Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:
Leah and I recently had a wonderful time of encouragement and edification with our church here in Sucre. When some were discouraged, others were able to lift them up either by their actions or by their words. It was just a beautiful reminder of what the church is all about: Being the body of Christ!
Prayer Necessities:
1. Please be in prayer for Leah and for me as we begin our vacation time in the States. Pray that it would be a time of refreshment and rejuvenation for us both as we begin our final year in Bolivia. Pray that we would be able to encourage and be encouraged by our churches at home. And please pray that I would get my passport back from immigration officials in La Paz in time to make the trip!
2. Lift up the church in Ayuma, asking that they would be sensitive to the Spirit's leading and would be transformed by Him into the church He wants them to be. Pray that they would be light in the darkness to those around them who do not know Christ and would care for the needs of their brothers and sisters around them.
3. Please pray for our upcoming women's evangelism conference in Ayuma beginning in late July. Ask that the Father would send the women He has prepared and that their lives would be changed by His Word. Please pray that the results would be far-reaching and that His Word would spread like wildfire through this region.
Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:
One of the goals of the Xtreme Team (or Equipo Xtremo, as it's known in Spanish) is to find and equip Latin believers to be missionaries taking the Gospel to the farthest corners of South America. And I am proud to say this is one are in which our team has been highly successful.
See, American missionaries are not the most effective people at reaching South America - or any other continent besides our own - for Christ. We speak a different language and so have to learn one or more new languages, a process that takes months to begin and a lifetime to complete. We have different cultural beliefs and have to spend significant periods of time - and make many mistakes - to learn the worldview of the people with whom we work. And all of that doesn't even take into account the possible difficulties - or even impossibility - of gaining access to another country and/or people group.
Now contrast that with a South American national who already speaks at least the trade language (Spanish), who looks and thinks more like the people with whom they work, and who potentially has less government bureaucracy to plow through in order to minister. Don't you think they'd be more effective at the work than we can be?
Don't think I'm saying that God can't work through United States missionaries in South America. Of course He does. I'm living proof. But I think we often try to do the work ourselves, rather than equipping others for the task. And that's not a very efficient way to spread the Gospel. We need all the workers we can get, especially those who don't have to go through quite as much preparation as I do.
So, that being said, I wanted to introduce you to the South American members of our team. Each of these people is someone I consider a hero, an example to be followed, and I hope that you'll remember to pray for them.
1) Javier and Roberto. Along with North American journeyman Landon Ginn, these guys make up the Bolivia men's Xtreme Team. Javier (on the right in the picture below) is a 23-year-old Peruvian who was been with the team since he was 18. Roberto (pictured on the left), from Argentina, is a whopping 26 years old and has been with the team for three years now. Javier has struggled with receiving a steady source of financial support since he joined the team, yet he remains. He has been robbed multiple times on community trips, but he never thinks about leaving. Roberto battled salmonella poisoning a couple of years ago yet, as soon as he could hold food down, was raring to return to the village where they were working at the time.
Currently, these guys are working in a little jungle town on the eastern side of Bolivia. They are faithful and tireless in their efforts, and it always encourages me to be around them, not to mention it spurs me to be more faithful to the Lord as well.
2) Eliseo. At 22 and fresh from Xtreme Team training, this young Peruvian is one of our newest members but also one of the most passionate ones. He recently made a trip that required 18 days of boat travel just to reach the target community! Once there, he and his teammate spent about a month with the people before returning to their home city. Eliseo is raring to go out on another trip, and this time he wants to go for six months! The only thing missing is a partner, as his previous teammate has since left the team. Please that God would send the right young man to accompany him.
3) Caleb. This young Quechua man from Peru was previously part of the men's team in Bolivia, but lack of financial support forced him to return home. However, rather than giving up on his missionary calling, he is in the process of sta
rting his own team of young missionaries to be sent out to Quechua villages near his home in the Andes of southern Peru. Recently married, he and his wife Deborah raise animals to sell in order to support their ministry.
