Building on the Solid Rock

Just an Unworthy Servant

2011-12-28T14:59:00.008-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

We had a great Thanksgiving with my parents and then a sweet time of fellowship with friends in Sucre over Christmas. I'm so grateful for time with friends and family in these last few months of my time on the mission field!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please lift up the new church in Salvatierra and ask that God would continue to mature them and that they would be filled with His Spirit. They are learning to study His Word and to pray and share their faith with others, so please pray that they would be faithful to listen to and obey Him.

2. Continue to pray for the Quechua churches in the communities of Ayuma and Taramarca, asking that God would work through them to bring many others to faith in Him.

3. Please ask for God's wisdom for Leah and me as we disciple this new church in Salvatierra. We feel an enormous sense of responsibility, as we only have a few months remaining with them, and we need to know how to prioritize the teachings they need to hear.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Salvatierra is a quaint jungle community with around 200 occupants, including children. (This is a picture of the Catholic church's building there.) The people are friendly, and many of them at least understand Spanish, even if they can't speak it very well. This is a definite improvement from the Quechua villages, where we have to communicate in Quechua if we want to communicate at all. Here in Salvatierra, we can disciple our new church in Spanish, and they translate the stories into Guarayo, their heart language, which is nice because they have to learn the story at least well enough to translate it for their friends.

The church is made up of four believers: Mariluz and her husband Humberto, Mariluz' best friend Adela, and Humberto's younger brother Benjamin. In the picture here, Mariluz and Humberto are in the center on the back row, Benjamin is just to the right of Humberto, and Adela is in the back row, third person from the left.

We have nightly meetings that are available to anyone who wants to participate. Our main goal is to disciple the new believers, but we haven't abandoned the idea of evangelism. There are different participants each night, but the four believers are always faithful to come. In the meetings each night, we teach a story, sing songs in Spanish and/or Guarayo, pray, and just enjoy each others' company.

We have also started having afternoon meetings with just the believers. Because the Guarayo are more literate than the Quechua, we can do some things differently than we ever would have in Ayuma or Taramarca. In those meetings, we sometimes study God's Word together. Mariluz and Adela both have Bibles, and they will read it aloud for Benjamin, who is mentally challenged and can't read. (Humberto was out of town when we started doing this, so we are hopeful he will participate with us on this next visit.) We then discuss the passage together to see what we can glean from it. Sometimes we pray together; other days we go out to spend time with non-believers, with the goal of sharing the Gospel with them. Leah and I are hopeful that this kind of hands-on discipleship will bear fruit in the lives of these baby Christians.

Our latest trip was a bit of a challenge. I got sick in the middle of it, and we had to return to Santa Cruz for a few days as I recovered. Once we got back to the village, we only had a couple of days left, and it was Leah's turn to teach a story at our nightly meeting. Her teaching involved this section of Scripture:

"Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Won’t he rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'" (Luke 17:7-10)

We got into a good discussion about that passage, as Mariluz talked about how it seemed kind of wrong of the master to not let the servant eat when he had just come in from working so hard in the field. To tell you the truth, I too have always thought about that passage as being kind of unfair. I mean, if the master is good, wouldn't he just tell the servant down and eat first?

Well, there's a real simple answer to that question. No.

See, the servant's (or slave's, to be more accurate in the translation) job is to serve the master, not vice versa. The slave's only responsibility is to do what the master tells him to do.

That evening, I thought a lot about that in relation to myself. Truth is, I sometimes look at myself and think I'm offering the Lord a lot. I mean, I had just come back from being sick and, instead of just scrapping the remainder of the trip, I had decided to go ahead and come back out to finish a few more stories. I had been thinking that I was a pretty good servant.

The next day, I got the chance to think about all of that even more. There are two rivers between Salvatierra and Urubicha, a bigger town on the main highway a little over 10 miles away. During rainy season, those two rivers get too big to cross in a vehicle, so we have to leave our truck in Urubicha and hike the 10 miles to Salvatierra with backpacks containing the food and gear we'll need to survive in the village. We have to leave the same way.

So, on that Sunday morning, Leah and I got up and loaded our packs onto our backs and took off for Urubicha. We left around 6:15 in the morning, and arrived at the river just outside Urubicha at about 10:45. By that time, it was unbelievably hot, and the last 90 minutes or so of the hike has no shade. There was only the sun beating down on us. Even Riley would walk a few feet and look for shade just off the path, wait on us to catch up with her, then repeat the process. By the time we got to our truck, we couldn't wait to get in, crank up the air conditioning, and head for Santa Cruz.

But we had left our truck at the house of one of the believers in Urubicha. And he wanted us to come in to participate in the last part of the church service.

Now I'll just be honest: The very last thing in the world I wanted to do was go into a hot building and listen to them talk in a language I couldn't understand. I was just angry. Why couldn't this guy understand that we had just walked forever in the blazing hot sun and just wanted to go home?

But then I thought about the fact that I'm just an unworthy slave. Sure, I had just been plowing, but I needed to continue to serve my Master. And, when all of that was done, I could still only say, "I have only done my duty."

Because the Truth is that my Master, incredibly, has served me. Though I am anything but deserving, He continually gives me food and drink, good health, constant encouragement and, best of all, salvation that allows me to know Him. He set the example for me in how to be a servant. Why should I think I should be praised because of what I have done?

I wish I could say that I've completely learned this lesson and now just serve others without ever complaining. I didn't even do that well with this lesson on that day with the church in Urubicha. But the Lord continues to teach me and, with His help, I'll eventually get this.

I'm just an unworthy servant; I have only done my duty.

Check out the huge hairy spider I found in my tennis shoe during our trip!

Gone and Forgotten?

2011-10-23T17:30:00.009-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

He is ever faithful to lift us up in our darkest hour, and I am so grateful for His sustenance and His faithfulness!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Pray for Leah and me as we struggle through this time of discouragement. Ask that we would the "God Who gives endurance and encouragement" (Rom. 15:5) would grant us both and that we would persevere in completing the work to which He has called us.

2. Please pray for Leah and me as we make our first and only trip to Taramarca next week. We will be there for about ten days teaching stories to the church there, then will focus full-time on the new church in Salvatierra. Pray that we would be faithful to finish this work among the Quechua.

3. Be in prayer for our friend Simon, who has had some recent job changes that require him to spend two weeks a month in another city. This has been hard on him and his family and will continue for the next year, so please pray that he would be strengthened and encouraged during this time.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

I have intentionally sent this particular blog update only to a select group of people who are certainly my brothers and sisters in Christ. There is a reason for that.

So this blog is going to be a hard one for me to write and maybe even harder for you to read. But I have thought and prayed about it, and I think these things need to be said...

It's been a rough few months. Beginning in July with the women's conference in Ayuma, Leah and I have been working pretty much non-stop with constant community trips and teaching. When we got back from our last trip to Ayuma, we essentially collapsed from exhaustion.

Shortly thereafter, Leah went on a vacation trip to Ecuador, followed by a trip to Peru for a short training time. She'll be back in Sucre later this week. Her travels have left me alone in my house in Sucre for about two weeks.

I was looking forward to that time after such a grueling few months beforehand. But, to tell you the truth, I have never felt more alone. My phone rang once when a friend called to ask if I could take him somewhere in the truck. I checked my e-mail incessantly and did receive some e-mails in response to ones I sent out but only a very few where I didn't initiate contact. I sent out multiple blog updates and got hardly any response.

The truth is, even before this time in Sucre, I had begun to feel forgotten by my family. And when I say "family," I don't mean my biological family but those who should love me even more: My family in Christ. I have two sisters in Christ who have faithfully kept up with me for these three years that I have now been on the mission field, and I can't begin to describe how grateful I am for those beautiful women. On the days when I feel most down, I remind myself that they care enough to stay in touch with me.

But here's the deal. October 15 marked the third anniversary of my time in another country. That magical date also means that I am no longer obligated to remain on the field. Let me explain: When I signed on with the IMB as a career missionary apprentice, I committed to serve a term of at least three years. If I had left at any point before that period of time was up, I would have been obligated to pay back a prorated portion of the money required to get me here and back and the money required for the set-up of my house here. But, as of October 15, 2011, I can leave the field at any time with no financial obligation whatsoever.

I have lots of friends with whom I attended our mission board's orientation back in 2008. The majority of them are leaving the field now to go to the States for a period of stateside time of rest and rejuvenation. Right now, I'm tired. I'm burned-out. I'm discouraged. And there's nothing I want more than to join those friends of mine in going home to my own country where I can eat my own food and speak my own language and spend time with my family and friends.

Basically, the only thing that's keeping me here at this point is the command of my Lord.

That being said, that financial motivation to remain on the field is a tangible one. With that out of the way, disobedience seems a little bit easier. Especially knowing I could tell myself, "What? I served my three years! Nobody can say anything to me!"

So why am I telling you all this? Because the main thing that makes me want to come home is feeling like no one cares about me at all. Discouragement is a powerful enemy, especially when you feel alone and just want to be with people who love you.

