this long! Society was already toast; it’s just been pushed down for another round—again. Don’t mind the smoke and charred crumbs; it’ll hang in there on the hotwires until flames make somebody pull the plug. Movements seem controlled by unseen forces working in the shadows. America’s prosperity is a facade, the papery farce of Obama’s billions seems like a desperate exhalation, the last burst of bubbles before the drowning reflex makes us gulp for air and fill our lungs with water.

Yet people want to hope. “Things will come around,” I hear them say in the grocery line, or at church, or on the 12:00 news. “Just give it a year or two!” And they are right, things will get better, we are prisoners of hope! But things will also get worse, for we are prisoners of sin and its curse (Rom 7:14, Isa 42:7). We flounder for power, for something to hang onto, some sense of control in a rogue world. We seek it in knowledge, popularity, politics, wealth, business or pleasure, but we are left unsatisfied. What our hearts really long for is Christ, “The Desire of all Nations” (Hagaii 2:7). I tell you that the only sure hope I have ever found is “the hope of the gospel,” of “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” the Creator of all things “that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible” living in you! (Col 1:23,27, 16). That is why “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone who believes.” (Rom 1:16). I used to wonder how I could believe? Was just saying “I believe” enough to make it true? How does one believe? The Bible says that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:17). Imagine Jesus Christ the Verb of John 1:1, Creator of worlds (Heb 1:2) inside of you, recreating the synapses of your mind, rewiring you to truly hear his voice, giving you new thoughts, new motives, and new actions! God has ever wanted to give to us His hope and power. Is that good news or what? It is literally the reason we’re still breathing. It is the reason I do what I do.

In about three weeks I will be returning to Bolivia to teach for another school year, Lord willing! I’m really excited about this opportunity to continue to serve, grow, and learn to trust God more. Classes don’t start until the beginning of March, but I have been invited to a mission conference in Colombia on February 15-21. I planned to fly there directly to avoid backtracking and cut down on cost, but I can only be outside of Bolivia for 90 days total during a year, or I lose my resident status which would mean buying another visa and a lot more paperwork—and yes, you do have to buy a lot of the paperwork. Sometimes you even have to pay for someone else to do your paperwork for you!

I’m excited to see what God is going to do this next year. I know we have a church to build for one thing. The mayor of Yata has already donated the land. The simple health care, weekly visits, prayers, Bible studies, and community service that the school has been providing for the last few years are finally reaping a harvest.

Enrollment is up from 40 to about 70 for this next year. That means we will have a lot of new students who have not yet heard the good news! Many of our students arrive having never even held a Bible in their hands before, let alone having read it. I’ve been praying for them already, that the Holy Spirit will prepare their hearts to receive the truth.

Another idea I believe the Lord laid on my heart for this next school year is a colporteuring program. This school year we have classes on Sunday and one day in the middle of the week is designated as outreach day. There will be a number of different projects, from health clinics to house raisings. I would like to train some of the older students who are willing to do door-to-door colporteur evangelism. The biggest hurdle right now is our book supply. I’m hoping to find a supplier in the country in order to avoid large shipping fees and the hassle of clearing customs. (Customs officials will sometimes impound imports and demand large sums of money for their release.)

The last couple months I’ve been trying to find some work to help sponsor myself through this next school year. I obtained my substitute-teaching permit for Butte county and have been registering with the various school districts, but so far they haven't needed me. I did get another part-time job in addition, but work has been slow. But the Lord is good, and I’ve had a lot of opportunities to be involved in church activities and some local bible studies.

Two days ago I had the privilege of going to Weimar, CA with some friends to attend a Hispanic youth congress on the mission and direction of the Adventist Church. It was absolutely incredible! I gained a whole new perspective on the work here and I witnessed God's power first hand as I visited people door to door on Sabbath afternoon. I also had the chance to do some networking. More on all that coming soon!

May the Creator God rework all of us in His image!

Because life here would just be too perfect if it weren't for snakes...

2009-11-10T21:30:00.003-04:00

It’s hard to believe the school year is almost over. Classes end this Friday, and most of the kids will go home soon thereafter, just in time for Thanksgiving.

We’re already celebrated with a few thanksgivings recently as God provided for our needs in the knick of time, again. At breakfast last Tuesday, the directors announced that we were down to our last meal and didn’t have the money to buy food for the week and asked the students to join us in prayer. A few hours later the needed money arrived. Another morning a few months ago the kitchen had served its last when the parents of one of the students showed up unexpectedly with a large donation of food. This week again, the money came just in time. I think God likes testing us. It’s times like these when you wish you were a quick study.

Just as I was getting ready to come to town this morning, Yerco, one of the primary school kids, arrived late to school on his bicycle, sweating and distraught. “Me picó una vibora” he announced, much calmer than one would expect for someone with that kind of news.

“Where? When?” My mind immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario were I imagined us making a bed in the back of the truck, tourniqueting and elevating his leg and force-feeding him charcoal while bouncing to town at full speed…

“Just now in the entrance”

“Where in the entrance?” (It is over a kilometer long)

“At the corner” (Just a few minutes out). “Let me see” I ordered. He lifted his pant leg and pointed to his ankle. “Here?” I asked, pointing to two small red dots that looked like they could be fang marks, although they didn’t seem particularly fresh. He shook his head. “Lower.” I didn’t see anything, but some snakes have very small fangs and their bite marks can be very hard to see, but I was encouraged to see that his ankle wasn’t red or swollen.

“What did the snake look like?”

“It was yellow, and not real big.”

His pulse was normal and he wasn’t abnormally warm or cold, but he was limping and seemed to be in pain. Miss Susie put a charcoal poultice on his ankle and we brought him to the clinic in town just to be on the safe side. After the 40 minutes ride, he still showed no further symptoms, leaving us relieved and praising the Lord for his protection. What a lesson for me too, I couldn't help but think. There are always snakes in the road, trying to bite me and make me fall to my death. But God is good, and if I get up and keep in the road, God will provide my salvation.

At the clinic Yerco’s story was a bit more detailed and colorful. He said the serpent had latched onto his leg and he had fallen over with his bike and kicked it off. It was hard to tell if the story was simply growing with the audience or if he had just recovered from the scare enough to finally give the full version. The doctor wanted to keep him 24 hours for observation, so we went to his family’s house in town to let them know and they took it from there.

My next stop this morning was the immigration office to pick up my passport and carnet (the international ID card that is the last step of becoming a legal Bolivian resident), only to find out that there is a new police chief in Trinidad, and he wants the foreigners to go there in person to pick up our carnets. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that my flight home is the 23^rd and if my passport doesn’t get back in time, I’ll have to change my flight again. (Sound familiar?) The lady at immigration said she would call and try to work something out, so I’m going back this afternoon to see what she found out. In the meantime, God is helping me not to worry. I know it’s all in His hands.

Soul Maintenance

2009-11-09T21:26:00.001-04:00

Rainy season is here, wide-open and roaring wet. I wish I could send you a recording of the thunder. Sometimes you hear nothing coming, and then suddenly the sky cracks directly above you, so loud it sounds like its falling on your head.

It’s hard to dry anything. Clothes are still moist when you take them off the line, and sheets are damp and sticky when you crawl in bed at night. Leather shoes scum over with mildew, and books molder on the shelves. But the weather has been cooler and more comfortable to work in.

The jungle growth-rate has shifted into maximum acceleration, and it takes a small army of machete wielding alumnos to keep it from taking over the place. I fear that when the kids leave, the school will go as wild they will. One nightmare variety of grass turns into a shrub if you let it grow too long between cuts. It develops an enormous sobre-terranean root-ball that is impossible to cut lower than a foot off the ground. The “stump” that remains has to be dug out with a pick and shovel. It takes lawn care to a whole new level. I find myself longing for the commercial John Deere ride-mowers and self-propelled Honda push-mowers of the Walla Walla Grounds Department, although the tractor with the brush hog or at least the flail mower would be a lot more practical for our situation.

Speaking of mowers, I started working on our solitary push mower this week, the one we haven’t used once yet because no one has had time to fix it’s clogged carburetor and watered-down oil since it arrived in July. Fortunately the cylinder and piston seem to be okay, there was no sign of rust. I think it’s going to work once it’s all back together. Reassembly will have to wait however, because a student helper twisted the head off of one of the bolts that secures the torque converter. (We were going to bring it in to town today, but kind of forgot about it with all the snakebite excitement.)

Cutting the grass so often really makes me think of soul maintenance. I’ve uncovered all kinds of discarded ugliness and a few treasures that have been hidden by the overgrowth: old rotten clothes, mango pits, trash, bricks, tools, and even a couple of spoons, a nearly complete archaeological record of life here at UETIRG. I’ve been surprised at the abundance of the heart of the jungle. As popular as it may be, letting things go natural is not the greatest idea. The closer the jungle comes to your house, the closer come the critters. I found a snake in my house two days ago, and Paeter recently almost stepped on a porcupine on his way back from a late-night jaunt to the bathroom. As the hillbilly buddies would say, “there be things that live in them there woods!” So keeping the bush cut back is not just a matter of keeping up appearances. Please pray for the kids as they leave for vacation that they will remember what they have learned this year and not just default back to harmful lifestyles and habits.

We’ve been busy planning for next school year while we try to wrap up this one. Enrollment is already up to 70 students, making it a necessity that we finish the new girl’s dorm and classrooms over the vacation. A group is supposed to arrive the 20^th of November to help with that. Tara has been working on the new class schedule for next year. Several volunteers are not returning, and combined with the increase of students, that makes planning a workable class schedule difficult. Right now I’m leaning toward coming back for another year. I would probably teach two sections of chime choir as well as help with voice choir and teach third and fourth year literature. Tara wants me to write up a literature/language arts curriculum, so if you know someone who would be good at helping me think through that one, let me know!

I’m still working on the school website when I can. You can check my minimal progress here for stories on the international food fair, recent outreach projects, and other news. I’ve been slow about the updates… uploading pictures is a real hassle with the slow internet connection.)

I pray for God speed and thorough sanctification and the soon coming of our Lord and Savior. Blessings

A poem I wrote after doing laundry in the creek...

2009-10-30T20:33:00.000-04:00

Sanctification:

Hip deep in murk, in water over muck
I stretch my off-white, splotched-brown
pants across the scrub-board bridge
between the jungle bank and home.
Suds and soil mingle in the cleaning
toil of the bristle brush breaking
down cloth and widening
my underdrawers from waist to crotch.

After hours of wringing
sheets and towels and scrubbing
collars, I get out
like an old man
and leave the blue bar of jabon
to glue itself down...
The wrinkles of my dirty
shirt have gone inside my fingertips.
I am my own
sock: a little cleaner and longer,
yet left wrung and wrong-
side-out and hung up
to dry and fade stiff.

Oh, to be Christ's sock!
I can only wait the coming
take-down and the hard-
heeled foot that will break
my crust and make me
worn and fit again.

"The Best Days of My Life"

2009-10-28T20:17:00.002-04:00

On my way to my house I passed Javier. “How’s it going?” I asked.

“Whew, teacher” he whistled through his teeth. “We’re supposed to be making tortillas in the kitchen, and Brayan and I don’t know how, and Ruth got there late, and there’s not enough firewood” (We gather and cut our own wood for the kitchen fires, and it’s amazing how much wood you burn to cook ten kilos of potatoes, fry 240 tortillas, and boil four gallons of aupi.)

“Oh wow,” I responded. “I’m no expert at making tortillas, but maybe I can come help you out in a little bit.” Why did I just say that? I immediately thought. I have too much to do! I don’t have time to go work in the kitchen all afternoon!

I went to my house and started working on my long list of things I wanted to get done, and promptly forgot about my promise—for about 15 minutes.

You should go up and help in the kitchen. The thought reoccurred to me.

Nah, they don’t need help. They’ll be fine. I need to prepare for class tomorrow.

Dude, what did you come here for anyway? Do you think that your piddly translations of literary and linguistic knowledge are really going to make a difference and give these kids the edge on life? Leave it and go help in the kitchen why don’t you?

