The Best Birthday Gift of All

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

We have been blessed with multiple opportunities to build relationships with local women. Leah and Misty have both met some believers who live in our neighborhood. And Leah and I have had three meetings with local women believers who have an interest in missions and have developed solid friendships with several of them. We are hopeful that these relationships will result in several of these women coming to work with us to reach the Quechua!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. During a time of discouragement for our team recently (one which I'll probably discuss in a future blog), the LORD encouraged us with Zechariah 4:6: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts." This is not our work but His. Please pray for God to send His Spirit ahead of us to prepare the hearts of the women with whom we work and to show them that they are capable of being used by Him.

2. Be in prayer for Misty and Amy as they make a trip to the communities of Molle Molle (MOLE-yay MOLE-yay) and Candelaria (Kahn-duh-LAWR-ee-ah) for the next two weeks. Pray that God will use them to glorify Himself there and that they would be completely sustained by Him.

3. Please pray that we will soon obtain our resident visas here. We are hoping to attend a team meeting in Peru in May (and I'm hoping to take vacation in the States afterwards! :)), but none of us can leave Bolivia until we have our visas.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I'll go ahead and warn you now that this blog is really long. I think I'm trying to make up for not having blogged in two months. :)

I was raised Southern Baptist, and I've been familiar with "Open Windows," the daily devotional published by the denomination, for most of my life. I'm also very familiar with the pages in the middle of that magazine, the ones that tell you missionaries' birthdays with the thought that you'll pray for them on that day.

Prayer warriors like my grandmothers read "Open Windows." Now, as a Southern Baptist missionary with her name published on those pages, I know that there are more saints of God praying for me on that day than on any other day of the year. So I couldn't wait to see what God would do in response to all of those prayers this year. Maybe I'd get to see a church planted or a Quechua woman come to Christ.

My birthday was in January, though it was a little different from how I normally celebrate it. I spent the day taking Misty and Amy out to a Quechua community, something which is, quite honestly, never really a lot of fun for me. Let me tell you a little bit about what the visits are like.

1. The drive. The only thing I can say is that it's always an adventure. The roads are dirt and rock, often made up of one lane on the side of a mountain (pictured here, though this is a two-lane road). It typically takes me about seven hours to drive just under 200 miles. We drive through rivers pretty regularly (which makes for really treacherous driving during rainy season) and, if you meet another car on those one-lane roads, the one going downhill has to back up until there is a spot wide enough for them to pass each other. We are very thankful that the LORD (via the IMB) has provided us with an incredible truck that has been able to get us through anything we've thrown at it. Let's just say I'm a BIG fan of the Toyota. :)

2. The food. Quechua people spend their entire lives on their food. Nearly every moment of the day, they're either producing it, cooking it, or eating it. During September and October, they're plowing and planting their fields. From November to February, they're digging up weeds and taking care of the plants. From March to May, they're harvesting the crops. And, from June to August, they're preparing to plant the fields again. In between all of this, they spend hours cooking over an open fire the food that they eat four times a day.

So food is the best thing that they can offer someone. They are a hospitable people, so they take pride in offering visitors the best that they have. When those visitors happen to be those of us who are missionaries, they somehow believe we are just one small step below Jesus (which, if you've read anything else on this blog, you should recognize as being COMPLETELY wrong, but it's still their belief) and, thus, want to offer us not only the best that they have, but lots of it.

As I've already said, the Quechua eat four times a day. And they eat a LOT. Potatoes are their staple, so we'll often get a bowl containing ten or more whole boiled potatoes (not an exaggeration) on top of rice, any one of a variety of sauces, and chuño (kind of a freeze-dried potato). The food is actually very good; the problem for us is the quantity. But, because they have worked so hard for this food, it is insulting to them when we leave any of it in the bowl, so we do our dead-level best to finish it... even when it leaves us feeling very uncomfortable (and sometimes even worse, if you get my meaning).