In the midst of one of my darkest times over the last week or so, God reminded me of Jesus in Gethsemane. He had also spent three years in ministry, pouring into this group of men, only to have them not be able to stay awake for even an hour with Him when He was in His hour of greatest need. When those guys should have been around Him showing Him that they cared and praying alongside Him in order to encourage Him before He faced His greatest trial, they were sleeping! Oh, how my Lord can relate to my feelings right now, and how wonderfully encouraging that is to know.

But all of you have a responsibility, too.

"But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called 'Today,' so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." (Heb. 3:13)

I'm asking you as my brothers and sisters in Christ to please help me now. I desperately need your encouragement to persevere in finishing the work here. God has called us to stay and to disciple this new church in Salvatierra, but I need you to help me. I need to hear from you. I need to know that you care about me and this ministry and that you are praying. Please don't desert me in my hour of greatest need.

None of this is meant to make you feel guilty. I have resisted sending this blog for a long time because I hate the idea of being manipulated or of manipulating others, and I hate making myself vulnerable to others. But vulnerability is a necessity as a believer, and I don't think it's manipulative to express what could help you to stay the course. So I want you all to know that I do need you, and there are others around you that need you, too. Please don't get so caught up in the things of this world that you forget the things that are everlasting. Among those eternal things are our relationships with our brothers and sisters and our obedience to the Lord concerning them.

Showdown with a Curandero

2011-10-21T15:22:00.003-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

We have now completed our work in Ayuma, teaching the last two stories to Nelly a little over a week ago. She is still recovering from some recent abdominal surgery but was eager to learn and did a great job. In all, she has learned 19 stories from Scripture, beginning with creation and ending with a story from the book of Ephesians. She has worked so hard, and we know that the Lord's Word will accomplish every purpose for which He sends it forth!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please be in prayer for Leah as she spends time visiting a friend in Ecuador, then heads to Peru for some training. Pray that she will be rejuvenated by time with other believers during this time and would return ready to make one last trip to a Quechua village.

2. Pray for our upcoming trip to Taramarca, the community where our journeygirls Misty and Amy worked. We have been promising to come there for some time now but had to wait until we had completed the task in Ayuma. We are planning to make a 10-day trip in which we will teach seven stories related to the church. Please pray that they will learn them and that the Holy Spirit would use those stories to teach them what they need to know about how to be the church.

3. Continue to pray for the new church in Salvatierra. We talked with one of the believers there last week, and she told us that they are meeting together and are studying 1 Corinthians. Pray that the Spirit would continue to work in their hearts and mature them in the faith and that they would be able to stand firm in the face of persecution.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Our last trip to Ayuma was a bittersweet one. We had planned to drive out there on a Thursday and come back the following Monday, but our trip was cut short by a blockade that kept us from going out until Saturday. Still, even during the shortened time, we were able to teach two new stories to Nelly and two new stories to the church as a whole. We spent a lot of time with our friends there, and everyone, including us, was sad when we left on Monday morning. We have loved these people, and they have loved us, and it's always hard to say goodbye to loved ones. But they were excited to hear of the work the Lord has called us to do next.

Nelly is probably the one we will miss the most. She has been one of our best friends there and is always ready to hear stories or just to talk to us. She especially loves it when we all cook together, and we are always glad to eat what she makes because she's a great cook! :)

She recently had some abdominal surgery, though, and is still a little sore as she recuperates, so she's not able to cook with us right now. She spends most of her time in the house because of the surgery, so she was especially glad to see us. I think she's been bored. :)

We are glad she was able to have the surgery for her female problems, and we feel confident that she will feel much better now. She has been complaining to us about her pain for the entire time that we've known her, and she says she's had these problems for four years. So we are certainly glad that she's gotten the treatment for her medical issues.

She was scared to have the surgery. That's typical of most Quechua people. We Americans can be scared of going "under the knife," too, but at least it's a relatively common occurrence in our culture. Not so among the Quechua. The idea of being put to sleep while someone cuts you open is absolutely terrifying for them, and they often choose not to undergo even life-saving surgery simply because they're so afraid.

When Nelly called her father to tell him that the doctor had suggested surgery, he was understandably worried. Nelly's dad is not a follower of Christ, so his beliefs align with an animistic worldview, as do the beliefs of most Quechua who aren't believers.

When a Quechua non-believer has a health problem (or just about any other kind of problem), they seek out the curandero. Now there are a wide range of curanderos, anywhere from a person who uses herbal medicines to treat sickness all the way up to a full-blown witch doctor who reads coca tea leaves (the Quechua equivalent of palm or tarot card reading) and casts spells in order to determine the problem and cure it.

When Nelly's dad found out about the surgery, he asked his local curandero what could be done for Nelly. The curandero read his coca leaves and said that Nelly definitely didn't need to have the surgery. She would die if she did! And she needed to come to him for treatment because he had the cure for her problems.

In the meantime, she had also had a dream about a cow. In Quechua beliefs, a dream like that means you are going to die. Needless to say, she was pretty worried about all of these things. And her father was absolutely insistent that she come home and see his curandero. She would die if she had the surgery!

It was a crisis of faith for her, a clash of her old Quechua cultural worldview vs. her new worldview as a disciple of Christ. Who was she going to believe? Her culture or God?

Well, you know she had the surgery, so you know she chose to believe that the Lord could cure her without the use of a witch doctor. I know Nelly well, and I know that worrying is deeply ingrained in her nature. Even now, after an uncomplicated surgery and with good healing, she still worries about whether she has an infection or any other potential complication. So the fact that she chose to ignore these fears that align with what she has believed all of her pre-Christian life and trust God to control her health means so much.

We are so proud of her! And we are hopeful that she will be able to tell her dad that her God is so much more powerful than his curandero. Maybe he, too, will come to know the God Who is the Great Physician!

Me alongside Nelly and her oldest daughter Danitza and youngest son Oscarito

Being the Light in the Darkness

2011-10-13T16:34:00.000-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

We are so excited after a short trip to the community of Salvatierra! The four new believers gathered with us for church meetings almost nightly while we were there, and it is thrilling to watch the Holy Spirit do His work among His people. They hear His voice and are receptive to what He says. We can't wait to see what else He will do to build His Church among the Guarayo people!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please be in prayer for the new church in Salvatierra. They have already faced some persecution, and this is a critical time for them to stand firm in the faith and to be grounded in sound doctrine. Pray that they would be emboldened from the start to make disciples of others and that the Spirit would enable them to stand strong for Christ.

2. Pray for the church in Ayuma, as we have just made our final trip to disciple them. Pray that God's Word would take root in good soil and that they would bear fruit. And please pray especially for Nelly, who is currently recovering from a recent surgery.

3. Please pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we complete the work among the Quechua with a short trip to Taramarca in November and then begin the work in Salvatierra in earnest in December. We only have four months to spend there, so pray that we would make the most of every opportunity and that we would know how to focus our efforts in discipleship.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

First of all, please forgive the lack of pictures in this blog installment. I'm having some major computer issues at the moment and will upload pictures as soon as I can.

As I've previously mentioned, the church in Salvatierra is small with only four baptized believers. But those four are faithful, and the Lord's work in their lives is evident. Their names are Mariluz, her husband Umberto, her best friend Adela, and a young man named Benjamin.

We recently spent a week with them, and it was an emotional roller coaster of a trip. Salvatierra is in the jungle, and that's definitely an adjustment for me. When I first arrived in South America, I spent five months in the jungle doing training for our team. However, for the last two years, I've worked in the mountains at around 10,000 feet, which has its own set of challenges. But suffocating heat and biting insects are not among them, so Leah and I have definitely had to readjust. :)

Discomfort was certainly one of our greatest challenges, and the other was being asked for things - CONSTANTLY. The Quechua are subtle in asking for what they want; they hint around and, if you don't bite on the hints, they usually won't ask you directly. Not so with the Guarayo. They asked us for rides to their fields, for food, for money, for medicine, for anything they saw and lots of things they didn't see. Learning to discern when we should and shouldn't give has been an enormous challenge, and I'm sure will continue to be for the remainder of the time that we work inSalvatierra.

The village is predominantly Catholic, and the influence of those beliefs is strong. The priest comes every Sunday to perform mass, and catechism classes are taught in the schools. This has actually been one of the greatest barriers we've faced, and I will address some of that in a future blog.

Before we went to Salvatierra, Leah and I had discussed with the men's Xtreme Team what they had previously taught and had developed a list of stories that we wanted to teach that would address some of the problems that had been seen. Our first story was taken from the Sermon on the Mount, mostly focusing on anger, lust, and how to treat others.

One night after we had taught the story, it rained heavily. We were cooking dinner, and Mariluz and her son and his girlfriend were visiting in our house with us. It had just gotten dark, and someone came to the door and spoke to Mariluz in Guarayo. She then told us there had been an accident. One of the men from Salvatierra had been chopping down a tree when part of it fell and hit him in the chest. He was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital about 90 minutes away.

Mariluz left to go find out more and returned several minutes later to tell us the man had died on his way to the hospital. Leah and I were dumbfounded. This man had a wife and five sons, and now he was gone. We decided to stop and pray for the family he had left behind.

After praying, I went to the door and looked out, and Mariluz pointed out to me that all the other doors were closed. Now, let me tell you, that is unusual. It is HOT in Salvatierra, so people have their doors open almost all the time. When I asked Mariluz why they were all closed, her answer shocked me, even as it gave us great insight into the worldview of this people.