So, I left my work and went to the kitchen where I peeled and sliced the cucumbers and tomatoes to make the salad that the slacking morning crew was supposed to have prepared and served for lunch. I didn’t realize how dirty the cucumbers were until I went to wash my hands afterward and noticed what looked like dead skin peeling off of my fingers. “Wow,” I said “I’ve never peeled caustic cucumbers like this before! They ate the skin right off my hands!” The kids laughed at me and told me it was just dirt, and I felt stupid. Yet how many times have I been such an idiot, with sin such a part of me that I think I’m losing my skin when God starts to rub off my grunge?

The kids seemed really grateful for my help, and they seemed more friendly, talkative, and open to listen. Nothing huge, but sometimes small things like that can be really encouraging.

Speaking of encouraging, we just finished a fortnight-length marathon week of prayer and spiritual emphasis. I spoke twice for the evening meetings. I felt so unprepared and unorganized, as I didn’t have the time to really prepare everything ahead of time, but God helped me find the words somehow, although I’m pretty sure I didn’t put them in the right order. I felt so scattered.

At the end of the first week we had a communion service and on Sabbath the pastor came and spoke for church and baptized five of our students who have made a commitment to follow Christ: Barbara, Roly, Rodolpho, Rosalia, and Erika.

The third year students went to visit the nursing home and assisted in caring for the residents this last week for their outreach project. They’ve been learning some basic care skills in health class, and this week they’ve been practicing on each other and the staff, feeding each other, putting on socks and shoes, brushing teeth, shaving, and combing hair.

The kids were excited when they came back and shared their experiences. Alcides, one of our third-year boys and leaders on campus said “Let’s pray for the ancients.”One line form his prayer still sticks with me and makes me smile every time I remember it: “Thank you Lord for the opportunity to be here and for the gift of service, and for what has been, for my part, the best days of my life.”

May the Lord bless each one of you and may today be one of the best days of your life. :)

A Wimp's Wakeup Call

2009-10-06T20:15:00.000-04:00

“Day off” usually means a two-kilometer walk to the end of our driveway followed by a wait for the flota or some form of mobilidad to stop and give us a lift into town where we make photocopies for classes and buy fruit, groceries, and other necessities including some internet time. On this particular day Kaila and I got a late start on our walk to the entrance and missed the 8:30 bus. Nothing else was passing, so we sat and waited, and I took the opportunity to continue reading the book of Jeremiah. About 9:20 the next bus came along. As I boarded, I noticed the following prayer plastered across the windshield:

“Guíame en el buen camino, oh Dios.” Guide me in the good path, oh Lord.”

Oh, isn’t that beautiful, I thought, appreciating especially the absence of the typical and inappropriate stickers and posters that usually cover public transits, where the scantily clad babes you see next to the Virgin Marys are not the Baby Jesus!

I sat down happily in an empty seat next to a young man and continued reading Jeremiah chapter three. After about half a chapter, I tired of trying to focus the blurred and vibrating words as we rattled down the washboard road. I put the book down and begin to look around me. The young man in the seat next to me with the dragon embroidered jean shorts…the plump young mother two rows up nursing her baby… the bent and withered man at the front, sitting on his canvas sack of yucca that he would later sell in the market… What were they all thinking about right now? How much pain and suffering was represented by the cross-section of humanity before me? I suddenly felt an overwhelming burden to share with them something better.

I started to fantasize about standing up and walking to the front of the bus where I would say in a strong voice that everyone could hear: “How many of you noticed the slogan on the windshield of this bus? How many of you know what God’s good path is?” And then I would teach them about the law of God and the importance of repentance and the miracle of a new heart enabled by the grace of God to walk in purity and obedience.

This is weird I thought. Why am I thinking like this? Is God trying to tell me something?

Why don’t you really do it? Why not? This could be the only chance some of these people will ever have, and here you sit, you who have been blessed with so much, and you sit here with your mouth shut, hoarding the goodness of God. What if this is the closest some of them will ever be to the truth and you did nothing?

But they’ll think I’m crazy! My self screamed at me.

Hey, the other voice said. Just last Sabbath you were telling your students how they should speak up when we go visit people in Yata! You should not be ashamed to share the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God until salvation! You hypocrite!

Ouch.

It’s just a feeling! How do I know this is not just some crazy fancy passing through my head? Four reasons immediately came to mind: First, it was uncomfortable. I typically don’t spontaneously invent uncomfortable. Second, it was perfectly in accordance with Scripture and with our Christian Commission. Third, I felt ashamed for not having the guts to do it. And finally, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.

Why don’t you just take control of me if you really want me to do it? I argued. Please just make me get up and start talking… If you really want me to do it, just take control of me and make me so I can’t help myself! Make me like Jeremiah with your word burning in my bones so I have to speak to keep from bursting into flames!

You fool, the other side of me seemed to say. How can you expect God to give you the strength you need when you won’t lift a finger, let alone your hind end from the seat in an effort to do what you know full well is your express duty as a servant of the King?

Still, I couldn’t make myself move. For 15 kilometers, the dialogue raged in my head. Why don’t you ask Kaila? She would be a lot better for the job. Spanish is her native tongue!

Do you think God doesn’t know that? If He wanted her to do it, He wouldn’t be asking you! ¡Debilucho que eres! Just do it!

I can’t! Lord, forgive me for my weakness and lack of faith, but please be patient! Couldn’t you give me a sign or something? I don’t have a fleece, but if you stop the bus I’ll know I’m supposed to say something. We’re getting close to town now, and there won’t be time otherwise. Besides, that wouldn’t be hard for you! (As if that justified my petition. It was more like blaming God by way of comparison!) Just flick a tire with your finger, evaporate the gas out of our tank, or drop a bead of your sweat in the policeman’s coffee at the tranca so he’ll be in a foul mood and detain the bus for awhile. Anything!

Nothing.

Lord, forgive me, but could I have some kind of sign? Jonah ran away from his calling, and you sent him back to his job in a whale’s belly. Have patience with me!

We passed the tranca.

I wish I could say I eventually gave in, that I stood up and gave a stirring discourse on how to get started going down God’s Good Road. Instead, I am the one who learned a lesson: I am a spiritual wimp in need of some serious spiritual workout. What makes me think I’ll have the courage to stand before the wrath of nations and defend the honor of my King when I can’t even stand up on a bus and tell a few travelers that my God is amazing, that He wants to guide them in His path, take away their sins, and lead them to glory? Where is my boldness and zeal to share the Word of God? What kind of soldier am I that I would choose to protect my own pride and ego over the interests of my King? Why is it so easy to be a whitewashed sepulcher, to lack Devine power, to have a gutless, Ford Mustang godliness?

At least now I know something more I need to pray for. And fortunately, our God is a God of patience and opportunities. After making my purchases in the market, I was walking to the internet café when a sidewalk clothes vendor called to me.

“Hey, where are you from?”

Usually I probably wouldn’t even have noticed, but this time I stopped and answered.

“I’m from the U.S., but right now I’m from the internado at kilometer 30. It’s a collegio with a Christian emphasis. Do you know the place?”

“There’s a school out there?” she was surprised. “I didn’t know that! What denomination runs it?”

“Well, that’s a little complicated to explain. All of the volunteers at the school are Adventists, but the church does not officially sponsor us. That doesn’t mean they don’t approve of what we’re doing, it’s just they don’t have the money or aren’t willing to help with this particular project, although the local church here really supports what we’re doing.”

“Oh, okay” she said. “That’s good. I’m familiar with the Adventists.”

“Are you a Christian?” I asked.

“Catholic. I know what you teach about the Sabbath, but there’s no way I could close my shop because that’s the day when I get the most business!”

Wow, here you go you wimp, I told myself. Here’s another chance to share what God has blessed you with!

“That must seem hard,” I said, “But you know God is always faithful to take care of us when we obey His commandments, I have so many stories…”

“Hey, you speak really good Spanish” she abruptly changed the subject, and I thought of the Samaritan woman at the well and wished I could be as good as Jesus at casually inserting another truth into the conversation.

We continued to chat until we were interrupted by the arrival of another customer, but not before she said: “Now that I know there’s a school there, I’ll have to stop by and visit it sometime. I have some daughters who are high-school age.”

I hope she makes good on that promise, and if not, I know where her shop is! Her name is Elsa, and I think she is another one of the many people out there longing for something better.

May the Lord grow and strengthen us more every day to be His fearless ambassadors to a world withering under the curse of the Enemy.

Lighting, Lightning, and Sharing the Light of the World

2009-09-20T20:12:00.000-04:00

I’m currently at my desk in the two-room hut, typing this up so I won’t have to waste two hour’s of internet funds on work that I can do right now to the tune of the blessed mosquitoes singing lustily in my ears despite the wisping smoke from two flanking Baygon coils. I even paperclipped one coil to my John Deer hat. I feel as fearsome as Captain Blackbeard himself, but the mosquitoes remain unimpressed, except for the three that made the mistake of backlighting themselves in front of my computer screen—they’ve been thoroughly impressed — into print on my palms! Touché.

Actually, the fact that I still have light at this hour, as well as power for my consumadora and its half-an-hour battery, is thanks to a recent upgrade to our electrical system. Last week, Clint and Ruan hooked up four massive 700 amp, twelve-volt batteries, the type that are used to back up cell phone service providers. They come in six, two-volt cells inside a metal box, and we have them connected in pairs. It takes the generator four to six hours to charge them completely when they are dead. Fully charged, the batteries supply our power needs for two to three days.

To save on generator fuel, Clint asked Noel, Max, Joaquín and me to move the solar panels from the old system and hook them up to the new batteries. The solar panels were all wired together on top of several four-meter posts. Rather than unwire all of them and take them down one at a time, I borrowed Ruan’s climbing rope, tied the panels in three loops, and passed the rope over the peak of a nearby roof. One of the boys held the rope while the rest of us cut the support posts and lowered the whole shebang in one “fell swoop.” Getting them up to their new home atop a fragile fiberglass roof was not so easy, however. We had them hoisted halfway up when we almost lost them due to a miscommunication with the rope handler on the other side of the building. Thankfully, we regained control of our expensive burden, and now everything is hooked up and functioning for the time being.

Speaking of all things electrical, last week I witnessed the most intense thunderless lightning storm that I have ever seen, according to my following journal entry dated 9/18:

Every three seconds all horizons flash, 360 degrees of electric sky, and the buzzing insects provide the only sound effects… 40 minutes, and no sign of letting up. If I didn’t know better, I’d say God has opened a discothèque! Instead, I’d say He’s just playing with the light switches, or having an all-night photo shoot so He can archive a face-book directory of all the angels.

At any rate, the bugs are really getting into it. I can see the fireflies and luciernagas, the moths like roadside reflectors of passing trucks, insects going berserk, as if there has been some emergency. The crickets all have their sirens on. The big lights say there’s been a traffic accident on Saturn, but all units are already out on a high-speed chase just south of the Milky Way.

Fortunately we have had a little rain and cooler weather along with all the lightning, and the air is a bit cleaner now. The neighbors have all been burning their chacos, the trees and brush that they cut in order to plant rice and yucca, and the air is so full of smoke at times that it makes your throat go sore, the sun set red and deep, and the moon rise bright as a tangerine.

We’re still cutting our own chaco. I like to think I am gaining some modest skill with the machete, though my accuracy is still lacking. For some reason it is very satisfying to fell a two-inch tree with a single stroke.

It is incredible how much you sweat out there. You know you’ve sweat a lot when your clothes cling to your body and insects drown in your runoff. The worst is that the flies and hornets love the salty syrup of sweat. I’ve learned to look before I swat.

Despite all that drama, things have settled down here you might say, making room for new problems! But the beautiful thing about problems is they keep you busy praying and trusting in God.

There has been a lot of sickness lately. Right now there are six students down with aches and fever. The good news is that the malaria tests all came back negative this time. We’ve had no new cases since the last outbreak I mentioned. Only, Mamerto Zapani, one of our staff members, contracted malaria shortly after leaving to visit his deathly ill father. He returned yesterday, and though weak, seems to be recovering.

Other than that, Alcides, one of our third year boys had what we think was dengue, or broke-back fever, another mosquito-bourn nicety. I had it when I was here in 2006 and I can vouch for the appropriateness of the nickname. The good news is that you can only get it once. The bad news is, you only have one back, and there are four different kinds of dengue. Also, the antibodies from one type sometimes react with those from another, causing more mayhem.