4) Jose and Zarai. Pictured to the left, this young man from Ecuador and his new Peruvian wife now live in the northern jungles of Peru and are beginning a team of young men to go out and plant churches among the many indigenous tribes around them. Jose is a boisterous guy who makes friends easily and has a passion for Jesus Christ, and Zarai, though much quieter, has the same passion. Please be in prayer for their young marriage and their young ministry.5) Uzias and Sabina. Pictured to the right, they are a middle-aged coup
le from the Huitoto tribe in the Peruvian jungle, but they have lived for the last two years among another tribe, the Esse Eja, on the border between Peru and Bolivia. The government limits outside access to this tribe, but Uzias and Sabina, being indigenous peoples themselves, are welcome there. They have been sharing stories from God's Word with the people and living life with them, and they now have a few who seem ready to follow Christ. A few months after moving to the area, Sabina's mother died but, because of limited communication, she did not find out about until several months later. But, instead of harboring bitterness over that, Sabina remains eager to serve her Lord among the Esse Eja people. She makes and sells jewelry in order to help support their work.
Please be in prayer for all of these heroes of the faith and for the peoples among whom they work.
Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:
Leah and I finally accumulated and turned in all of the necessary documents to receive our two-year visas. It has been a long process, but we are thankful to have completed at least this first step of it! Now it is just a matter of waiting until the visas are granted.
Prayer Necessities:
1. Because my passport is now with the Bolivian immigration officials in La Paz, please pray that I will be able to get it back in time for my vacation to the States in late May. I have been told that it is no problem to pull the passport back out of the process, so please pray that this is so.
2. Be in continued prayer for our upcoming women's conference in July and August. We are soon to begin advertising for this, so please pray that God would prepare the women that He desires to participate and that they would obey His call.
3. Please continue to pray for the church in Ayuma. The more time we spend with them, the more problems we see. Please pray that the Lord would pour out His Spirit upon them and that they would be transformed into the church He wants for them to be.
Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:
It seems that all of my recent blogs involve crossing rivers, but I hope you can bear with me. That's just life during rainy season in Bolivia.
Every Wednesday, most of the people in Ayuma make the 1.5-hour trek to a nearby town called Pampa Colorado to buy things at the weekly market there. You can buy vegetables, live animals, gas for cooking, and even Quechua music videos! (Believe me, you might be curious enough to watch one of their videos once, but I can guarantee you that you would never want to see it a second time! :))
Going to the market is always a fun time for Leah and me. We enjoy the walk through the mountains, and Riley always has a good time running ahead of us. Once we get there, we buy whatever we need, along with a 2.5-liter Coke and a lunch of fried chicken and noodles, which we then eat at our normal spot under a tree on the return route to Ayuma. It's often the highlight of our week because it's such a break from the routine of life here.
Well, on our last trip to Ayuma, Nelly asked us to go to the market with her, and we agreed, thinking the long walk would be a good time to go over the stories with her. Little did we know what we had gotten ourselves into!
When we arrived at Nelly's house that morning, we discovered that it would not be just the three of us. Her husband Oscar, her mother-in-law Philippa, her three-year-old son Elvis, and seven donkeys borrowed from a neighbor would be joining us on the trip. I felt like I had just been thrown in the middle of some caravan in the Middle East! :)
Once we got going, things went well for awhile. Oscar, Philippa, Elvis, and the donkeys went on ahead while we talked and rehearsed a few stories with Nelly. But we were about twenty minutes from Pampa Colorado when we arrived at the river, and that's when the trouble began.
Though it hadn't rained that morning, it had been raining heavily for the previous few days. That made the river run almost to its banks, and it was moving really fast (the picture below, though it doesn't do it justice, might give you some idea). Oscar decided we would be better off trying to cross a few hundred yards upstream, so we followed as he herded the donkeys in that direction.
But, when we got there, the donkeys refused to cross. No matter how hard Oscar beat them, they wouldn't budge an inch into the fast-moving water. Hey, those donkeys weren't stupid! Too bad we humans can't take a lesson from those "dumb" animals. :)
So we herded the donkeys back downstream to the normal crossing site, where a few others from Ayuma were getting ready to cross with their own animals. There were two older ladies, Paulina and Ines, together with their donkeys. Cornelio, a local non-believer, was there to help them. And Juan was there with his pig. We must have looked hilarious!
I stood on the riverbank and watched as Juan jumped into the water behind his pig, who was obviously none too keen on being in that river. I watched Cornelio and Oscar finally manage to push the donkeys into the river, and I looked down at the rushing water and was just about to tell Leah that I was going to head back to Ayuma when Nelly said, "Hermana (sister)! Carry Elvis across for me. I have to help my husband!"