She told us that the people were scared that the spirit of this dead man would come to bother them. There is a larger town about 10 miles away that the ambulance had driven through on its way to the hospital, but the spirit wouldn't bother the people there because they had electricity. In Salvatierra, where there is no electricity, the spirit could come and wreak whatever havoc he desired because there was no light to drive him away.

This belief didn't surprise me. Beliefs in appeasement of the spirit world are common among indigenous peoples here (this is called animism) and, although they consider themselves to be Catholic now, their true worldview is really just a mixture of Catholicism and animism. But all of it made me sad that these people live their lives in such fear.

But the Lord encouraged me by reminding me of the story that I had taught just the previous night. At the beginning of His famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells His disciples:

"You are the light of the world." (Matt. 5:14)

I realized that Mariluz wasn't afraid. She was standing with us in the only house with its door wide open. I realized that she didn't need to be afraid because she had the True Light that drives away every evil spirit. And she, as the light in Salvatierra, could show others the way out of this dark abyss of fear in which they live.

I then told Mariluz what 1 John 4:4 says:

"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."

She just nodded and said, "Yes, I believe that, hermana." And I knew that she really did because the threat of an evil spirit in the darkness outside didn't bother her at all.

Praise God that He has called her - and us - to His marvelous light!

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." (1 Pet. 2:9, NAS)

Women's Conference... Weekend Three

2011-09-11T17:41:00.008-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

We have now finished with the women's conference, and the best part was that we got to watch both our translator Ester and our good friend Nelly from Ayuma teach the stories of the crucifixion and the resurrection. It was so exciting to see them share!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray for the churches in Ayuma and Taramarca. We have been working in Ayuma since last year and will be headed to Taramarca this month to do some teaching. These will be our last trips to Quechua villages, so please pray that the teaching they have received will change them and that they will be unified and loving toward one another.

2. Be in prayer for a new church in the community of Salvatierra. The people are part of the Guarayo people group, and there are now four newly baptized believers there. Leah and I began working in this community with a short trip this month and then will be making more regular trips out there beginning in December. Pray that they will mature and that Leah and I would have wisdom to know how we should disciple the new believers.

3. Please pray for our team as they make a transition to working with unreached people groups in Peru next year. Ask that the Lord would grant them favor with government officials and that He would provide the means whereby these groups can hear the Gospel.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Following the second weekend of our women's conference, Leah and I both struggled with some serious discouragement. We had wanted these women to learn the seven stories we were teaching and to share them with others, but we didn't have a single one who had learned even the first four stories that we had shared.

But the Lord readjusted our attitudes and reminded us that this is His work and that His purposes are never thwarted. So we headed back out to Ayuma with our translator Ester on August 27 ready to see what He would accomplish in the last weekend.

By that time, we had learned to just expect the unexpected. There were a few more people there this time when we arrived, and we settled down to help prepare food as usual. But, before too long, they were asking us to go ahead and get started with the teaching.

Leah started out with teaching a story about the cost of discipleship. This is a story that is drawn from several passages, and it talks about having to lose your life in order to find it and how following Christ involves denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Him. It's a difficult story to learn because it is mostly based on Christ's teaching and doesn't have much action, but they seemed to learn it quickly enough.

That evening, the elder from the church in Taramarca preached and, though we couldn't understand his teaching, we could tell he was a very good speaker. He had the crowd laughing and interacting with him, and it made us laugh to watch all of them.

Then, on Sunday morning, our friend and translator, Ester, got up to teach the story of the crucifixion. She had told me she was nervous, but you couldn't tell it from how she told the story. She was very animated and enthusiastic in her teaching, and the women seemed very interested. Many of them had heard the story before, so they learned it fairly quickly. Ester was so excited to be able to do this, and she did such a great job with teaching! (She's pictured here portraying Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.)

Finally, we were ready for the grand finale - the story of the resurrection. Months before the conference began, we had started talking to Nelly about teaching this story. She had learned it from us and knew it like the back of her hand. It was not a question of her knowledge but whether she would overcome her fear and get up in front of the crowd to teach it.

Even up to a few minutes before time to teach the resurrection story, we weren't sure Nelly would get up and do it. But she did, and I can't tell you how excited it made us to watch this young Quechua woman teach such a powerful story to her own people! (She's pictured here as she taught the story to her friend Marina.) Ester is also Quechua, so it was great to see her teach. But it was even better to watch Nelly do it because she lives in Ayuma and is one of them. We are hopeful that this will send a direct message to these women that they, too, can do this!

Once we arrived back in Sucre, Leah and I rejoiced in all that the Lord had accomplished through this time. Ester had told us that she feels more secure than ever in her calling to be a missionary (God has called her to go to India, and she is awaiting His provision for that to happen), and she is currently going on short mission trips to nearby cities to share stories with the people in Quechua. And, now that Nelly has taught this one story to a large audience, we are hopeful that she will continue to teach the stories she has learned and that others will see her example of obedience and follow it.

In short, Ps. 126:3 expresses our thoughts perfectly:

"The LORD has done great things for us, and we are glad."

Church elders Abdon and Felix with a certificate of appreciation that we gave to the church

Women's Conference... Weekend Two

2011-08-25T18:48:00.014-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah and I received our two-year residency visas last week! We will not be here for two years longer, but we are glad to have in our hands the documentation we need to be able to legally live in Bolivia until our mission term ends in May of next year.

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please continue to pray for our friend Nelly, who continues to have some health problems. Despite several visits to doctors and a few rounds of antibiotics, she still has intermittent abdominal pain that remains unresolved. She is often worried about this, so please pray that the Lord would resolve this and that she would trust Him with her health.

2. Be praying for our friend Sabina, who lives in Ayuma. She is a non-believer and is well-known for her drinking and for making the local alcoholic beverage for others to drink. We have heard that she says she will just drink herself into the grave, but we have had an opportunity to build a friendship with her. We got the chance to share the Gospel with her through Quechua Bible stories this past weekend, so please pray that His Word would touch her heart and bring her to salvation.

3. Please pray for Leah and me as we very soon make the transition into working with another people group, the Guarayo, in October or November.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

The second weekend of our women's conference was August 13 and 14, and the results were not what we had hoped. When we began this conference, we had the intention of teaching seven stories from Scripture over the course of three weekends. The goal was for the women to learn the stories, then to go home and share them with at least one other person.

We had made those expectations very clear and had told them that we would be asking two questions when they arrived on August 13: 1) Did they still remember the stories? and 2) With whom did they share them?

We knew that most people would not share the stories, but we were hoping for a few who would. When we got there, we asked the two questions. When we asked the first question, several of the women raised their hands, and we were excited. Then we asked who all had shared the stories, and there were still a few hands raised. But, when we began to ask them individually with whom they had shared, only one person could say that she had shared the stories.

But we were excited about the one! Yhovana is 17 and had shared both stories with her mom and with two friends from school. Wow! We gave her a can of milk as a reward (milk is kind of a precious commodity in the village), and we also gave milk to Nelly, who had missed learning the second story but had shared the first one with her family.

We then set about teaching the next story - the story of God testing Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. Just like the previous week, it was very obvious that many of the women were not interested at all, but there were a few, including Nelly and Yhovana, who were really trying. Leah asked for Nelly's husband Oscar and one of the local boys, Luis, to come up and help her as she told the story (in the picture below, Luis is to the far left and Oscar is beside him as Leah teaches the story), and they played the parts of Abraham and Isaac. I think it was a really great visual for them to get to see what it might have looked like for a man to sacrifice his son. Afterwards, the question time went really well, as one of the women confessed that, if God had asked this of her, she would not have been able to sacrifice her child. And Yhovana offered the insight of the night, as she told us that, just as He did with Abraham, God also wants to test each of us to know whether or not we will obey Him. We went to bed that night truly encouraged by Yhovana and Nelly, who continued to impress with their quickness to learn and willingness to share what they had learned.

But Sunday brought great discouragement when Yhovana didn't show up to learn the story. We had seen her at her house that morning and knew she was healthy, so we didn't know what happened. It was my turn to teach, and I just looked around at everyone and wondered why exactly we were doing this when no one really seemed to care. But Leah encouraged me by reminding me that, even if everyone around us was disobedient, we still had to give our all. Our great God deserved that.

I knew she was right, so I got up to teach the story of the woman at the well from John 4, determined to give my best effort in teaching it. It is an incredible story that always touches my heart so, after the second time of telling it, I was really into it. In acting the story out in front of the women gathered there, I really thought about what that woman must have thought when Jesus told her He was the Messiah, this long-awaited One Who knew everything she had ever done... and yet still promised to give her living water. I knew how excited she was to meet Him, and it made me remember the excitement that I had - and still have - when I really meet with Him and feel that spring of living water flowing inside of me.

Among the 40 women or so who were gathered there, I could see a few who were really interested. There was one woman in particular, a lady named Ines, who would crane her head as I moved, just to be sure she could see what I was doing. It was encouraging to know there was someone who really wanted to know this awesome story of love and forgiveness, so I focused most of my attention on her and the few others who were interested (pictured here are Nelly sitting down by the "well" as Jesus and Noelia as the Samaritan woman, while I help coach them with the story).