Last week, Barbara, one of our freshmen, was having terrible stomach pain that did not respond to medicine. The initial diagnosis was gallstones, and the doctors wanted to operate. We were reticent to let them do the operation, however, because of their limited resources and experience. (When Kaila Valenzuela Flores, one of our volunteers, injured her knees in a motorcycle accident this last spring, (you can read the story in the July archives of Ruan and Tara's blog) they sewed her up without cleaning her wounds sufficiently and she got a terrible infection.) The pain got so bad however, that we went ahead and let the doctors operate. They ended up taking out her appendix. She is back at the school now, and already able to walk without assistance, gracias a Dios.

This last week was week of mission emphasis. Every night we shared slide shows, videos, and stories from missionaries around the world. Some of the stories made our problems here look like nothing. I realized how little I have really sacrificed to the cause of God. The students were encouraged and inspired as well. Limbert, one of our sophomore boys, really wants to go to the Philippines.

Speaking of mission service, every Sabbath afternoon we visit the people in Yata and sing, pray, and study the Bible with them. It’s really a neat experience for the kids, as well as a great way to reach out to the community. During the week, the students also do clinicals and other community service projects.

This week, Juan and Juana, the couple that my group usually studies with, wasn’t home, so we went wandering to see who else we could visit. First we stopped at the neighbors, a house the kids have never gone to. The inhabitants weren’t too excited about our company, and took about five minutes to drag themselves out of the house, and then only the señor would sit and visit. But in the end he let us sing him a song and have a prayer with him, and I have a suspicion he liked it more than he had expected, because he told us we could come back any time.

The next person we visited was an older gentleman named Humberto. He was thrilled to have the company, mainly, it seemed, to have someone to talk to, although when we sang to him I was afraid he was going to break his face smiling. We shared a few Bible texts, and then asked him if he had any prayer requests, or anything we could help him with. He told us that all his family has passed away and he only has one friend who comes to visit him. Also, his house burned down recently, and he’s been having stomach problems that left him incapacitated for weeks. “This guy’s worse off than Job,” I thought.

“More than anything, I’m lonely” he said. “I’ve seen your groups visiting other houses, and every week I’m like a dog trailing along behind, hoping to be noticed, but it seems like they never want to come.”

The kids were visibly affected by this revelation, and promised to return every week.

“There was a missionary girl from Columbia from your school who used to visit me, a very nice young lady, but she stopped coming and I didn’t know what happened. She promised to bring me a Bible, but she never did.” Humberto continued.

I recently bought a Spanish Bible here, and I don’t know why I didn’t think to give it to him on the spot, but I’m going to give him one next week for sure, along with a copy of the Great Controversy.

Classes are keeping me busy. The kids are making progress in chime choir. I think we’ll be ready to play a hymn for church in another week or two. Voice choir is fun, too, although many of the kids haven’t had much musical background, and some still cannot match a pitch to save their lives, let alone read music.

I’m also teaching my first piano lesson ever. Max Miro, one of the third year boys was asking for lessons long before I arrived, and before the school even had a piano. He’s learning fast. Amazing what a little desire can accomplish. For my part, I’m reviewing some of the theory that I never learned as well as trying to memorize the music terminology in Spanish. Pointing with some basic descriptors works pretty well in a pinch, however: that black thing there with the tail on it gets one beat. :) (Incidently, quarter notes are called negras or “black notes,” which tells you nothing about the time it receives.) Despite such challenges, my literature classes are the most difficult for me, mainly because it’s just plain hard to teach literature in your second language! Fortunately, most of the principles of good reading and writing still apply, and even many of the grammar and punctuation rules carry over. We’ve been reading The Voice in Speech and Song, and I’m making the kids read aloud and evaluate each other on volume, clarity, posture, pacing, and expression.

What I really struggle to teach them more than anything is how to think critically. I’m not sure what more to do for them, other than to keep pushing them, asking questions, and trying to model my thinking process. Today we talked about the importance of reading for understanding and not just “barking at print.” I introduced the strategies of paying attention, (only half kidding) reading in context, and breaking down unfamiliar words to help guess their meaning. (Curiously, one of the examples I stumbled upon is that ostentación (ostentation, showiness) contains the word tentación (temptation). Thinking of Matthew chapter four, it’s easy to see why! Satan either tempts you with some big show, or he tempts you to make a big show of yourself!)

I had all my students write me a personal essay so I could get to know them better and diagnose their writing abilities at the same time. The first part was fun—the latter, not so much. Many of them really struggle. I had one-on-one conferences with them and then they rewrote their essays, some of them exactly the same as before. A few of them really improved, however, and I plan to eventually post some of their stories on the website in both English and Spanish.

Tomorrow is student day, a national holiday here in Bolivia. The staff is getting up at five in the morning to sing to the kids—the same treatment they dole out to birthday boys and girls, minus the trip to the arroyo for an early morning dip. (Really gives one a lot of ganas to get older.) We couldn’t do anything else special for the kids tomorrow, but on Thursday we’re going to Nueva Canaan, a Christian retreat center just outside of Guayaramerín. As long as we don’t have to march around Jerico, I’ll be happy… although I could stand for a few walls to come down… my visa situation is still in the works. I have accumulated a month’s worth of fines while waiting for my Interpol to come through, only to find out that they will no longer send us the document from Santa Cruz and we will instead have to go in person to Trinidad. At this rate, I’ll probably get my residency just in time for the end of the school year. Ruan and Tara say it must mean I’m supposed to come back here next year. Who knows? Anyway, it's late, and I have class at eight tomorrow morning. ¡Gracia y paz a cada uno de vosotros!

Problemas

2009-08-31T20:04:00.001-04:00

This is my fourth week of round two here at U.E.T.I.R.G. (pronounced “way-teer,” its an acronym for Unidad Educativa Technical Industrial de Richard Gates) the little school with a big name and a bigger purpose out here in the medio-selva of northeastern Bolivia. So much has happened since I wrote last: a building has gone up, another has almost gone up—in smoke — a lot of trees have come down, to cut into lumber to sell and to use here in construction.* Six students have been kicked out, I spent 36 hours riding the bus to Rurrenebaque and back to take another student home, trimester grades were due last Friday, we started a pathfinder club, one of the school’s motor bikes was stolen, we’ve had an outbreak of malaria at the school, and my visa has expired! I’m still working on all the paperwork to get legal again.

In my last post I mentioned the students who were kicked out. Well, one of the girls named Luzmar (Light-Sea in English) was afraid to face her mother after being expelled, and jumped from the truck while she was being taken home. Thankfully the truck wasn’t going very fast and she was not hurt, but she had to be restrained by two teachers for the rest of the ride to town as she kept screaming “I don’t want to go home, I want to be with Jesús” (I’m pretty sure she was referring to the boy named Jesús who she had been sneaking out with, but who knows, as she seemed intent on throwing herself out of the truck again.) Now we’re beginning to understand why she did not want to go home. Her mother was irate when she found out her daughter was expelled, and immediately threatened that we would be sorry. Since then, she has begun a campaign to shut down the school, coming up with all kinds of wild accusations, saying that we pushed her daughter out of the truck and that she was badly injured and had to go to Cochabamba for medical attention. She also claims that we mistreat the students here, even airing an advertisement on TV warning against our school. And all of this even though she is an Adventist sister who was previously very supportive, assisting with student accounts and paperwork, and helping to acquire documents for the students, many of whom came here from the primary/school orphanage Familia Feliz in Rurrenebaque. It wasn’t until recently we discovered that she was obtaining these documents in an illegal and fraudulent manner, but that is another story. At any rate, she promises not to rest until she has done everything she can to bring us down.

As a result of her complaints, the district officials for the department of education came to visit last week and interrogated us extensively on the nature of our school, what the program is like, are our teachers certified, how do we treat the students, how do we practice our religion… they also interviewed individual students, and toured the whole school. None of the administrative team was here that day, but Kaila and Lyli (two of our volunteer teachers from Mexico) did a good job answering their questions. To tell the truth, it was a great opportunity to glorify God to these men who were visibly shocked by the singular nature and purpose of the school. By the time they left, it seemed they were satisfied that the accusations against us are false. Even so, this is just the beginning.

The first court hearing was this last Tuesday. The Bolivian equivalent of Child Protective Services is kind of siding with the mother. There is a Bolivian law that says a student cannot be expelled for being pregnant, and they are construing it to mean that we cannot expel students for being out together at night, even though this was not the first offense, and the staff has been working with these kids for a long time to get them to change and follow the rules. Fortunately, God has blessed us with a good lawyer who has been very kind and helpful, promising to do everything in her power to help us — so far, without cost!

With all the rumors flying around about the school, we thought it would be good to clear the air a little bit, so on Sunday we had a general assembly with all the students’ parents as well as the local pastor and any church members who wanted to come. After a small musical program where the students performed some numbers and shared their testimonies about what the school has done for them, we had a question and answer session in which staff and students shared their side of the story. Noel, one of our third year boys, explained that he has seen Luzmar in town shopping after her jump from the truck. He talked to her and she said her mom was sending her away to the school in Cochabama. She showed no sign of injury whatsoever.

The meeting went well, and the parents and church members were all very supportive. Many of them shared what a blessing the school has been to them and their children. One non-Adventist mother was especially adamant in her support. That is another blessing: strengthened relationships with student’s parents and the local Adventist churches. So am I worried? No, not at all. This is God’s school. I’m just privileged to serve here and to see what great things the Lord is doing and to be a small part of it. We have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, right in the middle of all this we had another crisis to deal with… To save time, I’ll tell the story here in present tense, as I wrote it while sitting up half the night. The first part has to do with the wood we’ve been cutting in the jungle, but it leads into the other story:

* 8/24/09 Mr. Dion, Ruan’s dad who comes here every few months to help out, cuts the lumber on a portable milling saw, and we’ve been carrying the boards out of the jungle on our backs. They’re wet and solid hardwood and my shoulder is still sore from two days ago when I helped carry out a load of 12 foot 2x6’s to sell in town. As the board cut into my shoulder, I thought of Christ and wondered how he ever bore the cross at all after being scourged nearly to death, not to mention staying up the entire night before, sweating drops of blood, carrying “the weight of the world on His shoulders” as we like to say, the salvation of the human race, the risk of eternal loss, and the pain of complete separation from His other 2/3^rds. Wow. And I, with nothing but the weight of half a cross, stooped and stumbled, and the in the end needed help bearing my burden the last half of the 500 meter-or-so trek between the fallen and milled tree and the lumber cart waiting on our unfinished runway. From there, we wrestled the over-laden cart another few-hundred meters to the school and the waiting truck.

(Here followed an explanation of the problems with Luzmar.)

On the other side of my hut is a young man lying on the top bunk, feeling a weight of guilt and despair that he cannot carry as easily as he carried the 2x6’s out of the jungle. His name is Marki (Changed for privacy), and I am here to watch him and make sure he does not try to harm himself like Luzmar did. It is going to be a long night. I’m watching my Manutata velas (candles) burn themselves down one at a time until the last centimeters of wick have nothing solid left under them and begin to tilt and finally fall, extinguishing themselves in the plastered mess of their own melted bodies. But it does not happen all at once. Each candle starts out tall, with a strong blaze, each one’s melt drips slowly down the sides, hardens, and is overrun by new streams of displaced wax. Sometimes the sloughing sides seem to rise on themselves, the fresh drips building upward on each other, on the backs of congealed burrs that jut out just enough to hold them up and let them rise like liquid elevators, like barges in dam locks, until the overpowering volume of cascading wax spills over the ascending drops, engulfs them, and carries them back down to help bury the remains of the fallen: four black wicks, soon to be joined by another, their charred carcasses held fast in a molten lake that ices over from the outside, entombing them alongside two moths and a score of scorched gnats that lost their wings for a joyride through the flames. Even as I write, one comes winging in too close, and lights up like a match-head, with a poof, more like a miniature Hidenburg, and spirals against the base of the wick where he looks like a martyr, pegged to the stake, his burning abdomen snaps and crackles like popcorn. But he is no saint, or hero, he is a suicide: a moth worthy of the proverb that tritely symbolizes the self’s attraction to the wicked lights of destruction. How many must die? Is it really so fun to fly by fire? Don’t they see their floundering comrades below, squirming vainly to free themselves from the gel that thickens about their treading legs, sets their wings still as concrete?

