You of Little Faith!

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our wonderful and God-sent Quechua friend Simon and his wife Daria have begun a church that meets in their house here in Sucre. The participants at this point are all Daria's relatives, and they want Leah and me to come and begin teaching stories from Scripture to them that they can then share with others. What a blessing and encouragement this is for us, and it was completely uninitiated by us, which makes it even more exciting! These Quechua believers are beginning to do this on their own!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray diligently for Nelly, our sister in Ayuma who has battled some long-term, undiagnosed health issues. But her bigger problem is the crippling worry over her health that plagues her constantly and is beginning to alienate her from friends and family. She remains interested in hearing God's Word, but the worry is an enormous barrier to her focus. Please pray that she would trust in the One Who truly controls her health and that she would seek first His Kingdom.

2. Begin praying for this church in Simon and Daria's house. Pray that they would be unified and would be determined to exalt Jesus' name here in Sucre. Pray that they would learn the stories from God's Word and use them to reach others for Christ.

3. Please pray for Ester and Soledad, two of the young women who had planned to participate in our missionary training. We recently discovered that the reason they could not participate was related to their alcoholic father. Please pray for their father Guillermo, that he would see the difference Christ makes in their lives and would surrender himself to the One Who can change lives.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

We recently made a short trip out to Ayuma to visit our dear friends, and especially to invest more time in Nelly, the one woman there who has consistently been interested in memorizing the stories. We are so excited about Nelly because she has already learned eight stories from the life of Christ!

However, this trip was a little discouraging for us. When we first saw Nelly, she began to talk to us, once again, about her health problems. Ever since we met her, she has had some sort of medical issue, a problem that no one has really been able to diagnose, predominantly because she lives three hours from the closest modern medical care and doesn't usually return to the same doctor for follow-up.

The problem is that Nelly assumes the worst. Her mother died from something that was probably cancer, so Nelly assumes she also has cancer and is going to die from it. It doesn't matter that her symptoms are nothing like what happened to her mother; she is assuredly going to die from this cancer that is causing her problems.

As a former medical professional, this is highly frustrating for me. But, truly, as a believer, it's even more frustrating. Our good friend is just worrying herself into a frenzy all the time, crying every time she sees us and beginning to alienate her friends and family there in town because of her constant fretting. And I honestly don't know what to do.

During this trip, Leah and I tried the compassionate approach, saying, "We're so sorry, Nelly. We can't relate to what you're going through, but we know that the Lord loves you so much and has this situation right in His hands." We tried the harsh approach with, "You have to stop worrying. You're just making yourself miserable, and you can't even do anything about the situation! Trust God!" I even spent an afternoon memorizing Matt. 6:25-34 in Quechua to share with Nelly. At least four times in that passage, the Quechua Bible specifically says, "Ama phutikuychischu!" (Don't worry!). Still, the words from that story still hung in the air when Nelly started asking us once again, "Sisters, what will I do? My children are so young. What will happen if I die?" I just wanted to bang my head against the wall.

One story that Nelly has learned that has spoken to her is the story of Jesus calming the storm. Just so your memory is refreshed, here is Matthew's version (the parallel passages can be found in Mk. 4:35-41 and Lk. 8:22-25):

"Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, 'Lord, save us! We're going to drown!'

He replied, 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?'

Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, 'What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!'" (Matt. 8:23-27)

Nelly enjoys this story and has even told us that the Lord has used it to calm her when she has awoken in the middle of the night worrying. So Leah shared it with her again on this trip, hoping to remind her that the One Who has command of the wind and waves surely has control of her health also. After sharing the story, we returned to our house, a little discouraged with everything that had gone on. And the Lord tested our own belief in that story that very night.