At the end, I asked several questions about the story. One of the questions was about what the Samaritan woman did after Jesus told her He was the Messiah. The answer? She went back to her town and told everyone to come and hear Jesus. When we talked about that, Ines spoke up and explained that they didn't have time to go and tell others. They were all so busy cooking and washing clothes and working in their fields that there just wasn't time to go and tell the Catholics about Jesus. (Ines is pictured below with me as we go through the story of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well.)

That might have been the most discouraging thing I heard that weekend, but I know I do the same thing. I get so caught up in what I want or "need" to do that I don't take the time to tell others the Good News, that the Messiah has come and offered us living water so that we might never be thirsty again. When Ines said that, I wondered how the 5% of Quechua people who are believers can withhold such a valuable truth from the 95% of their people who don't know it? And I wonder how can I withhold it from so many around me who also don't know Him?

Scripture tells us this:

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil" (Eph. 5:15-16).

Since our lives are nothing longer than a vapor and then are over, let's heed this advice. Let's spend ourselves in His service, making Him known and telling everyone about the living Water. There is NOTHING we do that is more important!

Women's Conference... Weekend One

2011-08-03T18:54:00.009-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

We are so blessed and grateful for the help of our friend Lidia, who translated for us in the first weekend of our women's conference (I'm pictured here with Lidia in the middle and one of the students, Mariela, on the right). Not only did she do a wonderful job of translating, but she was also a great encouragement to the Quechua women, as they could see someone of their own culture who was doing the Lord's work. She exhorted them to go out and share the stories with others, and we are hopeful that they will take her words to heart!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please continue to pray for the women's conference and the women who participated in it. Pray that they would go out and share the two stories they have learned and would return for the second weekend excited and eager to learn the next two.

2. Pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we think through the rest of our time on the mission field and some potential changes that are coming within the next couple of months.

3. Please be in prayer for our bosses, Trent and Kay, who will be returning to the US in September to begin a nine-month stateside assignment. Pray that they will have a smooth transition and an enjoyable time of reconnecting with friends, family, and stateside churches.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Well, our women's evangelism conference began this past weekend, and the only thing to be expected was that everything was unexpected. :)

Things did actually start out a little discouraging, though it was probably just a cultural misunderstanding. We had advertised the conference in April at a previous conference held in a larger city called Pocoata. We had brought posters and letters describing our women's conference and had talked about it in front of the approximately 300 people present. We had mentioned that it would be held over three weekends, with each Saturday's teaching beginning at 3:00 in the afternoon, and Sunday's beginning at 8:00 am and ending around 11:00 am, just prior to the morning worship service in Ayuma.

The people in Ayuma kept telling us they were expecting about 200 people to attend our conference and, to be honest, we didn't want that many. We knew there was no way all 200 of those people would actually want to learn stories and share them, and it's easier to really teach the Bible stories in a smaller group. But we figured we'd just try to handle it the best we could and, for the subsequent weekends, there would be fewer people, once they figured out what we were doing and expecting of them.

We had agreed to provide half the food, so we loaded our truck up in Sucre with about 80 pounds each of noodles and rice, about 50 pounds of sugar, and plenty of oil, carrots, onions, tomatoes, and a few spices thrown in for good measure. On Saturday morning just before 6:00, we picked up our translator Lidia and hit the road for Ayuma.

We arrived just after noon, expecting to pull up to a big group of people already cooking over a huge fire for the expected crowd of 200-plus. What we found was just the opposite: Ayuma was an absolute ghost town. One church member, Roman, and an elderly lady from another community were standing outside the church building, and that was it. After we knocked on a few doors, we discovered that almost everyone had gone to a market in another town and wouldn't be back until evening. And we were also told that most of the people who would come to the conference probably wouldn't even come until Sunday!

Now that was a problem because I was supposed to teach the creation story on Saturday, and Leah was going to teach the fall of man on Sunday. If most of the women didn't come until Sunday, they'd already be a story behind. And creation is a really important story to set the stage for the Gospel.

So, needless to say, we were pretty discouraged by all of this. Our conference was set to start in less than three hours, and there were five people there, three of which were teachers or translators!

All we knew to do was to start peeling potatoes, knowing that would be the first thing our Quechua friends would do when they arrived, and a few people slowly began to arrive (here are some of our friends peeling potatoes). We had decided that we would start at 4:30, regardless of who was there. But, at 4:00, when there were still were no more than 15 people present, we decided to take a short walk to gather our thoughts and regroup.

Leah suggested that we pray, and we each said a prayer asking for the Lord's help and wisdom in how to go about things. And Lidia was very encouraging in her prayer, asking that the Lord would give us strength and wisdom to be able to proceed. After that, we all felt much better.

We returned to the town and decided to begin the conference at 5:30 with Leah teaching a health class. She was teaching on how to prevent back injuries and on good nutrition, and it went really well. We had about 30 women there, and they asked some great questions. It seemed like we were finally getting things rolling!

After that, we had some dinner (which was prepared mostly by the men) and then returned to the church building as I began to teach the creation story. At that point, we had around 40-50 people, some of whom had walked a great distance to come. There were three teenaged girls from the community of Saqa Saqa who had walked four hours to get there. So we were excited to see what the Lord would do with that great sacrifice on their part!

They and several others seemed very interested and, at the end of an hour and a half, they had learned the story and were able to tell it back with very little prompting. We had also explained to the women very clearly that they would be asked two questions when they returned for the second weekend of the conference: 1) Do you remember the stories? and 2) With whom did you share them?

Lidia, Leah, and I climbed into bed exhausted around 10:00 that night. We stayed with our friend Nelly, the lady who has learned nearly all of the stories we've shared in Ayuma. She had come and learned the story of creation on Saturday but told us she wouldn't be able to be present on Sunday when Leah taught the fall of man.

But the next morning, Nelly had changed her mind. She told us that she had gotten up early to cook for her family so that she could come and learn the next story. We were so excited to hear of her willingness to sacrifice to obey the Lord! We knew He was pleased with this!

We had planned to start teaching the story at about 9:00 on Sunday but, as usual, our plans were not what came to pass. Leah was finally able to start teaching a little after 10:00 but, once again, the women did well in learning. At Lidia's suggestion, we even broke up into two groups to do a competition: A drama of the story of Adam and Eve's sin in Eden. It went great, and it was obvious there were about 10-15 women who had the story down really well!

But we were saddened to see that Nelly did not come after all. She showed up for the last few minutes of the story, asked Leah to teach it to her, but left again before Leah had the opportunity. We found out later that she went to help make bread for the local school's upcoming celebration. It made us sad to see that, but we are hopeful that we will have the opportunity to catch her up with that story when we return to Ayuma next week. Or, better still, we hope that one of the other women who was at the conference will teach it to her.

We're not yet sure how successful the conference was, but we will know more on the second weekend. The ladies will arrive again (we hope!) on August 13 and 14, so please continue to pray that the Lord will work in their hearts and that they will be obedient to learn His Word and share it and will thus fulfill the Great Commission!

Looking for Good Soil

2011-07-15T17:08:00.004-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah and I have memorized the stories for the first weekend of our upcoming women's evangelism conference, have lined up our translators and, after buying a few items tomorrow morning, will have fully completed our preparations. We are excited and a little nervous about getting things started!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Our dear friend Simon is going through some significant trials lately related to his family and to his hometown. Please be in prayer for him and his family as they seek to navigate the difficulties of raising two teenagers and of facing major opposition for the cause of Christ from many in his hometown. (Pictured here is Simon with his wife Daria, and their children, Ruben and Cesia.)

2. Please continue to pray for our upcoming women's conference. Ask that God would send to us the women He has prepared to participate and that there would be much fruit as a result of their participation.

3. Pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we are seeking the Lord's direction regarding a major ministry change in the coming months. This would involve leaving the Quechua and going to work with another people group for the last six months of our time on the field.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Several months ago, I read a book that had me looking at Jesus' parable of the sower (or, more appropriately, the parable of the soils) in a whole new light. In the context of our upcoming women's evangelism conference, I've been thinking a lot more about this parable and thought I'd share those thoughts with you.

The parable goes like this:

"Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times." (Mk. 4:3-8)

Jesus went on to interpret the parable like this:

"Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop - thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown." (Mk. 4:13-20)

Leah and I have been working in Ayuma for well over a year now and, when it comes to seeing fruit in those with whom we have worked, we have precious little to show for it. Nelly, the woman with whom we have spent the majority of our time, has learned ten stories from Scripture. Two other women have learned at least one story, but none of them has shared what they have learned with others. And since the whole goal is for them to be doers of the Word and not hearers only - meaning they, too, should be going out and making disciples - the results have been more than a little discouraging to us.

All of that has me thinking again about this parable which, according to Jesus, is fundamental. He asks in verse 13, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?"

During the women's conference, which will run every other weekend for three weekends in July and August, we will teach seven stories from the Bible, beginning with creation and ending with Christ's resurrection. Not only will the women need to learn all seven stories, but they will also be required to tell them to at least one other person.