I hear Marki turning in the bed across the room, and I know he must feel absolutely mortified. He told us he felt like this was the end for him. It was his flip-flops we found behind teacher Kaila’s house… I was over at Ruan and Tara’s when we heard her scream “someone is behind my house!” Ruan, Paeter, and I grabbed our lights and rushed out to see if we could catch the culprit. This was not the first time the girls thought they saw someone spying on them. This time it was unmistakable. Lyli was showering when she looked up and saw the silhouetted of someone standing on the top of the wall under the thatch roof. When she looked up, the head ducked back into the shadows. “Kaila, come here!” she called, and the shadow immediately leaped down behind the house and took off running. That was when Kaila called us. While we searched behind the house, someone else checked the dorm. Two boys were missing (one was just overlooked under his mosquito net.) Marki was already suspect, but when he showed up unexpectedly and without reason and hermano Mamerto’s house, he appeared barefoot and very serious. Meanwhile, Juaquin, Max, and I found his chanelas behind Kaila’s house, and that was the clincher.

We had another fire today. Ruan was burning the chaco just up the driveway, and the blaze started to get away from him. Mamerto, Gabriel, the boys and I came to the rescue, cut and wetted a line through the chest-high grass, and steered the fire away from Enrique’s house toward the creek. It burned quite a large area, but we saved the nearby banana trees and pineapple patch. With the fire out, we all went back to what we were doing before, only to see smoke billowing up a few minutes later. Some smoldering logs along our firebreak had burned like fuses, bridging the line to ignite the grass and call us back to the fight. Why is it that destructive fires are so tenacious, but the light of a candle is so easily snuffed out?

8-25. After class this morning, Ruan and I had a talk with Marki. Usually it would be the whold Ad. Committee that would talk to him, but most of them are gone today. Ruan is feeling bad because he’s spent the whole morning dealing with Rodolfo and Paulina’s parents who arrived last night to visit their kids and ask for a mountain of things including rice and a guitar (the latter which we could not give them, of course. But I guess they figured, “you have not because you ask not”). Ruan finally got them taken care of, only to have the Marki situation to deal with, and no ad-council members to support him. Kaila would be a good one to talk to him if not for the fact that she was one of his victims and he couldn’t bear to face her. So I told Ruan I would be happy to try to help him. Kaila, Ruan, Helen, and I had a prayer together, asked God for wisdom and the right words to say, and reminded ourselves that this is God’s school and Marki is God’s child. Then we went down to have the talk…

“What do you think we should do?” Ruan asked him.

“I want to leave,” he said. “I want to start over new.”

“What do you mean when you say ‘I want to start over new’” I asked.

“Go somewhere else” he said.

“And what happens next time you have the same problem? Will you go somewhere else again? Run away from your problems? You know that’s not the way to start new. The only way to truly have a new start is to realize what you did was wrong, feel sorry you did it, and ask for forgiveness, first of those you have wronged, and then from God. That is the first step in starting new.”

The anguish on his face was evident as I talked. I could see his pride fighting the conviction. “Lord, please give him the desire and the courage to make things right!” I prayed silently.

“Of course, it has to be your choice” I continued. “We can’t, nor do we want to force you, but you do need to know that whether you go or stay, that first step to start anew is the same.”

“Just know that we care about you, and we want to help you work through this” Ruan said.

I know God gave us the words to say, just as we had prayed.

Still, Marki remained intent on going home, and he could not bring himself to make things right before he left. With the whole ongoing Luzmar fiasco, we knew we couldn’t just let Marki go home by himself, especially since he is still a minor. Ruan asked me if I would make the 20 hour bus ride to Rurrenebaque where Marki’s father Carlos lives. I didn’t particularly want to, but someone had to do it, so I said “why not?” Besides, I’d get to see more of the country and have a chance to catch up on my writing. My trip there and back is another whole story, but I’ll just say that God really blessed and worked everything out. We missed our bus when it went past the school Tuesday morning, but after waiting about ten minutes at the end of the school driveway we got a free ride on a pickup truck to Riberalta where the bus stops again, and from there we booked passage to Rurre. Ruan had given me money for the bus fare, and said it should cost 120 b each, but they ended up charging us 140 ($20). Marki said it was “Gringo tax.” On my return trip when I was by myself, however, I got my ticket for the normal rate, so apparently the original rip-off was thanks to Marki con su cara tan de gringo.

Right after getting on the bus, another passenger who was arranging his luggage handed a notebook to Marki to hold onto for him. I glanced down to see that the front cover was plastered with a scantily clad woman. Marki quickly turned it over, looking embarrassed. “Tentación” he said. It made for a good segue into a conversation about the importance of guarding our thoughts.

We arrived at 11:40 pm in Rurrenebaque. Ruan was never able to contact Carlos and let him know his son was coming home, but he seemed to take it all in stride. Fortunately, Ruan was able to talk to Jerry, one of the volunteers at Rurre, and when I called Familia Feliz to let them know I was in town, Jerry was already on his way to pick me up. Originally, I had thought I would stay at Familia Feliz for a day or two, since the kids had off this last weekend and there were no classes anyway. Also, the bus for Guayara leaves Rurre early in the morning, and since I hadn’t gotten to bed until after 1:00 the night before, I wanted to sleep in a little. But when Jerry called from Rurre and said there was another bus that was leaving in half an hour, for some reason I felt like I should go. At the time, I thought it was because I needed to get back and work on the paperwork for my residency. It is 13 km of rough, muddy road between Familia Feliz and Rurre, and about halfway there I realized that there was no way I’d make it there in time. “Oh well, I guess I’ll stay here another day like I originally planned” I thought. But as we rolled into town, there was the bus, stopped on the side of the road as if it were waiting for me. Twenty-two hours of mud-holes and washboard later, I made it back to the school, just in time to come to town and work on getting my papers. Now here I am, still “working” on my papers. The first step was to get some pictures taken and send them along with a copy of my passport to Santa Cruz to get an Interpol background-check from the international police. I’ve sent for it twice already, and still no luck. Until I get that, I can’t really do anything else except pay the $2/day fine for my expired visa. It’s not just me that is having visa problems either. There are four or five of us right now who are all having the same problem.

Anyway, there is still more I have to share, but I’m running out of time. I just want to ask for your continued prayers. I’ve already seen God at work, using these trials to bring the staff and students closer together and closer to Him. I know that as we continue to seek Him, God will use all these trials to strengthen our faith and to bring honor and glory to His name.

Que Dios nestro Padre y el Señor Jesucrsito les concedan gracia y paz.

Water, Smoke and Fire

2009-08-18T12:00:00.001-04:00

The highway out to the school cuts through the jungle like the Israelites’ path through the red sea. Passing traffic paints the trees a brownish-orange that makes them look dead, but in a growing death that closes in over the road to block out the sun and hinder the passing traffic.

How easy to be like one of those trees, planted just outside of the way, pretending to be dead to the world while underneath the self is all alive. Fortunately, there are other trees I saw, stripped of foliage, standing straight as arrows toward the sky, at the top of each a knot like a fist, from which protrudes a single branch, like a finger pointing to heaven.

Last week we were having a problem with the water system, so I climbed the water tower to look in the tank and watch the water level as Mr. Clint tested the different valves. At the top of the tower he boosted me up onto the tank where I removed the cover and looked down into 5000 liters that rippled behind my reflection, oscillating between concave and convex distortions of myself. And I thought, that same substance sloshes in my heart and head, so how can I avoid such instability? That shifting aqua-map of me is perhaps more accurate in its uncertainties than any glass mirror that shows me clear, steady, and better looking. But the most accurate picture of me is the one that God presents in His Holy Scriptures. I am created in His image and bought with His blood. I am worth the existence of worlds, galaxies, the very life of the Creator who sustains everything. And all of this despite the fact that I am a sinner, a transgressor of the Holy Law with a stone-hard heart and a head that’s thick between the ears, a dirty-dog of a wretch who deserves to die and be lost in the dust of the eternal ages.

But here I am, gracias a Dios. I wish I could share everything with you. A lot has happened in the last week and a half.

All the walls on the girls dorm are up, all 24,000 bricks of them. The construction was well organized, everyone had their appointed duty. The students and the volunteer group from Texas all worked hard, and we did in five days what we had projected would take seven.

As I was mixing mortar for the bricklayers on Tuesday, I heard the crackle of burning foliage and looked behind the dorm to see a large column of smoke rising. Whoever had been assigned to burn trash had let the fire get away from them. Someone shouted to bring water and shovels. The fire was moving away from the dorm and toward our water tower that supplies the entire campus. It had already melted a hole in part of the two-inch main line, right next to an uncovered valve, and water was shooting out in a wasted geyser that was of no help to us, as the fire had already moved on to some thick grass and small trees. I thanked God we weren’t in California as we beat down the fire with our shovels. Ruan brought a hose, and we were able to extinguish the fire right before it reached the water tower.

After work in the evenings, we held a short series of meetings in the nearby village of Yata. One of the volunteers from the group is a young doctor from Mexico, and she preached from the book of Daniel. On Sabbath we had church in the campus chapel. There are several families that come from Yata. Every Sabbath afternoon we go there with the students and go door to door visiting families, singing hymns, and sharing the Word.

The missionary group is gone now, and classes have resumed. My teaching schedule is actually not too heavy, but I am also a work supervisor, pathfinder counselor (for our new club) and half-time boy’s dean. A good share of time also has to be devoted to activities that take a matter of minutes back stateside. For example, after my morning class yesterday, I carried in a couple 20-liter jugs of drinking water from our natural spring about half a kilometer behind the school. Washing laundry in the creek followed, and later I went to help cut lumber in the jungle. Remind me to tell you more about that later. I’ll just say, I thought of David Livingston and other missionary pioneers who hauled their stuff for thousands of kilometers over jungle trails, and I wondered how in the world they ever did it.

I worked with the voice choir for the first time yesterday. Many of them are having trouble matching a pitch, and so I worked with them one at a time at the keyboard, singing along with them until they could match my note. I saw a little progress, which was encouraging. It’s going to be a lot of work, but I think it will be fun. We also talked about proper breathing technique, and I had them practice inhaling and exhaling using their diaphragms.

On Sunday we suffered an unexpected and painful blow. We had to expel four students (two couples) for sneaking out of the dorm and meeting down by the creek. Apparently it wasn’t the first time they’ve done this. Worst of all, two of them were our only 4^th year students, leaders in the school who have been here since they were freshmen. (They were the only students left at the school who I knew from last time I was down here.) The whole process took most of Sunday. It has been very difficult for the school, but God is good, and I think everything will turn out to His honor and glory. Please pray for the students who had to leave, that they can learn from the experience and won’t turn their backs on everything they’ve learned.

Waiting...and more waiting

2009-08-03T20:37:00.000-04:00

I’m still waiting in Santa Cruz. Patience and longsuffering are usually the first fruits to get plucked when one is a missionary. Last night a sur blew in, one of these storms that sweep up from the south, bringing wind, rain, and colder weather, and complicating life in general, including the movements of small aircraft. The plane that was supposed to take me to the school is stuck in Rurrenabaque to the northwest, waiting for the storm to pass, so it looks like the soonest I’ll be able to fly out will probably be Tuesday morning early. My other option is to take a bus to Trinidad and get a commercial flight from there, but I have no guarantee that they are flying right now either. So here I am waiting and asking God to grow me some more patience. I hope that the current slug-like operation of my computer is not supposed to be the answer to that prayer.*

On Friday I rode with Jeff Sutton, the aviation director, out to the property for the new TV station and sanitarium. It is a beautiful and sizable plot of pastureland just south of Santa Cruz toward La Guardia. They had just gotten the pump going on the well, using a diesel generator. The only structure they’ve started building so far is the guardhouse, but they are beginning to collect materials for the station facilities. I was able to see and visit with Luis Alfredo, Victor, Elizabeth, and Carina, some of my students from the last time I was here. They are now graduated and either working or studying here in Santa Cruz.