3. The accommodations. Quechua communities don't have running water, apart from a well, and precious few have electricity. Going to the bathroom means walking to whatever outdoor spot they have designated for this use and hoping no one walks by as you do your business. The sleeping arrangements vary from place to place but typically involve some type of straw mat and lots of wool blankets. Bedtime usually comes pretty soon after it's dark because you get up before sunrise.

4. The language. Though we spent two months in language school studying Quechua, we have really only mastered the basics at this point. And, though some of the people speak Spanish as well, most - and especially most women - speak only Quechua. So it's always a challenge to listen to them jabber at me and try to communicate with them in return.

Are you getting the picture here? There are lots of things about the Quechua communities that I don't particularly enjoy. Those trips can be downright HARD.

But, before I go any further, I want to explain that I'm not trying to complain here. While there are difficult parts of this work, the blessings of doing it so greatly overwhelm the inconveniences that I honestly have no desire to complain to you about the few parts I don't like. But I'm trying to make a point and, to do so, I have to give you a realistic picture of what life out there is like.

As I said, we drove the girls out to a community called Falsuri on my birthday, taking our Quechua brother and good friend Simón (pictured left, along with his wife and children) along with us to introduce us. But we first spent six hours driving to Finca Esquina, the community where Simón was raised, to pick up his brother Gabriel, a leader among the churches in the area.

As we drove the additional hour required to reach Falsuri, Gabriel (pictured below with his second bowl of food :)) explained to us some of the problems that were occurring in the church there. The brothers were fighting among themselves and were in complete dysunity, to the point that all but one family had begun going to the church in a neighboring community. Most of the men of Falsuri had gone to Argentina for a few months to try to work there, leaving the women behind to tend to the fields and the rest of the work in the community. Gabriel did not believe Misty and Amy would be allowed to stay in Falsuri and, even if they were, there were not very many people there with whom they could share the Word.

That hour was extremely discouraging and, when we arrived in Falsuri, it only got worse. As we stood around and listened, Gabriel and Simón explained that Misty and Amy wanted to stay there for two weeks to work with the women and to share Quechua stories from the Bible with them. But, while we couldn't understand the words, the body language was very clear. The three men from Falsuri would not raise their eyes to look at us, and they explained to Gabriel and Simón that there was much fighting within their church and that they wanted to fix those problems before having our team come to stay with them. They asked if we would return in March, and we agreed. But then a really interesting thing happened.

One of those men from Falsuri finally looked up at us and asked if we were telling them the truth when we said we would come back in March. He said that others had said they would return to their community but had not. He wanted to know if we meant what we said. We assured him that we did, that we had already planned a trip to a nearby community in March and would return to Falsuri when we did so. He seemed genuinely pleased with our response.

As we got back into the truck for the long ride back to Finca Esquina, with revised plans for Misty and Amy to stay there to work and share stories for two weeks, Simón was very quiet. I eventually asked him to share his thoughts, and he explained that he was saddened and discouraged by the turn of events in Falsuri. It made him sad that there was so much strife in the church there, and it disappointed him that they had turned us away. Later that evening, Misty shared that she was also discouraged by what had happened. It made her wonder why we were even there.

When I shared with each of them the thoughts the LORD had put into my mind that day - the idea that our visit might be what the LORD used to get the attention of that struggling church and force them to put aside their differences and really strive for unity in their body, the recognition that we were genuinely wanted back in Falsuri - I realized that the purpose of all those prayers on my birthday was not for me to see a new church planted that day or to lead someone to Christ. It was for me to be able to see the LORD's underlying work a little more clearly so that I could encourage my brothers in their time of need.

Misty and Amy remained in Finca Esquina for the next two weeks and built some new and strong relationships with both believers and non-believers there. They were able to share their stories multiple times and discovered some things that only God's Word can correct. All in all, it was a valuable trip in which the Truth of God's Word that was planted there will not return void.

Simón told me the next day that what I had said encouraged him. Because of all of those prayers said on my behalf, my brother was built up. And isn't that what it's all about?

"Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." (Eph. 4:15-16)

So thanks for your prayers. Though my birthday this year, in all its uncomfortable glory, was far from the typical celebration I receive, it was actually better than most. And those prayers were truly the best birthday gift of all!