Leah and I fully expect to have 100 women or more there for the first weekend. Oh, the Quechua DO love their conferences. They will expect to come and sit on wooden benches or stand in the back of the church's building to listen to some teaching, eat a few large bowls of food, and listen to their brothers and sisters sing and make music well into the night. What they'll get, aside from the food, is something VERY different. From the very beginning, these women will be asked to be active participants in the conference, rather than passive observers. They will have to interact with us as the leaders, speak in front of the other participants, and then go put into practice what they've learned. On the second weeked, they will be asked - in front of everyone present - whether they shared the stories they learned with someone else. If they didn't, they will have to go out and share them before they can learn the next story.

No, this conference is not for the faint of heart.

More accurately, it's not for the disobedient.

And we don't expect to have very many that will fulfill the requirements we have set. But the ones that do will be the good soil. And, after spending so much time sowing in non-productive earth, I long to plant God's good seed, His Word, in soil that will produce fruit at a yield of 30, 60, or even 100 times what was planted.

Please pray that God would cultivate that soil ahead of time in preparation for the sowing of His Word and that we would sow it faithfully. (Pictured here are a couple from Ayuma as they sow beans in their field.)

What is the Limit of My Willingness to Sacrifice?

2011-07-05T21:31:00.007-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

I just returned from a four-week vacation in the US, followed by a week-long meeting with other missionaries in Peru. Both were times of great encouragement for me, and I am refreshed and excited to return to work in Bolivia for the remaining ten months of my time on the foreign field!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Leah and I will begin conducting our women's evangelism conference for three non-consecutive weekends starting on July 30 and 31. We will teach the participants seven stories from the Old and New Testaments so that they will be able to share the Gospel orally with their friends and neighbors. Please pray that the Lord would send to us only the women He has prepared to learn these stories and share them.

2. Pray for wisdom for Leah and I regarding some future changes. I will share more about this in the future but, for now, please be in prayer for us that we would be able to discern the Lord's will and obey Him.

3. Be in prayer for the members of our Xtreme Bolivia men's team, Javier, Landon, and Roberto. All three will shortly be returning to their home countries (Peru, the US, and Argentina, respectively) for a time of rest and relaxation. Pray for their transition back to their home cultures and that they would remain faithful to continue the Lord's work in whatever He calls them to do next.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

As I mentioned above, Leah and I recently returned from a meeting of IMB missionaries serving in five South American countries. The meeting was held at a resort in Peru, and there were about 225 people present (including about 65 MKs!). We had a wonderful time of swimming, sandboarding, horseback riding, dune buggying, and a host of other activities... in addition to getting some work done. :) (The pictures below are of me after dune-buggy riding with Leah and our new missionary friend Audra, who serves in Ecuador, and of the pool at the resort.)

But the best part had nothing to do with what we did. It was just an absolute joy to be around so many like-minded people, people who are all consumed with a passion to see the nations come to worship Christ.

Towards the end of my time there, Leah and I had the privilege of sitting down to talk with two women who are now my heroines. I'll change their names because both work in high-security areas such that exposing their identity could result in physical danger or deportation.

Marian has served as a single missionary for more than 25 years and is now working with an unreached group of indigenous peoples. The area where she works is quite dangerous for foreigners, so she travels by night with some South American brothers who help to hide her from the paramilitary groups who would kidnap her at the first opportunity. Once they reach the village where she works, she spends the day in the home of the local pastor because the villagers cannot know she is there. Once a month, she travels by night to a hidden camp several hours down the river. To get there, she must rely on her South American brothers, who hide her under a canvas for the duration of the trip. When she gets there, she is greeted by a group of indigenous people who have to learn stories from the Bible from her. They will then return to their own villages to share the Word of God with those who have never heard of Him!

Sandra has served as a single missionary for more than 15 years and began working in the cities of her country doing music ministry. Before long, however, she couldn't escape the faces of the many indigenous peoples who needed to hear about Jesus. Notwithstanding multiple government obstacles that could have resulted in her deportation, she now travels out to tribal areas to share God's Word with the people. On her first such visit, she met a man who asked her why she was there. Not wanting to identify herself as a missionary, she simply told him, "I work for a church." When he heard that answer, his face lit up, and he said, "Do you know Jesus?" When she answered yes, he excitedly asked, "Can you tell me about Him? I want to go back and tell everyone in my village about Him!"

Can you imagine being the first one to tell someone about Jesus? And, what's more, knowing that they will go and tell others who have also never heard of Him? If that's not encouragement to keep pressing on, I don't know what is!

But those wonderful stories were not the only things I learned from Marian and Sandra. We got into a deep discussion about sacrifice and just how far we were willing to go to follow the call of Christ.

What prompted all of this is the fact that both of these ladies are single, and so are Leah and I. Our conversation started off along those lines, with Marian and Sandra, both of whom are in their 50s or older, describing to us how they have struggled with the desire for husbands and children and how, despite the lack of fulfillment of those desires, they have chosen to remain faithful in service to the Lord, knowing that where they are and what they are doing means being single makes them better suited to be His servants.

Now that resonated with me because, having never married at age 40, I also struggle with those desires. Having faced that particular landmark birthday earlier this year, it has really made me confront the likelihood that I will ever have children. But now, unlike earlier in my life, I find myself not really caring whether I ever do. I think I just don't have the patience to be around kids at my age, so it's kind of nice to be able to be around other people's children when I want to but hand them back to their parents when I get tired of them. :)

Marriage, however, is another struggle entirely. That is a desire I've had since I was a teenager, and it's always been my greatest wish. And that particular longing doesn't seem to be going away, nor do I anticipate it ever will.

A few years ago, I was sitting in a Bible study, and our singles pastor asked the group a question that cut me to the heart. He said, "If you had the opportunity to choose between getting married and having a family but living kind of a mediocre Christian life vs. being single for the rest of your life but living out everything God has for you and having a perfectly fulfilling relationship with Him, what would you choose?" I went home and cried that night because I had to admit that I didn't know.

I think often about the life of Abraham. I feel like my life is supposed to parallel his in many ways, and I hope that someday I'll reach the level of faith he had.

Abraham waited 25 years to receive the son God had promised, and he got that boy when he was 100 years old. Several years later, God told him to take that precious son Isaac three days into the wilderness.

And sacrifice him.

Can you imagine? Here is Abraham's dearest treasure, the greatest longing of his heart, this precious boy that God had promised him. And now God is taking him away? That doesn't make any sense!

But you know what happened. Abraham obeyed. He took Isaac up on that mountain, and the young man willingly allowed his father to tie him up and place him on that altar. And, at the last possible moment, when Abraham raised the knife to slaughter his son, God stopped him. What the Lord says to him then is so telling:

"Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." (Gen. 22:12)

I want God to be able to say to me that He now knows that I fear Him, because I have not withheld from Him my longing for marriage. If it will glorify Him more that I remain single, I want to be willing to do that. And, honestly, there are days when I am definitely willing, but there are days when I'm just not. But, thankfully, I think the former is starting to outweigh the latter.

Recently, I thought about that old question of my singles pastor, and I asked it to myself again. This time, my answer was different. Day by day, if I choose to walk in God's grace, it can remain the same, that I choose Him over anything this world and its temporary pleasures have to offer.

Thanks for reading about my struggles! I figure you can plug your own greatest desire into that verse to find out what the limits of your own willingness to sacrifice would be. And, if you're not there yet, don't worry; you're not alone! But He'll get us there.

The Next Step

2011-05-04T14:07:00.006-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

I now have my US passport in my hand just in time to begin my four-week trip home for vacation next week! The officials in La Paz had already returned the passport to the immigration office in Sucre even before I went to request it to be loaned back to me for the trip. When I return to Bolivia after vacation, I will have to send the passport and one more piece of paperwork to La Paz, but the visa should be complete soon thereafter. Thanks so much for your prayers! See y'all soon! Just to get you in the mood, here are some pictures from last year's vacation: Me with my parents and me hanging out with my friend Amy at the beach. :)

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please continue to pray for our friends Simon and Daria and the church that is meeting in their house. We have still not been able to participate in one of their meetings, but they continue to be faithful to meet every other Saturday to study God's Word and to pray. Ask that the Lord would continue to grow them in the faith and in numbers.

2. Pray for Leah as she returns from her vacation next week. She is a little concerned about being in Sucre alone for so long while I am out of the country. Pray that she would have wisdom to know how the Lord would have her use the time in the city and that she would feel safe and secure knowing that she is well cared for by our Lord.

3. Please continue to be in prayer for Ayuma's church. Ask that they would love one another and that this extraordinary love would be noticed by the non-believers in the village, making them want what the church has.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

As time seems to fly by us so quickly, and especially so for those of you living life in the hyper-paced United States, many of you may not realize the length of time I've been overseas. Well, it's been 2-1/2 years and, if that shocks you, let me ease your mind by saying that it blows me away, too. It just reinforces for me the truth of this verse:

"You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath." (Ps. 39:5)

The IMB requires its missionaries to go for a period of assignment in the US after 3-5 years of overseas service, and my period of eligibility for that stateside time begins in October of this year. My partner Leah and I have decided that we will heading home around the 3-1/2-year mark in May of 2012.

With my first term as a career missionary nearly complete, I have had some decisions to make. The IMB has recently undergone some major organizational changes, with the end result being that the majority of its missionaries will focus almost exclusively on unreached people groups. For Board purposes, an "unreached" people group is defined as a group with less than 2% evangelical believers. I am in complete agreement with the new strategy, but it means that our work with the Quechua (who, as a whole, are about 5% reached) will end when we leave after this term.