En sabado we went to church in Barrio Lindo, which means beautiful neighborhood, and the garden in front with its cypress and lilies and pristine shrubberies seemed to validate the name. As is typical, however, the compound walls are topped with razor wire and broken glass, which I hope is not symbolically significant.

Sometimes one can learn from the simplest things. On our way to church yesterday I noticed a number of people working in the street. Some washed the windshields of the taxis, some sold oranges, crackers, picolé, or newspapers, while others rode unicycles and juggled batons in front of stopped traffic at an intersection. They don’t wait around for some grand work, something that seems important. They take what they have, go out in the street, and make the most of it. Jeff told me they can actually make decent money that way.

In the afternoon we went to visit a grandma from the church named Fructuosa. She is dying of cancer, yet she was happy to have a house full of visitors. Her daughter was there, and she showed us a beautiful tablecloth her mother had just finished making. “When she is hurting she just sews faster,” she explained, going on to share that when the pain is the greatest is when she sings the loudest. Grandma shrugged and said simply, “the hymns are a great comfort.” And so we sang. I played their little electronic keyboard with no pedal that sounds like a kid’s toy in the aisle at Walmart, and she was thrilled.

In the back was a beautiful patio and fruit trees that she had planted, but she mentioned nothing of this to us. She was much more happy about Veronica, the young woman sitting by her side who she met in the park and brought to the Lord.

When we left, she asked if I would come back. “I hope so,” I said. “That’s a good answer” she replied.

This morning I helped Jeff and his wife Fawna and their two little girls move from their apartment next to the TV station here in town to a house outside of the city. It took two trips in the van, and Jeff and Fawna both commented on how annoyingly easy it is to accumulate stuff.

On my way to help them, about a block from their house, I was hailed by what looked like a taxi, and I thought, this is backwards. There was a driver and an old man in the back wearing glasses. “We are with the national police” the driver said, and leaned across to show me his ID. “Here, look at it” he seemed proud, though to me it seemed hecho en casa. “We just have some questions for you because there a lot of people carrying false passports and papers around here lately” he said. Yeah, and you’re one to talk I thought. “Do you have your passport?” he asked.

“No, I don’t carry it because it’s not safe. A lot of people get robbed,” I said, thinking of all the stories I’ve already heard from the Suttons and the other volunteers, most of whom had been accosted at least once during their stay here, one even as close to the station as the front gate.

“That’s okay,” he said “where are you staying? What hotel?”

“Ninguno” I said. “Me quedo con amigos no más.”

“Where?” he wanted to know. I made a vague motion with my hand. “Can you show us?”

“Mejor que no” I told him. “If there is a problem, give me a telephone number where I can call you.” I kept waiting for him to pull out an arma and tell me to get in the car, or at least to give them everything I had, which was only 14 bolivianos (not even $3.00) but he just smiled.

“No, that’s okay.” He said. “We’re just asking,” and he motioned for me to go.

That’s about all the adventure I’ve had so far. It’s so much more fun this time around to be able to communicate more with the people. I’ve also been able to visit with Victor, Luis Alfredo, Carina, and Elizabeth, four of my students from 2006 when I was here last. I asked the Lord to give me an opportunity to be a blessing here and not just be sitting around waiting, and so I’ve kept busy enough. Today I helped one of the brothers with some maintenance projects at another volunteer’s apartment. And the good news is that they just told me not to buy a bus ticket because I’ll have a flight out tomorrow!

*P.S. 8/3 My computer was so bad I couldn’t even finish this or send it yesterday. I couldn’t do anything. I would click on an application and have to wait five minutes for a response. I tried restarting the computer a few times, among other things, but nothing worked. I told Eliazer, one of the volunteer technicians here, that my computer was slower than a tortoise with its legs cut off, and he was kind enough to help me clean up my hard drive and my computer is doing MUCH better now.

Bound for Bolivia... Again!

2009-07-14T19:36:00.000-04:00

As many of you already know, I have been asked to return as a volunteer to teach Bible literature, chime choir, write for the school website, and play the piano (yamaha keyboard) for the choir at the same school near Guayaramarin, in northeastern Bolivia, where I volunteered in 2005 and 2006 . Unfortunately, travel to Bolivia these days is not as easy as it was four years ago. I had to apply for and purchase a visa in order to enter the country, and to apply for a visa, I had to have a confirmed flight itinerary as well as signed letters from the school stating my purpose for travel. I purchased my flight after I got home from graduation, scheduling to leave today (the 14th) in order to get there in time for the start of the second semester on the 20th. After a few more days, I was finally able to get the signed letters from the school and send for my visa by the 29th of June. The Bolivian consulate assured me that my application would be processed within three days, so providing a few days for shipping, I hoped to have my passport back with the visa by July 10. No such luck. Maybe it would come on Sabbath? Nope. Monday. Nothing. I called the consulate and they confirmed that they had sent everything on Friday the 10th. "It should be there" they said.Today was the last chance for it to get here before I was scheduled to fly out. I went to the post office as soon as the mail was in. It wasn't there. "It's like you're already in Bolivia!" was the comment from the principal, Tara Swanepoel, when I told her the trouble I was having. So today has been hectic with everything up in the air ("except for you" as my friend John kindly pointed out :). The soonest I was able to rebook for a reasonable price was Tuesday the 28th. I am disappointed at the delay, but maybe there will still be some good that comes of all this, even if it is only me learning the expensive lesson to apply for visas much longer before my departure date! So I am home awhile longer, which is not a bad thing. I will have more time to try to work on improving the school website before I get to the land-of-almost-no-internet. (The school has recieved a donation toward obtaining internet service, but is still working on finding a feasible way to get it set up, 30 km out from the nearest internet connection.) If any of you know anything about building websites, I'd love to talk to you! (Click here to see the existing school website.) The delay also gives me more time to fund-raise as well as get set up with insurance. And who knows, there could be more to this story yet. I'll keep you posted. Blessings!

If you would like to support this mission endeavor, you can send tax-deductible donations to the Office of Student Missions, Walla Walla University, 204 S College Ave, College Place, WA 99324.

2006-05-23T22:45:00.001-04:00

I'm home! It feels so weird. Everything is so...neat and clean and pretty...and rich. And busy. It's back to the rat race. I got home Tuesday the 9th at midnight. The next day I was out helping my dad dig footings for our front walk. We're putting in paving stones. Besides that I've managed to unpack, do my finances, clean out my room, tare my car apart and clean out the mice nests that were in my heating system, preach a couple sermons, go to the doctor, dentist, and optomitrist, and a hundred other little things.

2006-04-13T17:12:00.000-04:00

Putting up a new hut to shelter our future carpenteria.

2006-04-13T15:40:00.000-04:00

Little and cute (above) or big and ugly ( the snake, not Geraldo, below). The critters here come in every category imaginable. I'd love to bring that little water turtle home with me, but I doubt he would survive the trip. As for the boa there, survival was not an option, (actually we found him dead on the road) and his hide is currently curing in my back yard.

2006-04-13T10:46:00.000-04:00

Another one of God's creatures.

2006-03-26T19:47:00.000-04:00

So we've been studying the middle ages in sophomore class and so naturally we discussed castles. I told the kids how I used to make sand castles on the beach with my brother and they were intrigued. Then I remembered the pile of sand in our front yard that we're going to use to stucco the house and I thought "yeah buddy." So there's the final masterpiece. The sand wasn't the best, but we made it work. The students had a blast anyway. As did I, I must admit. So we pretty much just had a sandblastin' time. The girls actually really got into it and even made flags for it later on and named it capitol of the Carolingian empire, and it stands even to this day. Pretty impressive for a sand castle, especially since it was assaulted by the two dogs this morning as they went for their morning frolic.

2006-03-24T00:38:00.000-04:00

This is our tech. center, otherwise known as Ruan and Tara's living room. Quality, let me tell you. As you can see, we have a phone now, thanks to an antenna we just put up. Is that wild or what? It's so weird to hear the phone ring again. Actually to be honest it can be quite an annoying sound. Especially when you have to run half way across campus to tell someone they have a phone call. But anyway... we're on the map now. We exist. We've already had half a dozen phone calls including one from Mexico, so we're definitely on the grid. We're back on the power grid too, thanks to John for conveniently remembering a 500 watt inverter that he had tucked away in his suitcase. (Our previous two inverters have been fried by overdraw.) It took two weeks of working by candle power for him to remember his possession. (For which we all had a good laugh.) So now we are all enlightened. I guess it just takes two weeks worth of candle light to add up to enlightenment.
Oh yeah, if you want to call some time, the country code is 591 and the number is 7-160-2548. The best time to call is probably between 8-9 pm which is 4-5 pm your time (5-6 after daylight savings time goes into effect for you, because they don't have daylight savings time here) or Sabbath afternoon. So how do you like that? Probably not too much when you find out how much it costs. I'm guessing it's not cheap.

2006-03-13T00:26:00.000-04:00

So the first week of school is over. Wow is it ever hard to teach in a foreign language! But God is helping me out big time. He's so cool like that. Fortunately I only teach every other day, which is just about perfect becuase it takes me pretty much all day to prepare my lectures and plan homework and in class activities. And then there's the grading. It wouldn't be so bad if I had a teacher's edition with answer keys. But no such luck. Me and the English-Spanish dictionary sit and wade through stacks of papers together hours at a time. I just finished grading the freshman quizzes by candlelight. It was pretty depressing. Almost all of them failed. I would have blamed it on myself except that the only student who has complained about having a hard time understanding me so far got 90% on her quiz -- the best of the class. Obviously she's at least trying to understand me! But really, if the kids had read and studied what I assigned they would have done better even if they couldn’t understand much of my in-class lecture. Isn’t that the way it goes?

2006-03-10T01:37:00.000-04:00

If you can't describe it, draw it. Pictures can save a lot of talking.

2006-03-10T01:23:00.000-04:00

Explaining Assyrian siegecraft to my freshmen class.

2006-03-07T16:38:00.000-04:00

It's amazing to me how ignorant these kids are of basic world geography. A lot of them can't even name the seven continents of the world let alone locate them on a map. I kind of get the feeling that they haven't been able to look at maps very much. The juniors couldn't tell me what continent England is in, and the freshman didn't have a clue where to find Egypt. Europe, Asia, South America, and North America were some of the guesses I got as to the location of the latter. Another particularly creative response placed Egypt "in Mesopotamia in North America on the banks of the Nile." At least he got the river right. But my personal favorite showed up on three different papers almost word for word, so it looks like we'll be having a little meeting with the ad. council about academic integrity, or the lack thereof in this case. Sad stuff. Cheating just seems to be a natural and accepted thing to do here. Anyway, I hope we can teach these kids to be honest. And hopefully I can teach them a little geography while I’m at it. So the answer that gave the cheaters away was “Egypt is located in South America, a part of Africa.” Ouch. But my class is not the only place the kids are having trouble. The other teachers are also noticing a general lack of basic knowledge in mathematics, science, literature, and even reading comprehension. Most of the students don’t have any idea how to work with time either. One of the questions John asked on his first quiz was “how many seconds are in a day?” One student’s response was “22.” Another one said “15 minutes or something like that,” and several even went so far as to ask “aren’t seconds and minutes the same thing?” Wow. Unbelievable. These are highschool kids and they have no concept of time or how to work with it. The whole sad situation does seem to shed some light on the culture here however. It’s no wonder that few people are ever on time, events are often late, and exact schedules rarely seem to exist. The question that remains though is whether they don’t want to learn about time because it’s not important to them, or if it’s not important to them because they haven’t learned how to keep it? Are they habitually late because they don’t know how to keep time, or is it because they just don’t think it’s important? And if they don't think its important, why should it matter? What makes me think that I should impose my concept of time on them? I do still think they should know how to figure out how many seconds are in a day though. That's just simple math.

2006-03-07T15:30:00.000-04:00

Dianna and Rosalia during their first day of school ever. They were so excited, it was precious.

2006-03-07T14:58:00.000-04:00

school starts
Going over the schedule and the handbook
"The handshake" The famous highschool welcoming activity.