The houses in Ayuma are made predominantly of mud, though the inside walls and floors are often concrete. The roofs are usually tin that is not attached to the house but is held down by heavy rocks. Our beds are straw mats on the floor with our sleeping bags on top. These pictures should give you some idea of what our house looks like:


























Well, the night that we had told the story of the calming of the storm to Nelly, there were heavy winds in Ayuma. This is normal for them, and they don't think about it at all. But for us to hear the wind howling in the trees and the tin roof being banged against the top of the house was a little nerve-wracking. I was asleep when the winds began around midnight, and the sound of tin against concrete is not a pleasant way to wake up, let me tell you.

I've never lived in a place where I've been that scared of wind. I've lived through two hurricanes and a few tornadoes, any of which would have been strong enough to destroy my house, roof and all. But I've never been in a place where just an ordinary wind was frightening. Of course, I've never before lived in a mud house with a tin, non-attached roof.

So, as I listened to those winds howling and thought about all the ways I could die if that roof came off, I was reminded of how the disciples must have felt when they felt the strength of the wind and saw the water pouring into their boat. As fishermen, they had been on that sea all their lives. They knew what a deadly storm looked like, and this evidently appeared to them to be one.

But when they wake Jesus to tell Him they are going to drown, He says they have little faith. And I knew I was exactly the same as they were. Here I had been so confident in telling Nelly not to worry, that the same Jesus Who calmed that physical storm could most certainly calm the spiritual storm in her life. Yet, here I was, lying wide-eyed in my bed in the middle of the night, fearful of a physical storm. How ironic and how fitting.

I resolved that night to trust the Lord to keep the roof on that house, and He did. Obviously, we made it out of Ayuma alive. :)

But I've been thinking about the story ever since and would love to hear input on it from any of you. Why did Jesus say they had little faith? There was no guarantee they would not die as long as they were His disciples, so why was their asking Him to save them a lack of faith? What is the significance of Jesus sleeping during the storm? And how did their amazement (or terror, as Mark describes it) at seeing Jesus calm the storm affect them from then on?

Would love to hear from you! Until next time, thanks for your prayers for us and for these people. We all desperately need them!

Only in Bolivia

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah and I were able to spend a wonderful Christmas with our friend Simon and his wife Daria, along with their children, Ruben and Cesia. Check us all out here in the picture below. We ate authentic Louisiana gumbo (very well done by Leah!), read the story of Christ's birth from Luke 2, and watched "A Christmas Story" in Spanish. And I'm glad to report that "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" is funny in any language. :)


Prayer Necessities:

1. In just a few days, Leah and I are headed out to Ayuma for a 10-day trip. Please pray that we would learn how to teach the women there to obey everything He has commanded us.

2. Please continue to pray for Nelly in Ayuma and begin to pray for Ilaria in Taramarca. These two women have learned 7-8 stories from the life of Christ and are beginning to share them with others in their villages. Please pray that they would hunger for more and would long to share the Truth with those around them.

3. Please pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we confront some problems tomorrow.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

I had something else in mind to blog about, but this was too good to pass up. I figured y'all might like to get a little taste of what life is like in Bolivia. You'll get the other blog idea at a later date.

We recently had to make a trip to Cochabamba to meet the president of one of the local denominations. We are hoping to get his support for some upcoming evangelism conferences that we plan to do, so it seemed like a great idea to go and meet him in person. Plus, Cochabamba is probably the most western city in Bolivia, and they have some really nice restaurants, so we were not all that disappointed to make the trip. :)

So, on a sunny and beautiful Tuesday morning, we got in the truck to make the 8.5-hour drive. There is not much in between Sucre and Coch, so we had packed snacks and planned to eat Chinese food when we arrived. We made it there without incident at around 5:00, checked into our hotel, ate Chinese, and even went to see a movie that evening. We were pretty much happy as clams.

On Wednesday morning, we got up to go to our appointment with the president and arrived at his office promptly at 10:00. However, if you know anything about Latin American culture, you know that the time they give you for an appointment is usually 30 minutes to an hour prior to the time you'll actually be seen. It's kind of like a visit to the doctor's office in the States. :)

As expected, we did make it into the president's office at around 10:30. What we DIDN'T expect was the presence of his Executive Council, two pastors from other local churches, and his wife. It made us just a little bit more nervous, but we wound up getting through our presentation with no problems.