All of that brought me to a place of decision before the Lord regarding what I should do after this first term overseas. Should I return to South America, but in a different capacity and in a different place? Should I go to another foreign country, perhaps somewhere in Asia? Well, after much seeking of the Lord's face and receiving confirmation from other believers who have sought Him alongside me, He has shown me that my next place of assignment is back in my home country, though now on the opposite coast.

My next step in this nomadic life to which the Lord has called me takes me to Seattle, Washington.

At first, my response to that was resistance. I mean, really? Seattle? I have never lived anywhere west of the Mississippi River, nor have I ever had any desire to do so. And, honestly, it rains there something like 360 days a year! :)

Plus, leaving the work overseas means leaving the IMB and all of the financial security that it entails, but that just lends another aspect to this step of faith to which God has called me. Thankfully, I do have a skill in being a pharmacist that allows me to have a job nearly anywhere in the country, which gives me an effective tentmaking plan (see Acts 18:1-3). So my tentative plan is to work part-time as a pharmacist and full-time making disciples.

And, in time, the Lord has given me a peace and even an excitement about following Him there.

Seattle is, if not quite an unreached people group, at least an unreached city. Only about 4% of the people there are followers of Jesus Christ. That means that, in this city with a metropolitan area population of nearly 4 million, only about 150,000 belong to Him. And it is not a city that was once filled with His people but that has now grown cold. It has actually NEVER followed Him.

It is a very multicultural city, with some 190 languages spoken there, but that also means that there are a variety of world religions represented. Most people would classify themselves as "spiritual but not religious."

Have you ever wondered if it was possible that there could be a city in the US where the people haven't heard of Jesus? Well, this is it.

But, despite the spiritual darkness - or perhaps because of it, I am excited to go to this new place where the name of Christ is not yet exalted. I want to see the Holy Spirit move there in a mighty way to claim for Himself this modern-day Athens (see Acts 17:15-34), these people who worship so many false gods but not yet the One True God. I long to be a part of His work and to help harvest what He brings to bear.

But for now, my work remains here in Bolivia. He has called Leah and me to make disciples among the Quechua here, and we strive to be faithful to that calling. I have not been distracted from that by what God is calling me to do in the future, but I did feel it was time to let those who have so faithfully supported me in this journey know about where He is taking me next. My hope is that you will add the people of Seattle to your prayer list without removing the Bolivian Quechua.

I'll be in the States on vacation from late May until late June if you would like more information or clarification on this next step in my somewhat nomadic life. Or you can always feel free to shoot me an e-mail at dogfight17@hotmail.com.

I'm looking forward to seeing many of you during my time at home!

A few fun facts about Seattle:

Highest percentage of college graduates of any major U.S. city
Home to Microsoft, Boeing, and Starbucks
Population is about 30% non-Caucasian, including 14% Asian and 5% Hispanic
Average yearly rainfall is 36 inches, as compared with 39 in Washington, DC, and 40 in New York. The least amount of rain falls in July. On average, there are 226 cloudy days per year (not 360, as originally assumed :)).
High cost of living, with an average 1-bedroom apartment costing slightly over $1000 per month and an average family income around $85,000 per year
Is the same distance from both London and Tokyo
Approximately 18% of its population is foreign-born
Has four professional sports teams: The Mariners (MLB), Seahawks (NFL), Storm (WNBA), and Sounders (MLS)
Major export, by far, is aircraft parts
Is about 85 square miles in area
Most famous landmark is the Seattle Space Needle
Nickname is The Emerald City

Becoming All Things to All Men

2011-05-01T11:49:00.005-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah and I were recently able to attend an evangelical conference in the small town of Pocoata. Though it was a slightly overwhelming cultural experience, it was a blessing to get to meet and spend time with a number of believers we did not know before. We were also able to advertise our upcoming women's evangelism conference, and we have a number of people who have expressed interest!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Leah recently left for a three-week vacation in the States. Please pray that I would have wisdom to know what to do during this time in Sucre and that I would make disciples here.

2. Please pray for Nelly and the remainder of the believers in Ayuma during this time when we are not with them. Pray that the stories we have taught them would come frequently to their minds and that they would meditate upon and obey the teachings in them. Pray that they would share those truths with others.

3. Pray that Leah would be encouraged during her time at home and that she would be able to encourage others as well.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

So, as you can probably tell from the title, I've been thinking a lot lately about Paul's words to the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 9:19-23:

"Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."

In context, he is talking about how, as an apostle, he has the right to receive financial support from the church at Corinth, a church he himself planted, though he has never demanded that they fulfill this right. Instead, he has freely given himself to the Corinthians, sacrificing any rights he may have had, so that the Gospel would may be advanced.

What has me thinking so much about this lately is wondering whether it's alright to lie about things in order to "become all things to all men." Here's my situation:

We go into the Quechua village where we're working and there for up to a month at a time. During that time, we dress in clothing similar to, though not EXACTLY like, theirs. We normally cook for ourselves but, from time to time, they bring us food which we, of course, are obliged to eat. We work alongside them in the fields or pasturing their animals and, at times, we are invited to watch Quechua music videos with them as entertainment (here is a typical church service, complete with an impromptu concert :)).

But here's the thing: I don't like Quechua music. No, it goes beyond that. I absolutely LOATHE it with every fiber of my being. It's screechy and uses too much off-key accordion, and I'd just as soon drive a stake through my right eye as spend an evening listening to it. And there are certain things that they eat that I'm not crazy about either, though most of the food is very good (pictured here is our friend Gabriel eating a normal meal).

So what should I do when they ask me whether I enjoy watching their music videos? To tell the whole truth would be offensive, which would hinder the advancement of our work here. But I wonder if my enthusiastic, "Of course, I absolutely LOVE your music!" is leading me down a slippery slope towards the justification of dishonesty in the name of a higher cause.

So I just wanted to ask what y'all thought. What does it really mean to "become all things to all men"? Surely Paul didn't necessarily enjoy everything he ate or every song he heard, so how did he handle it? How did he do all of that for the sake of the Gospel, so that he could share in its blessings?

Would love to hear your input!

South American Missionaries

2011-04-20T14:13:00.008-04:00

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 starting 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 couple 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.

Getting to the Other Side

2011-04-16T21:06:00.005-04:00

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.

Always an Adventure!

2011-03-29T18:23:00.008-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

The new church that has been established in our friend Simon's house continues to meet every other week, and they are doing so well with encouraging one another and persevering in the faith. Though we want to meet with them and have not yet been able to, we are excited that they continue to do this without any input from us!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray for our upcoming women's evangelism conference that will be held in Ayuma in July or August. Ask the Lord for wisdom for us in knowing how to put this together, and ask that He would send women who want to learn His Word and obey it.

2. Pray for Nelly, Marina, and Agripina, the three women in Ayuma who are learning the stories we are teaching. Pray that they would be doers of His Word and not hearers only and that they would be willing to begin teaching the stories to others in their community.

3. Please pray for Xtreme Team members, Trent and Kay (pictured with their daughter Maya in the top left in the photo here, with their son Jack being held by the young man at the bottom right) and Adam and Jessica (pictured with their daughter Sophia at the bottom left), who are currently investigating new people groups in Peru. These couples are traveling together with their families by bus and boat deep into the jungles to meet with leaders of these tribes. Ask the Lord to guide them to people of peace and that He would give them wisdom to know whether they should work among these groups in the future.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Leah and I are preparing to leave tomorrow to make a one-week trip to Ayuma to work among the women there. We are now teaching stories about the New Testament church, and we are excited to see what the Lord will do in this village as we begin to teach them about the acts of the Holy Spirit!

We had intended for this trip to be longer, at least three weeks, but it has been complicated by our visa process, something that always seems to be something of a hassle. We will have to return to Sucre on April 7 in order to complete the last piece of paperwork required to receive our two-year visas. Hopefully, after this, we will be granted the visa that will allow us to remain here for the rest of our time in Bolivia. There's something else for you to pray for!

As the changing of our trip's timing illustrates, life here rarely goes according to our plans. It just confirms the Lord's words in Prov. 16:9:

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps."

I think the LORD illustrates this to us almost every time we go to Ayuma, but never more clearly than on our last trip. As I've often said, life is always an adventure in Bolivia. :)

Our last trip was our longest one yet to this community, a full two weeks and, by the end of it, I was definitely ready to return to Sucre. I was looking forward to my shower and my comfortable bed after two weeks of lukewarm sponge-baths and a straw mat to sleep on. We were due to leave on a Friday morning, and I had been looking forward to it for a week!

We had chosen to make the trip to Ayuma via public transportation because, during rainy season, it can be particularly nerve-wracking to drive our truck. Despite the fact that it's four-wheel-drive and has great tires, sometimes the deep mud on the roads and the high river waters are too much for any vehicle except the largest buses. So we hopped on a bus for the first three hours, followed by two minivans for another couple of hours, and finally a 1.5-hour walk to Ayuma. We figured the trip back would be slightly easier because we would have less food to carry.