2006-03-07T14:44:00.000-04:00

We're hoping that this tower, or one like it will eventually bring internet to our school. Wouldn't that be something?
At the corner marker of the school property on a Sabbath afternoon excursion.

2006-03-07T14:14:00.000-04:00

That white string you see is a worm from the inside of a smashed cockroach.

Just another critter
Bat in the outhouse

2006-03-07T13:20:00.000-04:00

Another breach in the dike

2006-03-07T12:00:00.000-04:00

Trying to drill a new well

2006-03-05T17:00:00.000-04:00

B-e-a-utiful. Yep, that's how you spell that.

2006-03-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

Big news! Looks like I'll be teaching history and geography for the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. Or primero, segundo, and tercero as they call them. I have no textbook yet, (I'm supposed to pick it up tomorrow) don't know the grading system or curriculum, and can barely speak, let alone read in Spanish. Wild huh? I'm excited though. What an opportunity! A lot of the students are non-adventist and I'm praying God will give me wisdom and skill to share His love with them. In other words, I've been praying for the gift of tongues! Just kidding. But I have been praying for help to learn Spanish. Maybe this teaching position is a partial answer to that prayer. It'll be a work out at any rate.

2006-03-01T15:57:00.000-04:00

2006-03-01T15:24:00.000-04:00

2006-02-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

Enrique's house gets a roof
Cafeteria under construction

2006-02-17T01:19:00.000-04:00

Had a little too much excitement the other night. Ruan and I were playing keep-the-frisbee-away from Busman (their dog) tonight after supper. I tossed one of my signature errant throws, the kind that curves away from the reciever as he tries to run it down, inevitably escaping his last desperate lunge by a fraction of a centimeter. (I do not throw this variety purposefully just for the record.) Anyhow, just at that last crucial second when player and disc try to connect, Ruan went down. It looked like a pretty hard fall, but nothing worse than the usual result of a last-ditch lay-out for the catch. But unlike usual, Ruan didn't bounce right back up. "Are you okay?" I called out as I hurried over. He didn't respond immediately and in that split second I knew something wasn't right. Earlier that evening I had stumbled in the same area where Ruan now lay sprawled, so I knew what was there.
"No, I'm not okay" he replied as he looked down. By this time I had reached his side and what I saw flipped one end of my stomach over the other, pulled it through the resulting loop, and cinched it down so hard I could hardly breathe. His left foot was impaled on a 3/8 inch shaft of re-rod like a hotdog on a roasting stick. The tip of the iron was pretruding at the back of his ankle and on the verge of breaking out right next to his achilles tendon.
"Fawna!" I hollared. "Come quick!" Ruan was soon surrounded by several concerned faces arguing about whether or not to extricate the offending rebar immediately or wait until we had something to use to slow the insuing gush of blood. By this time the initial shock had worn off and Ruan was in excruciating pain. Fawna arrived with a dressing and we extracted the rod as quickly and smoothely as possilbe. (I never would have thought that being derailed could be such a good thing. Didn't look any less painful though.) The next hour or so was crazy with a dozen or us running everywhere for a dozen different things. Hydrogen peroxide, charcoal, water, gauze...Ruan started to go into shock so I ran for a blanket. Praise God that Fawna wasn't gone! She's an RN and cleaned and stitched the wound. She was so calm and knew just what to do. Fortunately Ms. Susie had left some lydocane as well which was a HUGE blessing, as it brought some relief to poor Ruan, which in turn made the rest of us feel better too. As did the fact that the re-rod missed his ankle bone and achilles tendon by a mere fraction of an inch. God is good! So now we just have to keep administering charcoal and keep praying that the wound won't get infected.

Fawna stitching up Ruan's foot

2006-02-16T00:28:00.000-04:00

2006-02-13T18:27:00.000-04:00

Enrique drives the ogre through a downpour just the day before the steering column broke.
Cotton ball sunset
One mighty tree stands tall against the approaching storm. Is that a good object lesson or what?

2006-02-13T17:21:00.000-04:00

Howdy folks

I'm back with another one. Be sure and let me know if you ever get tired of the incessant bombardment of newsletters and I'll take you off the mailing list. The trouble is, I just can't keep up with God! He keeps pouring out the blessings faster than I can chug! My cup is running over and all down the front of my shirt and I'm soaking wet! Pretty much saturated. And I just have to share the love. You know, that's really a great analogy for this place, because it takes a negative aspect of life here and gives it a positive connotation. I'm always wet here, whether its from the rain or the humidity or the creek or more often from my own persperation. I've almost forgotten what it feels like to stay dry. But now I can think of it as a good thing right? Like an innundation of God's blessings. While I'm on the subject of wetness, the weather over the last couple of weeks has been incredible! We're smack in the middle of rainy season. Guess what that means? That means WETNESS. It rains every day. Hard. Once in awhile it even rains all day long, which makes it kind of hard to get much work done, especially when cement is involved. So guess what God did? He shut off the water to our shower and cranked on the blessings. That's right. I'm pretty sure we're in a shower of blessings. The sun is shining, and an occasional rainbow pinstripes the sky just to remind us Who turned off the faucet. Of course every now and then the faucet drips. But we can work with that! Keeps our mud (cement mortar) from drying out! Enrique's house is up with the roof on now, and we have a good start on the cafeteria. We wouldn't have gotten nearly so much done if God hadn't held back the rain. David also got back from Santa Cruz safely with our Toyota Landcruiser. I tell you what, that made for a nice ride to town today! God just keeps blessing and looking out for us.

The mission troup from Laurelbrook and Heritage academies (Tenn) arrived here the 26th of Jan right in the middle of a moster rainstorm. It was a miracle they were even able to land since they flew with Amazonas, an airline that doesn't usually land here during such foul weather. The runway is just dirt and the small wheels on their planes easily get stuck in the slop. But they made it, and that saved us a three hour trip to Riberalta where we would have had to pick them up if they didn't land here. So we crammed them all in the back of the truck, all 28 of them, and headed for the school. There was so much flooding from the downpour that the road was totally washed out at one point. Or I should say it was washing out. Jeff just gunned it and we took a good bounce through the torrent. I think at least half of us in the back were airborn for a split second. But the jolt was well worth getting through without getting stuck! We got to the school around 6 pm. It was interesting to observe the various reaction as the kids checked out accomodations...thatched dwellings and clapboard latrines.

But the next day, Friday, was downright wild. I went to town to help make window and door frames for the duplex (staff housing). We actually ended up making the boards for the frames from derounded logs. Jeff, Enrique, Ruan and I were exausted after wrestling the massive hulks through the planer and the undersized tablesaw, which had to take each piece twice for a doublecut due to the thickness of our logs. It was a beast of a job. But the real excitement came on the trip back out to the school. We were hauling along at a decent clip when we lost steering and a bit a hard left into the jungle before Enrique could get us stopped. The ball joint on the steering column had come completely off. Besides that, the front of the truck was buried past the axle in the mud. But praise the Lord no one was hurt! God was surely looking out for us because we had just crossed the bridge where such an accident could easily have resulted in fatalities. Just beyond our crash site the bank drops away much more steeply and if we had gone off there we probably would have rolled. As it was it was a miracle that no one was hurt as we took quite a slam when we left the road. We attempted to back out, but the rig was hopelessly stuck, so we flagged down a passing truck and I caught a ride to the school driveway and then ran the remaining mile to get help. Armed with shovels, lights, a jack, and some 4x4 blocks we rushed to the rescue. It was already almost sundown. "What a way to start the Sabbath" I thought. "But we have an ox in the ditch that needs pulled out." (Leaving a truck full of supplies on the side of the road is not a smart thing to do, not to mention the people who needed to get home) After almost 2 hours of painstakingly raising the truck inches at a time we finally got it high enough to get it off its belly and up on the 4x4's. Then we gathered in a circle for prayer. "Lord, thank you for this beautiful night where we've been sitting here looking at the stars" Jeff's opening sentence made me grin since we'd actually been under the truck digging. But maybe it was for the benefit of the lady passengers who had been patiently waiting for us. "And now it's Your Sabbath and we have an ox that needs pulle dout of the ditch" Jeff continued, repeating my earlier thoughts. "We just pray for Your help and that we can get it out on the 1st try so we can get back. Thank You and praise You, amen."

Sure enough, with a little extra persuasion from 4 of us pushing on the front, (and who knows maybe even an angel nudging it with his pinkie) we got 'er back on the road on the 1st attempt. It took another hour to limp the 6 or 8 remaining kilometers to the school because the jimmy rigged steering column kept coming apart. Also the night was black as tar mixed with molasses (such sticky substances naturally slow you down) and the big truck has no lights right now and had to rely on the jeep to show the way. So we got into the school at about 10:15 famished and exhausted, but praising God for food and beds and keeping us alive to enjoy both.

And there's more... Part of the scaffolding fell the other day along with the three guys standing on it. Apparently they exceeded the weight capacity for the one nail holding up their board. But they had a nice flight down complete with safe landing, so we praise the Lord for that. As well as that neither Ruan or Tara were bitten by the poisonous snake that was lurking in their house behind their laundry bin. The locals say you have an hour or two to live if you get bitten by that particular variety and can't get treatment in time. It is so incredible to see how God looks out for us! And I know I haven't seen anything yet! But what is even more amazing to me is the faith and peace that God gives. He can bring someone to the point that even if they were bitten by the poisonous snake, they would believe that God could still save them and yet be at peace and trust God through whatever result. Complete and perfect trust in God is a beautiful thing. So is hearing God's voice He speaks to you. ms. Susie woke up in the middle of the night a couple weeks ago with the distinct impresision to check on Honako (one of the students from LBA). She did and found her blood sugar had dropped dangerously low. A few nights later, the same girl went into antiphilactic shock. Praise the Lord we had several epenephrine pins out here. One would have been insuffecient as Fawna accidentally stuck herself with the first one!

And then there have been all the little blessings. Way too many to tell about. But best of all are the spiritual blessings and seeing God at work changing attitudes and lives as we labor for Him. Seeing kids come in complaining about everything and then two weeks later not wanting to leave. In fact, two of them are planning to come back as student missionaries next year!

David Gates stopped by the school last week and shared some experiences with the group for evening worship. It is powerful to hear what God has done with that man's life. It was a real inspiration. His stories helped me remember that God is still the same God as the One portrayed in the stories of the Bible. He is able and willing to do exceedingly abundantly ABOVE ALL that we can ask or even think! God works in the superlative like that. 'Cause He is superlative. He astounds me. We can't begin to imagine what He can do with a completely surrendered life. If we would just throw ourselves and everything we posess into God's work, what miracles might we see? I think our most fantastic dreams and imaginings would be as simple nothings in comparison. What would keep us from surpassing even the giants from Heb chapter eleven, who through faith subdued entire kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, sis kabobbed that roaring lion the devil, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, and even received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance at the expense of God’s honor. Others were mocked and scourged and imprisoned. They were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain of the sword. They wandered about in animal skins, homeless, destitute, afflicted, and tormented…Yet God’s strength and grace and power were always sufficient. He has no limits. He dwells in the realm beyond infinity, beyond time, beyond space, beyond eternity, beyond all the forces of evil. And He offers to let us join Him there. Wild huh? I love it!
Makes me wonder what we're waiting for. Just give it all. You can't out-give God, I promise you that! I know, 'cause I'm still soakin' wet. :)

2006-01-16T20:06:00.000-04:00

I know, I'm a redundant often repeating broken record. But I figured if I post my mass emails here, you can delete them and thus free up valuable inbox space. Also there are some people who access my blog who aren't on my mailing list. So here it is again.

"The greatest of them yet"
Hey everyone

I hope your holidays were happy and full of cheer and safe travel.

Before I get on to the news items, I think I should repeat the warning from the subject of the email. "The greatest of them yet..." refers to the size of this report. It is el ultimo grande, gigante, newsletter yet to arrive from this Bolivian jungle to clog your respective inboxes. So I hope you all have a few extra spare moments. Or you might consider reading it one section at a time. So on to the news...