Before I even had the chance to object, Nelly had loaded her son in a cloth bundle tied on my back and was dragging us out into the river. She held onto my left arm, while Ines held onto her other side. Leah was on the other side of Ines to make four of us in a line. But, somehow, that didn't make me feel any better.
I was trying to take slow and careful steps to be sure I had solid footing on the riverbed, especially with someone else's three-year-old on my back. But Nelly was wanting to move faster and kept pulling my left arm, making me feel even more off-balance. I finally wrenched my arm free and told her that I would get there on my own.
When I finally reached the other 
side, after what seemed like an eternity of baby steps through the torrent, I don't think I've ever been so happy to be on dry ground (to the left is Oscar and a few others from Ayuma, along with their donkeys, right after crossing the river). But my happiness was short-lived as Nelly pointed to the sky and informed us that we needed to hurry because more rain was coming, and the river would only get worse.
Leah and I quickly got what we needed from the market and, as Nelly and her family were staying longer, we headed back on our own. When we arrived back at the river, despite the ominous clouds threatening overhead, it looked no worse than before. We had no choice but to go forward, and it helped to know we had made it across once before.
Riley, being a strong swimmer and much less afraid of the water than she had been just a month before (see March 24 blog), jumped in and quickly made it across with no problems. But it was interesting to see how the current pushed her about 20 feet downriver before she made it.
Leah and I locked arms as we had done with the women earlier but, this time, the difference was that we went at a common pace, being careful to not push each other too quickly. And, as we walked, I didn't take my eyes off the opposite shore, breathing a huge sigh of relief when we finally set foot on it.
That second walk across the river, though it still made me somewhat nervous, didn't utterly terrify me as the first had. There were several reasons for that, and they all have significant spiritual application.
1) I didn't have a burden strapped to my back. And, as I'm trying to navigate the treacherous waters of life, I can't be weighed down by a load of guilt or sin or anything else either. Scripture tells us to:
"Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Heb. 12:1)
Just maybe, without the extra weight throwing us off-balance, we are better equipped to make it across the river.
2) I had someone to do it with me, someone who cared enough to go at a mutually beneficial pace. When I was going with people who were too fast for me, I felt like I was going to fall. When Riley did it on her own, she made it but landed a long way from the mark. But, with Leah beside me, I felt like I was better balanced and had someone to help steady me. Do you think that's why Scripture tells us this?
"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" (Ecc. 4:9-10)
3) I was completely focused on the goal. The first time I walked across the river, I was looking down at the water, trying to see as well as feel for solid footing. But it didn't help, as I couldn't see anything in the muddy water. And it just made me more fearful and hesitant in my steps as I saw exactly what I was stepping into. But the second time, as I just focused on making progress toward the opposite shore, I was more calm and confident. I think that's why Scripture says this:
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Heb. 12:2)
4) And, last but not least, I knew it could be done because I had done it before. Though it had been hard, we had made it and had a better idea of how to do it the second time. That's why Scripture tells us to:
"But do not be afraid...; remember well what the LORD your God did..." (Deut. 7:18)
It is absolutely VITAL in the life of a believer to remember how God has brought us through previous trials. We are so easily discouraged and tempted to give up when walking against the current of the world and its ways, but we have to remember God's faithfulness in past tough times. This is the only way we will persevere.
And remember:
"He who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matt. 24:13)
I hope you will remember this the next time you are going through something difficult. And I hope I'll remember it, too.
rting his own team of young missionaries to be sent out to Quechua villages near his home in the Andes of southern Peru. Recently married, he and his wife Deborah raise animals to sell in order to support their ministry.
le from the Huitoto tribe in the Peruvian jungle, but they have lived for the last two years among another tribe, the Esse Eja, on the border between Peru and Bolivia. The government limits outside access to this tribe, but Uzias and Sabina, being indigenous peoples themselves, are welcome there. They have been sharing stories from God's Word with the people and living life with them, and they now have a few who seem ready to follow Christ. A few months after moving to the area, Sabina's mother died but, because of limited communication, she did not find out about until several months later. But, instead of harboring bitterness over that, Sabina remains eager to serve her Lord among the Esse Eja people. She makes and sells jewelry in order to help support their work.