Our first week in Ayuma was beautiful. It was almost unusually sunny, with no rain at all for five days. But the second week was exactly the opposite. By Wednesday, the sky was completely overcast, and there was daily rain that made the ground a muddy mess and the rivers treacherous to cross (I'm pictured here after we returned in the rain and hail from the market in a nearby town).

I kept hoping things would improve by Friday. There is a river between Ayuma and the main road that we would have to navigate, and I was worried about that. So we kept an eye on the sky, and every day of grayness just seemed to make the ground that much muddier.

By Thursday, there were overcast skies, but it did not rain all day, so I was hopeful that the river would be down by the following morning. We were due to leave at 6:00 am, and I had been counting down the hours for the previous few days. When we went to bed that night, there were about nine left.

I heard the rain begin at about 4:00 am on Friday morning, and I prayed for it to stop. And, after about an hour, it did, something that gave me renewed hope.

Well, we got up to pack at about 5:00 am and, when I went outside around 5:30, the sky was gray in every direction. It looked as though, once the rain started, it would rain forever.

At exactly 6:00 am, the rain began again, and I was nothing but angry. I began to complain to the LORD, "Why are You doing this to me? I have done everything You asked of me on this trip, and now all I want to do is go home to my shower and my bed. Is that really so much to ask?" He reminded me of the crucifixion story I had taught to Nelly earlier that week. You know, the part where Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, says, "Not my will but Yours be done." I hate it when the LORD does that to me. :)

But I was hearing none of it. I didn't WANT His will, I wanted my own. Knowing it would be miserable travel for both Leah and me and for our dog in the rain, we chose to remain inside our house until things calmed down. But, as I sat inside and stewed made frequent trips outside to glare at the gray sky, I couldn't imagine that the rain would ever stop. I began to wonder what it would be like to live in Ayuma forever. Um, yeah, I get a little dramatic when I'm angry. :)

A few hours later, our friend Piscinta came in with food and asked when we were leaving. We told her that we were trying to wait for the rain to stop, and she looked at us like we were crazy. She then told us that it wasn't raining that hard and that we could go whenever.

After investigating for ourselves, we decided to take her advice, and we left our little house in Ayuma at about 10:20. The rain had slowed to a sprinkle and, as we walked up the muddy path toward the main road, it stopped completely, and the sun eventually came out. Just making progress toward home made me happy, and I found myself thanking the LORD rather than complaining. I even stopped to take pictures of some dirt formations in the hills on the path out of Ayuma (pictured here).

We knew the river near the main road would be too dangerous for us to cross, but we knew there was a bridge about a half mile up-river from where we normally crossed. We took a different path that took us toward that bridge, and we only had to cross a small stream to get there. We were loaded down with all of our stuff, but we were happy to be going home!

As we were getting ready to cross the stream, with the bridge in sight about a quarter of a mile in front of us, we met two men who were crossing in the opposite direction and headed toward Ayuma. They asked us where we were going, and we happily told them Sucre. They looked at us with strange expressions and then asked, "Don't you know that there's a strike today? There's no transportation on the road."

Seeing our crestfallen looks must have been comical, but they took pity on us and told us we could possibly find a private vehicle that would give us a ride. There was nothing to do but press forward, so we walked on toward the main road.

Just like that, my previous happiness was gone, and I began to wonder why the Lord was doing this to us. We made it to the road and tried to flag down four or five vehicles, only to watch them wave their hands at us in a "there's no room" gesture. We had made that gesture ourselves many times to hopeful Quechua people standing on the side of the road, and I had done it simply because I didn't want to share my truck with someone I didn't know or to try to communicate in a very difficult language inside my own vehicle. Now, with the shoe on the other foot, I realized what a selfish jerk I had been in the name of my own comfort.

As we sat on the side of that road in the now blazing sunlight for about an hour, I felt so abandoned. I began to wonder why God had let us come this far, only to leave us on the muddy side of this gravel highway.

We finally decided to walk a half-mile back up the road to a little town, hoping to find a vehicle there. Once we got there, we found a man we had met previously and asked him to drive us to Potosi, a larger city about three hours away from where we were and about 2.5 hours away from Sucre. I was prepared to offer him every penny I had because, even if we had to spend the night in Potosi, we knew we could get hot water and a nice bed in one of the hotels there.

The normal procedure on this type of journey is to drive to a little town called Ventanilla, which is about halfway between where we were and Potosi. In Ventanilla, there is a constant supply of minivans that make the journey between Potosi and Ventanilla all day long for abou $1.50 per person. But our concern was that, with the strike, there would be no transportation from Ventanilla, and we would be stuck there.

So, when this man offered to drive us to Ventanill for about $20, I was getting ready to make a sizable counter-offer to get us to Potosi.

That's when a dump truck loaded with people drove up. We ran to ask the driver if he could take us toward Ventanilla. He agreed, and we climbed in the back of this dump truck and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible among the rocks, pickaxes, and gas tanks that lined the truck bed.

There was a Quechua couple in the truck bed with us, and we discovered that they were believers. I conversed with the wife in my broken Quechua for a bit and then contented myself with standing up to watch the surroundings pass us by as we drove. We made it to Ventanilla in about an hour.

As expected, when we arrived, there were none of the normal minivans lining the streets. It was almost shocking to see how deserted it looked, but we prepared ourselves to wait and try to flag down a passing vehicle. That's when the owners of the truck got out and asked us if we were going to Potosi. We said yes, and they said they were also going there and would be happy to drive us. Praise the Lord!

Just one problem: The sky was once again threatening rain.

We had not been going more than half an hour when the driver stopped and pulled out a large plastic tarp. We spread it over the four of us (well, five, counting Riley) and tried to make ourselves comfortable for the two-hour journey. It was not easy, though, as we were freezing, trying to avoid sitting in water, and sitting in an very uncomfortable position hunched under that tarp.

But the drivers made it to Potosi in record time, and they dropped us off just outside the bus station at 5:00. I've never been so excited to see that bus terminal in my life!

Leah, Riley, and I headed inside and quickly found the bus line that we had taken from Sucre, the one that would allow us to bring our dog with us... with the purchase of her own seat, of course. :) The sign told us the bus left at 6:00, so we shelled out the $6 that would allow the three of us to travel and headed downstairs to the restrooms and snack stores while we waited for the bus.

At about 5:30, we decided to check our tickets. When we did, we panicked. They said the bus was to leave at 5:15!

Leah ran upstairs to question the clerk at the bus station, who confirmed that our bus did leave at 5:15 (not 6:00, as advertised). We then had to buy a new set of tickets for a bus that left at 7:00. At that point, we decided to wait right by the bus terminal door so there was no way for us to miss this bus home.

We did make it onto the 7:00 bus, which made the 3-hour drive to Sucre in four hours. After getting our bags and our dog off the bus in our home city, we got a taxi and finally walked in the door to our house around 11:20. We made a trip that normally takes six hours in about thirteen, but we were so happy to be home!

So what did I learn from our latest adventure? Well, I'm still a spoiled brat who feels entitled to always get what she wants and expects the Lord to give it to her. I'm still an untrusting wretch who gets dramatic when she doesn't get her way. And He didn't during this trip, nor will He ever abandon me. For His Word tells me this:

"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." (Deut. 31:8)

Maybe one of these days I'll learn that lesson. Until then, I'm so glad He is patient with me.

The Resurrection and the Life

2011-03-24T16:03:00.007-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah and I just returned from a two-week trip to Lima, Peru, where we attended our annual team meeting. We now have five teams of missionaries working in Bolivia and Peru, and over half of these missionaries are from South America! (Check out the picture of our team below.) This excites all of us because it means the local people are grasping the vision for doing this work, and they are far more effective at it than we North Americans.

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please be in prayer once again for our visa process. Leah and I have begun the process to receive our two-year visas to live here in Bolivia, and we are hopeful that it won't be quite as dramatic - or traumatic! :) - as last year's version. Ask that the LORD would once again grant us favor with the Bolivian immigration officials so that we can continue with our work here.

2. Continue to lift up the community of Ayuma and its church there. The believers love us so much and are so wonderfully hospitable to us, but there doesn't seem to be much love shown toward one another. Please pray that, as we begin to teach stories of the New Testament church, this little church would grasp the concepts Scripture gives them and would love one another as they love us. Pray that this love shown toward one another would be attractive to the non-believers in the area and that the disciples would begin to multiply there.

3. Please pray for our upcoming women's evangelism conference that will be held in July or August in Ayuma. Pray that God would send women who will be workers in His harvest field and that they would learn and share the stories we will teach.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Since Leah and I no longer have short-term missionaries on our team, our role has transitioned from that of team leader to more of a frontline role in the work. Our goal in the community of Ayuma is to teach a set of discipleship stories (eight from the life of Christ and eight from the New Testament church in Acts), followed by a short set of stories for evangelistic purposes. The women with whom we work are already believers, so the goal is to give them these stories so that they can effectively share the Gospel with non-believers.

All of that means we have recently been spending more time out in this village of about 75 people. It's definitely a difficult life, but we are encouraged by Nelly, who has now learned all eight Jesus stories, and by Marina and Agripina, who have recently begun learning the stories as well.