I think the last time I reported was in November and John and I were on our way to help out with some evangelistic meetings in San Ignacio de Moxos. We were there for about a week and helped with visitation and special musics. John even made an appearance on local television to invite people to the meetings. Attendance wasn't huge, but God blessed. It isn't about numbers anyway right? There is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents! If only one person came and accepted Jesus it would be worth all the effort. That's something I've been beginning to understand a little bit better through my work down here. God's love is SO incredibly amazing! I don't reflect on it enough.

Unfortunately John and I weren't able to stay in San Ignacio until the end of the series because our visas were about to expire and we had to stamp out of the country. So we headed for LaPaz and then the Peruvian boarder. Traveling down here is always an adventure. We made as far as Santa Cruz without incident, but the 16 hour bus ride from Santa Cruz to La Paz turned into a 23 hour ordeal. Seems as though some teachers in a little town about two or three hours from LaPaz decided they weren't being paid enough and that everyone traveling the main road needed to know about it. So what do you suppose is the best way to accomplish that? Put up a billboard maybe? "Underpaid teachers...donations accepted next exit." Not a chance. That would be rediculous! So how about a roadblock. That's right. Throw some rocks on the road and don't let anyone move them. "You shall not pass". I think the Bolivian version would be "no pase." But whatever...the point is that the command is emphatic and you durst not disobey unless you want to receive bodily harm. Running roadblocks is just not a good idea down here. Fortunately you can detour. Our first attempt to circumvent the blockage consisted of a little off road jaunt through some fields, but the locals, who were beginning to remind me of Edomites, discovered our plot and denied passage once again. So we joined the disgruntled caravan of rerouted traffic and headed into the wilderness. But the wilderness too set its will against us. After wandering on small winding roads for several hours, we passed through a village and came to a huge dry lake bed where the road disintegrated into a mere track. In the distance I could see the carcases of two buses and several trucks with their passengers milling about them like scavengers disturbed from their meal. The stalled vehicles were all tilted at various bizarre angles, their low sides swallowed by the sand. But the dismal panorama did not deter our bus driver. We forged onward, ever closer to the ghastly spectacle. We would not relent. We would pass or go down in the attempt. We went down. Everyone piled out, murmuring and complaining in at least 3 different languages. The left side our bus was sunk up to the axle. Someone produced a shovel from somewhere on board. No doubt they carry it specifically for such predicaments. Some of us took turns digging with it and various other implements (like our hands) while others brought rocks to put under the wheels. Half a dozen portly señoras directed operations. Each one seemed to possess her own great wisdom for how to remedy the situation. It was rather humorous really. So with the help of their excellent counsel we were soon ready for an attempt to free ourselves. Everyone put their shoulders to the bus and pushed as the driver gunned the engine. All was going well until he decided to turn the wheel. And just like that we were back in the muck up the axle. So we went back to our digging. Eventually someone showed up with a tractor from the village we had passed. It pulled us out and we were good to go. We carefully threaded our way through several more kilometers of lake bed before we reached terra firma. It was a miracle we didn't get stuck again. So we got to LaPaz around 4:30, just in time to catch our bus to Lima. Clearly the Good Lord was looking out for us! And He gave me a good story while He was at it.

We spent about a week and a half in Peru and then headed back to Bolivia. I don't know if any of you saw it on the news, but the Bolivian elections were taking place at that time (Dec 18). Evo Morales, (the candidate who won the elections) is reputed to be anti-US and on good terms with Castro and Chavez. This along with the widespread political division and the history of political unrest here in Bolivia made us think it wise to wait in Peru until after elections. But everything was peaceful, praise the Lord! We did get held up in LaPaz for one night because there were no bus departures. Bus drivers were striking (for reasons unrelated to the elections) so we caught a flight to Santa Cruz. We got the last two seats on the plane.

Originally I hadn´t planned to stay long in Santa Cruz, but the missionaries there asked me to stay for awhile and help and since no one was here at the school at that time anyway, I thought I might as well. There is a TV station based there in Santa Cruz and I did a little maintenance work for them. Mowed the grass, cleaned the storm drains, and did some painting. On Sabbath I helped out with a children's meeting at the women's prison. The following week I helped hand out food baskets to poor families and assisted with a VBS in one of the poor neighborhoods. We had about 200 kids and it could get crazy at times. There is so much need there. The children's ministry they have going there in Santa Cruz is huge with several branch Sabbath schools in different places. Susan Grady, the missionary who operates them is headed back to the states this month and they are looking for someone to take over for her. So if you know someone who might be interested, I could put them in touch with the Gradys.

I also took the opportunity to see a doctor while I was in Santa Cruz. I could have done that up here in Guayaramarin, but I felt better about it in a bigger city with better facilities. Anyway, turns out I had gihardia and that's why I've been sick the last couple months. It's a huge relief to be rid of that and the problems it was causing! I definitely plan to be EXTRA careful about what I eat and drink from now on. Nothing but bottled sealed and cooked for this boy.

So now I'm back at the school. We're scrambling to get ready for a mission group that is coming in a week and a half to help build the cafeteria. We're hoping to have the foundations done so they can go right to work on the structure. (Incidentally, we'll be needing to furnish the cafeteria with cookware and such and if any of you are interested in helping with that I can put you in touch with Jeff. He can tell you specifics and make sure we don't get duplicates).

And we're getting a new vehicle! This is another HUGE blessing because the jeep we had was very old and unreliable. David will be driving it up here over the next few days from Santa Cruz, Lord willing.

A lot of people have been coming to inquire about sending their kids to school here this March when the school year starts. It's a great opportunity to tell them what we're about. We plan to accept 30 students this year. Ten more than last year. This is the schools third year and every year they add a grade so next year we'll be a complete high school with 9th through 12th.

Well that's all for now. Thank you all for your prayers and support. It is huge. God is doing awesome things. I'm also praying for all of you that God will bless you and bring you ever closer to Him. It is only as we focus on Jesus that we can have true peace and joy and ultimate success. Many blessings to you all in this new year.

With you in His service

Kody Kostenko

2005-12-07T13:28:00.000-04:00

So here are a few more pictures finally. They're not in order at all, hopefully I'll get that fixed at some point. For more pictures and more details visit the website of the man with the computer. Sir Hawkins has provided some fine pictures and news as usual. You can see them here.

2005-12-06T18:30:00.000-04:00

Eric really into his mix of colored cement for the finish layer of the floor in Ruan and Tara's house.

2005-12-06T18:29:00.001-04:00

One of the freshly poured footings for the staffing duplex where Enrique and his family will live.

2005-12-06T18:29:00.000-04:00

Jeff and John chat while piloting the Mooney en route to Trinidad.

2005-12-06T18:28:00.002-04:00

Elmer (a student from the school) and I in the back of the little Mooney en route to help out with the evangelistic series in San Ignacio.

2005-12-06T18:28:00.001-04:00

Eric and I proudly display our Thanksgiving masterpiece -- lentil loaf topped with tomato sauce and pecans...except we ran out of pecans as you can see.

2005-12-06T18:28:00.000-04:00

Riding in the jeep with Ruan and Tara on the way back to the school.

2005-12-06T18:26:00.001-04:00

Horses grazing in one of the plazas in Trinidad.

2005-12-06T18:26:00.000-04:00

One of three ferry crossings on the way to San Ignacio

2005-12-06T18:25:00.000-04:00

Rainsben (a student missionary from Venezuela) singing at the evangelistic meetings in San Ignacio.

2005-12-06T18:23:00.000-04:00

Hello little missionary plane!

2005-12-06T18:22:00.000-04:00

Yet another use of our most valuable and versatile equipment.

2005-12-06T17:37:00.000-04:00

Quite literally working myself into the ground while trying to find the bottom side of oblivia, otherwise known as a septic tank.

2005-12-06T17:35:00.000-04:00

Jeff and Ruan discuss building plans for the duplex.

2005-12-06T17:33:00.000-04:00

Ebert (a student at the school) dashes for cover from the deluge.

2005-12-06T17:32:00.000-04:00

Phil and Ruan construct a spillway for the dike so it won't break again with the next hard rain.

Vamos!

2005-11-28T15:27:00.000-04:00

Just last Friday Jeff asked me if I wanted to fly with him and John to Trinidad on Monday to help with an evangelistic series in the nearby town of Santa Ana. I said you betcha. So I got packed up and was ready to leave when I got word late last night that Jeff had to fly to Santa Cruz today instead. So looks like we'll be headed down tomorrow or Wednesday if everything goes as planned. I'm excited. It'll be a nice break from the construction and a chance to practice Spanish. And more importantly it's another opportunity to cooperate with God in His work, both in changing other people's lives, and changing mine a bit more too while we're at it.

After the meetings are over John and I plan to head out by bus to La Paz and then on to Peru since our 90 day visas are about to expire and we're due to check out of the country. So we'll be cruisin' around for a little while. We should be back to the school here before Christmas though.

And here it is again (in case you accidently deleted my email. :)

2005-11-24T15:37:00.000-04:00

Happy Thanksgiving from the southern hemisphere! It's a grey rainy day and a bit cooler than usual, so at least it feels a bit like Thanksgiving weather-wise. I figured there wouldn't be much to do at the school today with all this rain, so I decided to catch a ride into town with Ruan and Tara (the new missionaries from Michigan who will be taking over administrative duties so Jeff and Fawna will be free to start the medical aviation program). We plan to have a late THanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Tara and Fawna have been stockpiling and there's talk we may even have pumpkin and apple pie. How about that? I'm excited.

I don't remember what all I told you in the last email I sent as far as news goes, so forgive me if there is any repetition. So here are a few things of note. We finished the floor and the plumbing in Ruan and Tara's house. The septic is all dug out (by hand because the backhoe was not working at the time) and it just needs to be bricked up. So before too long we should have the first flushing toilets on campus. We also just finished pouring the foundations for the duplex (staff housing) where Enrique and his family will live.

The dike down by the waterwheel is a continuous project. Currently we're working on doubling the width of it in preparation for the heavy rains (which are just starting.) The tractor is working now, but unfortunately it can't get to the dike so all the work we do on it is with our favorite equipment, the good ol' wheelbarrow. We do use the tractor to pile up loose dirt though and that is a HUGE improvement over digging all our dirt out of the bank with the mattock.

Fawna and Sandra (Enrique's wife) held some cooking classes for a couple of Sundays here in Guayaramarin this November. I did not attend but I heard good reports. And the school just got a press that we can use to make soy milk straight from the beans. It's quite a laborious process however, so I'm not surprised that I haven't seen it served with my oatmeal yet.

It's pineapple season! Our patch has been producing like crazy. Eric and Dave made a solar fruit dryer and put it on Ruan and Tara's tin roof, but it hasn't been working (just might have something to do with rainy season?). In any case, all the pineapples seem to ripen at the exact same time and we have been selling some in town because, hard as it is to imagine, we can't eat them fast enough. (And believe me, we can really chow on those pineapples.)

And speaking of chow, after all the students left, the cooking assignments have been divided between all the SMs and remaing staff. Eric and I are responsible for Wed night supper. It's pretty interesting cooking from scratch over a wood fire for 12-15 people. Fawna and Tara have a small gas stove and oven which they kindly let us use as well, but the majority of the cooking is done in the kitchen over the fire. Suprisingly the food has turned out pretty good so far. The sautaed vegetables have really helped out in that regard. Last night we fried up some lentil paddys (with sautaed veggies in them) for sandwiches and they were actually really good. Maybe I was just extra hungry, but everyone else said they liked them too.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Thanks so much for all your prayers and for those of you who have emailed me. Your support is HUGE. More than you know. Please continue to pray. There are plenty of needs here. For those of you who have expressed interest in knowing more about specific needs you can help with, I suggest you get in touch with Ruan and Tara since they have a better idea of what needs are priorities and will be better able to answer your questions as well. Their email address is rtswan@hotmail.com. Once again happy Thanksgiving!

2005-10-17T16:41:00.000-04:00

So I finally got some pictures up! If you want to see some more, John also put some up on his blog and you can check them out at http://hawkjo.blogspot.com.

2005-10-17T16:38:00.000-04:00

Looking down the dry barrel.

2005-10-17T16:37:00.000-04:00

Our 30 foot hand-dug well.