On Thursday, we got up early to make the trip home. We had a few errands in Sucre that we planned to do when we arrived, so we left Cochabamba at about 9:30, expecting to make slightly better time and arrive in our home city at about 5:30 (most offices in Bolivia close at 6:30). Since our trip to Cochabamba had been uneventful, we expected more of the same on the return drive.

Boy, were we wrong.

I should explain a few things about Bolivian roads. There are some very nice paved roads in my adopted country. The one between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz (the largest city in the country) is one of them. Half of our drive between Sucre and Cochabamba plants us firmly on that very nice highway. However, the other half of the drive is a road that is pavement for about an hour, cobblestone for about 90 minutes, and dirt and gravel for the rest.

Even the dirt and gravel isn't the problem, though. The worst part is an hour-long detour through a riverbed that is dirt and large rocks. It's not so bad when the river is dry, but this is rainy season.

And it rained Thursday morning.

We had just gotten into the dirt and gravel section when our problems began. We topped a dirt ridge only to find what amounted to a small, muddy pond waiting for us on the other side. By that time, it was too late to stop, so we tried to plow through it with our trusty four-wheel-drive.

The problem? We've never really learned how to use the four-wheel-drive.

The truck got stuck about three-quarters of the way through the pond, so I got out to try to find some rocks to give the tires some traction. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take off my sandals before I stepped into a foot of muddy water, which only added to my already stellar attitude. I tried to traipse around in the mud for about 30 seconds before taking off my shoes and angrily flinging them into a nearby field.

Yeah, my temper is not a pretty sight. But it can certainly be amusing. :)

After putting rocks next to all four tires, I asked Leah to get in and try to drive while I watched the tires to figure out if there was one in particular that was our traction problem.

Where did I stand to do this, you might ask? Well, directly behind the truck, of course.

Genius.

As you might expect, the minute Leah hit the accelerator, mud went rocketing all over me. My hair, arms, shirt, shorts, and legs were all covered in it. (This picture was taken after the fact, but you get the idea.)



Nice.

And I was in my only Mississippi State T-shirt. And it was a white one.

I repeat, I'm a genius. :)

At that point, I was hopping mad. But, thankfully, a local Quechua man had seen our little adventure and come out of his house to help. He got me in the driver's seat and directed me with some reverse and forward movements until we made it out of the mud. We were more than a little grateful.

Once back on the road with Leah driving, I changed into a clean(er) shorts and T-shirt and put on my only remaining pair of shoes. But that wasn't the end of our adventure.

We had decided to avoid the detour and stay on the dirt-and-gravel road, which was mostly finished. People kept stopping us to tell us the road was closed, but we decided to remain on that part until someone told us to turn around. We had heard stories of cars getting stuck in the riverbed below and decided our chances were better with the dirt-and-gravel road.

We had been driving for about 45 minutes when we came to a giant dirt mound blocking the road. We got out to look at it and discovered there was no way around it. We were stuck, and there was nothing we could do. We keep a shovel in the back of our truck, and I was seriously considering pulling it out to dig us a path when several other cars drove up beside us. Most of them were either cars or SUVs like ours, all too small to try to plow their way through the river below without fear of getting stuck.

They informed us that a bulldozer was on its way to dig a path for all of us to continue on the road. One of the women kept telling us, "El rio es peligroso! (The river is dangerous)," and we were definitely in agreement. We made some new friends in the ten minutes or so that we waited on the bulldozer. And one woman laughed at me when she saw the mud in my hair. I explained what had happened, and then they all laughed!

We finally made it back to Sucre at about 6:30, none the worse for wear, if a little muddier than we had expected. (Check out the truck after our arrival, pictured to the right.) We were happy to get to meet some new people, though. I guess that made it worth it. :)

Seriously, this sort of thing can only happen in Bolivia. :)