2005-10-17T16:36:00.000-04:00

Found this in my shirt. Fortunately BEFORE I put it on.

2005-10-17T16:35:00.001-04:00

The roof going on the mission house.

2005-10-17T16:35:00.000-04:00

Enrique's little girl pays the price for wanting to look at my camara...a picture with me.

2005-10-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

Gary, one of the students at the baptism. His family lives in the nearby village of Yata.

2005-10-17T16:32:00.000-04:00

The baptism. Waiting on the plank from left to right. Ebert, Enrique (a staff member being rebaptized) and Jessica.

2005-10-17T16:31:00.001-04:00

Pastor Parada with the baptisimal candidates in the cafeteria/main classroom area.

2005-10-17T16:31:00.000-04:00

The JUNGLE

2005-10-17T16:30:00.000-04:00

The reservoir. The brown path on the left is the dike. It actually runs for a good hundred yards back into the jungle. Most of it was done earlier by the students, but we helped finish off the last 30 feet to finish redirecting water flow as well as raise the entire dike a good foot or so.

2005-10-17T16:26:00.000-04:00

A view of the wheel from topside. The shaft at top center of the picture is where the belt for the alternator will go.

2005-10-17T16:24:00.000-04:00

There's the finished product. Complete with white water.

2005-10-17T16:23:00.000-04:00

Under construction. Matt and Phil lay the brick for the dam directly above the waterwheel.

2005-10-17T16:21:00.000-04:00

As you can see, we were working on the roof. But we were a day late with the tin. You can see the oven there as it looked in all its splendor before the rain came.

2005-10-17T16:20:00.000-04:00

Euler and the oven after it caved in.

2005-10-17T16:19:00.000-04:00

Phil and I pose with all 20 inches of my monster trophy.

2005-10-17T16:17:00.000-04:00

The snake they say could've killed me.

2005-10-17T16:15:00.000-04:00

Yep. This is how we do our laundry. Hermano John gets it done.

The well is dry

2005-10-13T22:22:00.000-04:00

Not really...I mean there's still water down there, but not enough to pump out. So last night I stoked up the fire in the kitchen and spent about 2 hours boiling river water. Unfortunately the old kettles added more unpleasant residue as well as a metallic charcoal flavor to the already potent river mix. But in more happy news, we put the roof on the house today! Felt good to FINISH something. Not only that, but some thunderheads rolled in and dumped a load, which the tin sheeting we just put up conveniently served to us. We collected several liters of potable water to replace the river beverage, all in the span of about 15 minutes. Welcome to the rainy season! Didn't have to water the garden today. And I had peanut butter on my pancakes for supper. Yep. I'm smilin'. Kinda funny, the things that humor us missionaries. I mean the things that keep us in humor...(I was going to say "good" humor, but CLEARLY that is something I lack.) And I'll leave it at that.

2005-10-05T21:16:00.000-04:00

It seems Jeff would really like me to take over the garden. I can’t say I blame him, ‘cuase right now the only things taking over the garden are weeds! But that's okay, we'll take care of that in short order! The irrigation system presents some challanges at the moment though. But as soon as we get our new water tower up, we should have better pressure and be able to get dripper lines on everything. Right now only about half the garden is on drip lines and the rest has to be watered by hand. That will really be a chore once all the students are gone in about a week. However, the rainy season is starting so that will make things easier. I'm definitely looking forward to eating some more fresh garden produce! Sweet corn and tomatoes and green beans and watermelon. Oh yeah! Hopefully we'll be able to sell some in town to help support the school as well. That's the plan anyhow.

And a little more from here...

2005-09-29T21:29:00.000-04:00

Just a few random things I've found out about the country so far. They say Bolivia is practically a one word joke here in South America, probably because it’s the poorest country on the continent, with an unstable economy and government. The whole city of Santa Cruz went on strike (the Thursday we were there) to protest the government refusing to return 20% of the tax to the city. I don’t know how it was supposed to help anything, but in any case, all shops were closed and no one could drive safely without a special permit from the mayor. Yep. Crazy stuff.

Serpents at work.

2005-09-27T23:48:00.000-04:00

And the good times just keep rollin’…Woke up to one Goliath of a thunderstorm Sunday night. But I do think that if my ears had been as plugged as my sinuses, I probably would’ve slept right through it. I’ve been amazed at how cold the jungle can get…not really too cold compared to winter back home, but who would think a sweater and a jacket would ever feel good in the jungle? Doesn’t that just seem preposterous? So the rain made for an interesting trip to town since we ride in the back of the truck. They did have a canopy this time, but it started to rip off in the wind about five miles out of town. So Matt and I held it down the rest of the way in. I finally got a mass email out to everyone, but all it took was one more day to have enough material to write another one. Shall I start with the good news or bad news? Maybe I’ll just sandwich the bad news…squash it like one of these insects. So…good news. Half the roof is up on the bakery. Unfortunately we were a day late. All the rain caved in the big clay baking furnace. I can’t believe that no one thought to put a tarp over it…but I guess that’s how it goes. So it’ll probably be a few weeks before we bake bread…at least in mass. And the storm took away our power. No el sol leaves solar panels without much goin’ for them. (ar pans…what can you do with that? Seriously.) But those are the least of our worries right now. Three staff members left today…not just for town. Apparently two of the male staff allowed some female students to sleep in their quarters. Yeah. Nothing happened apparently, but still. Unacceptable. So they hit the road. And then the staff member who was telling the offending staff they needed to leave decided to quit as well. So she cleared out. We’re still trying to figure that one out. I’m actually kinda glad I don’t know much Spanish yet, ‘cause it was nice to be able to stay out of the politics. So now we’re holding down the fort. Jeff and Fawna are still gone to Santa Cruz. I’m wondering who’s going to teach classes tomorrow for the missing teachers. Maybe the kids will just work. Who knows, maybe it’s all for the best. So yeah…how about that good news? No one died today! I’m still alive! CLEARLY. And I’m praising God for it. Matthew and I were down in the creek, digging out a half-submerged stump by the dike. It was a major pain ‘cause we couldn’t see the roots we were choppin’ on. So I was using my hands a lot to pull out roots and mud, dog style (about as dirty as one too). Kinda using my fingers to “see” what I was doing. I had just stopped momentarily to say something to Matt when I saw a flash of orange. “Snake!” I grabbed the pick-ax, but the serpent quickly disappeared into a snarl of roots. Just then a couple of the teachers walked up. Said they just wanted to see what we were doing. I told them we were trying to fix a leak in the dike and had to get the stump out. Then I asked them about the snake. Their eyes got real big as they informed me it was a coral snake…deadly poisonous. Yep. So it seems I just had about 6 inches of God’s hand between me and kingdom come. Of course I couldn’t let the snake stay in there, chillin’ like a villain, so I dug it out with the pick-ax (very carefully!) and chopped off its head with a machete. It was only about two feet long fortunately, and didn’t offer much resistance. When I told some of the locals how close my hands had been to the critter, they looked horrified. Rainsby said it was a miracle I wasn’t bitten. Enrique whistled through his teeth and said “tu muerto” and drew his finger expressively across his throat. Yeah…I’d be dead if it had bitten me. I kinda get the vibe that God’s got some use for me yet. After my hands got done shaking (with fear, not with the locals in congratulations!) I managed to figure out how to skin the bad boy for a souvenir. So now I really feel like a hard-core missionary. Yep. You can just call me Bwana. :P

2005-09-23T22:52:00.000-04:00

I think this week was a bit irregular for the school. We were gone for two whole days almost. Tuesday we went to the Catholic school in Yata for a sports tournament dealio. John and I got in on a little soccer, b-ball, and v-ball action. Good stuff. But it was SOO hot. Unrighteously hot…like almost hell hot I would imagine. I rained sweat until the pavement turned black and insects were drowning in the runoff. One bold critter dared to land on John’s arm and was immediately engulfed. Serious. No joke…

Wednesday morning Jeff gave me a tour of the garden and we talked about some crops we’d like to get going out here. Sweet corn, peas, and some other stuff. I’d also really like to get some potatoes going for them. They have a few, but they look pretty sad. I don’t think the top soil is deep enough. They already have a lot of tomatoes which they sell in town as well as lettuce, melons, squash, beans, carrots, and broccoli.

And today I just worked. Did my laundry, which is quite an accomplishment in itself. I’m finding it’s easier to just do my laundry every two or three days so I don’t have to spend half the day in the creek (tempting as that is). I also worked on the waterwheel a bit with Phil and Matt. It’s a pretty sweet little project. I’ll get some pictures up eventually. The idea is to hook up a belt and motor to the wheel and make us a couple of extra kilowatts of juice to supplement the solar panel output.

So there’s the week in a snapshot.

2005-09-19T23:47:00.000-04:00

I need to learn Spanish. CLEARLY. I helped or tired to help tutor the students tonight. Pretty sad situation with my limited vocab. And I can’t really supplement it with any English either, porque ellos no entiendan nada….well okay…muy poquito. But it’s all good, we’ll learn together. Perhaps by the end of the year I’ll be able to write an entry in Spanish. But then that wouldn’t do y’all much good now would it. John came up with a great analogy the other day. He said trying to speak a foreign language is like playing Taboo. There are a lot of words you can’t say, and you try to explain them using the words you can say. Problem is, in my case the words I can say don’t add up to much.

2005-09-17T00:16:00.000-04:00

And we’re here! At the school I mean. It’s a jungle fo’ sho’. We flew out of the local airport in Santa Cruz early Friday morning. The airport is tiny! One departure gate, one ticket counter…we had to buy the tickets only a day in advance. There was no security to speak of. They didn’t even check our bags for the first stage of our flight and they have no scanning equipment. We just got on the plane…a twin prop engine deal with about 20 seats. I ended up having to pay $50.00 extra because my luggage far exceeded the 20 kilo (44 lb) limit. Anyway, John and I felt like a spectacle…together we had more luggage than the rest of the passengers combined. But then they weren’t moving out to live in the jungle for the next nine months either! And so we consoled ourselves. After arriving in Guayaramarin, we ended up waiting at the airport for about two and a half hours. Finally we took a taxi to the Adventist station (it’s a repeater station for the one in Santa Cruz). I was so thankful John was with me ‘cause he’s pretty good with Spanish. About 30 minutes later, Jeff showed up at the station on a motorcycle. He apologized for being late. Evidently the road was blockaded and he had to find an alternate route to town…which turned out to be a goat track through the jungle. Obviously there was no way to take all our goods on the bike, so John and I packed daypacks for the weekend and piled on. We conquered the goat trail without too much trouble although John fell off the back once. But what was worse was the distance. And with three of us crammed on a two man bike for a one hour, 30 km drive, we were in for a thrashing. Especially with John and I sharing the second set of foot pegs. By the time we got here I felt like I’d received a category four spanking. You know, the kind with the belt, and the wooden spoon, and no trousers…okay so it wasn't quite that bad…And so we’re here! Quite the setup they have here. Pretty much looks like a little native village with all these huts…There’s definitely plenty of work to do.

How it IS

2005-09-16T01:36:00.000-04:00

It’s pretty easy to take our good ol’ country for granted until you go check out one of these third world deals. Here are just a few random observations to give you a flavor...

People don’t pay their bills through the mail down here. Apparently it’s not safe. They pay all their bills in person.

About the roads...mostly dirt, and the ones that are paved are often cobblestone. Traffic laws here are sparse, or at least lax. Crossing the street can be risky business.

Every city has a plaza which usually includes the mayor’s office and a catholic church. The cathedral here in Santa Cruz is fairly impressive. 95 percent of the population here is Catholic, if that explains anything.

The weather has been surprisingly cool. I guess they’re having what they call a Sur, a cold front that blows in from the south. Right now it’s about 58-60 degrees with a brisk wind.

Three days in

2005-09-16T00:05:00.000-04:00

So here we are. John and I flew in to Santa Cruz on Tuesday morning. After three days, there's really not too much to report. Well, that's not true. There's actually plenty I could say, but no time to say it. We fly out for Guayaramarin early tomorrow morning. So here's a link to John's blog so you can see what's up for the next few days. http://hawkjo.blogspot.com That'll have to do ya until next time I can post. So until then.