On one of our recent trips, something happened that really drove home for me the reason that we are doing this work. Leah and I were spending a Saturday with Nelly, who had asked us to go to her field with her to bring back some onions. We agreed, not really realizing exactly what that entailed. For those of you who are agriculturally challenged like me and have no idea where onions come from, they're a root that you dig out of the ground. (I'm pictured to the left digging up one of them.)

We set out in the late morning and soon discovered that Nelly's field is on the other side of the river. No big deal, right? Yeah, that's what we thought, too.

But we were in Ayuma during the latter part of rainy season, and the river was raging. It wasn't all that deep - maybe just up to my knees - but the river was raging.

Now, there is a bridge over the river, but it's not quite finished. That means you climb up to it by means of two rickety wooden ladders tied together - up to a height of about 20 feet. Once you're up there, you just walk across the bridge to the other side, where a few wooden planks pushed together make a makeshift ramp down to the dirt path. (You can see a picture of it below, but it's not very good quality.)
Oh, and have I mentioned that I'm terrified of heights?

So, yeah, there I was, clinging to that wooden ladder and refusing to look down for fear of losing my nerve. I finally made it to the top of the bridge and over to the other side, where I just wanted to kiss the ground under my feet and forget about the fact that we would have to get back across that river again later.

But there was one problem: Riley.

We couldn't take our dog up the rickety ladder with us, but she loves the water, so we assumed she would just cross the river on her own and meet us on the other side. We didn't count on her being afraid of the fast-moving water just as we were.

So I wound up going halfway back across the river to pick her up and carry her to the other side. Thankfully, we both made it across with no problems.

On the way back, things were a bit more harrowing. I was carrying about 25 pounds of onions in a bundle tied across my shoulders (see the photo to the right) and 20 more pounds of Riley under my right arm as I tried to navigate the fast-moving, shin-high river waters. Once again, we made it with no problems (aside from sheer terror on my part! :)), but I was more than happy to be back.

Once we made our way to the town plaza, we learned some distressing news. Emiliana, one of the older ladies in town and a local believer, had just a few hours earlier been swept away and killed by the very same river Riley and I had just crossed!

Death in Bolivia is, of course, just as sad a thing as it is in the US, and funeral customs are relatively similar. But one major difference is that, because of the lack of embalming, there is a legal requirement to bury within 24 hours.

So, on Sunday afternoon, Leah and I, along with nearly everyone else in the community, went to Emiliana's house to pay our respects. We ate all that was offered to us, while Emiliana's body lay on a table in the room up above us. Once everyone had finished eating, they loaded her into a black wooden coffin (pictured below), and we all began the short walk outside the village to the cemetery.
As we followed the procession through the plaza, Emiliana's granddaughter began to cry and, as I reached out my hand to rub her back in a meager attempt to provide some comfort, I was surprised to find tears streaming down my face, too.

If you know me at all, you know I'm not a crier. As a matter of fact, I HATE to cry. And we had barely known Emiliana. We had never spent any significant period of time with her, and the only time I had ever even spoken to her was when she asked us to pray for her. So I wondered why I was so emotional over this woman I had hardly known.

That was when I thought about the shortest verse in the Bible. You know, "Jesus wept"?

We laugh about knowing that verse, but do you know the context in which it was written? If not, let me share it with you because it was a very similar situation to the one I was in. Lazarus had died and, despite his sisters' request for Jesus to come quickly, He had arrived four days later. When He did come, Mary went out to meet Him, and the story goes like this:

"When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.'

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 'Where have you laid him?' he asked.

'Come and see, Lord,' they replied.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, 'See how he loved him!'" (Jn. 11:32-36)

Jesus cried because His friend was dead, and He cried because of the grief He saw and felt in those who loved Lazarus. And I'm sure He cried because of the cause of it all, the sin that would eventually send Him to His own death.

I think my tears were for similar reasons. Though I didn't know Emiliana, I could see and feel the grief of her granddaughter, who would never again see on this earth someone she loved so much. And I cried because of the sin - MY sin - that caused it all.

But I rejoice to know that there is a cure for this sadness, that Jesus' sacrifice makes Emiliana's - and my - eternal life possible. This is why we must keep going to Ayuma, why we must keep impressing upon these believers the importance of allowing the Spirit to work in and through us so that the life of Christ may be seen in us, why we must keep sharing the truth with those who don't know Him.

Jesus said, "He who stands firm to the end will be saved" (Matt. 24:13).

May these words be said of me!

You of Little Faith!

2011-01-27T13:28:00.010-05:00

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

2011-01-09T14:55:00.008-05:00

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. :)

Lessons on Dogwalking

2010-12-22T20:39:00.006-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Misty (in the center of the picture) and Amy, our two journeygirls, have both recently returned home to the United States to begin the next phase of their journey with the Lord. Though Leah and I both miss them desperately, we are so thankful for the time we had with them and for the great blessing it was to know them. They taught us so much, and it will be awesome to see how our Father uses them both in fresh and new ways in their homeland.

Prayer Necessities:

1. Be in prayer for Nelly, the woman in the village of Ayuma who has now learned eight stories from the life of Christ. Please pray that the Scripture she has memorized would change her life and that she would have a burning desire to share it with others. Pray that, through her, God's Word would spread like wildfire through this region.

2. Please pray for Leah and me as we have recently been disappointed by a lack of interest in our missionary training that was to be held from late November to mid-January. As we no longer have team members to lead, we will be spending more time in the villages doing this work directly. Pray for us during this time of transition that we would be encouraged and unafraid in the face of so much change in our ministry and such disappointment after so much hard work. Pray that we would "not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Gal. 6:9).

3. Pray for Misty and Amy as they transition back to life in their home culture, a task that is often more difficult than adjusting to a new culture. Pray that they would refuse to return to the people they were before but that they would ever draw closer to their Lord and become more like Christ.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

As some of you perhaps already know, Leah and I recently got a puppy. And, despite the fact that some might consider me biased, I know it's true that our dog is the cutest dog EVER. If you don't believe me, just judge for yourself:
However, despite the exponentially high cuteness factor, Riley has her problems. She's energetic and rambunctious (like most puppies) and, at times, that wears on the patience of a 40-year-old human. So, in an effort to curb some of that endless energy, I began taking her along on my daily walks... only to discover that was even more frustrating! The problem was that she wouldn't listen to me or obey anything I said.

Those of you who have had puppies and trained them understand what I'm talking about. I'm sure it's a little like having children. The cuteness only goes so far before you're ready to stuff them in a closet and forget about them forever. :)

So, after a little advice from my boss, I decided that I needed to train Riley, as much for her benefit as for my sanity. The fact of the matter is that dogs, also like children, need boundaries in order to feel safe. I'm a dog person, and I do love Riley, weird though that may sound to those of you who aren't pet people. I want what's best for her, even if that means I have to be the disciplinarian.

So there we were, on a bright, sunny morning, Riley looking quite dapper with her bright red leash and me looking relatively chipper for 6:30 am. And, by "relatively chipper," I mean my eyes were open. Well, mostly. :) We set out, and we had walked all of five steps before I realized this was going to be the longest walk of my life.

When you first start training a dog to walk with you, you are supposed to hold the leash tight and close to you. The minute the dog starts to lead you, you are supposed to snap it to pull them back toward you while making a sound to let them know that is not proper behavior. If they lag behind, you are supposed to continue ahead, even if that means dragging them for a step or two. They should eventually learn that they are to stay with you.

Well, Riley was pulling so hard against the leash that I had to switch hands after about two minutes. Five minutes into the walk, the leash was beginning to wear blisters into my hands. At the seven minute mark, two dogs passed by on the opposite side of the street, looking strangely at us both as I dragged her through dirt and rocks up the hill. I lost my voice telling her to "come" while she alternated between giving me blank stares and looking intently at the other dogs. Ten minutes into the walk, I opened the door to my yard, took the leash off of her, and deposited her in the front yard while I went to finish the rest.... alone.

OK, so all of that was an exaggeration, but those of you who have ever trained a dog can certainly feel my pain. No matter how smart the animal is, obedience training will make you believe they have the IQ of an amoeba. And almost all of that has happened to us (not my losing my voice, though I'm not ruling that out for the future), but not all on the same day.

But, through Riley, I've learned a lot about myself and the relationship my Master has with me. You see, I'm rambunctious and disobedient, too, and He has to rein me in a lot as we're walking. After I got Riley, I began to wonder about the size of the blisters I've worn into those nail-scarred hands and the fact that He's probably developed calluses at this point.

There have been a few things that have really hit home with me. Riley is at her worst when distractions come along. If she sees another dog or a person, she just wants to play with them. When that happens, it doesn't matter how many times I command her, she will not obey me. It's as if she can't hear me. She's no longer listening to her master's voice because her attention is focused elsewhere. The only way I can regain her attention is to get down in her face, block her view of the distraction, and grab her chin so that she is focused only on me.

And how many times has my Lord had to do that to me?

Just the other day, Riley and I were walking together with no problems. She was doing so well that I had even taken off her leash because she had learned to stay right beside me without it. Everything was great until a bigger dog surprised her from behind. I continued walking without paying any attention to this dog, hoping she would trust me and my lack of fear and would follow her training and stay with me. She was terrified, though, so everything she had learned went right out the window. She immediately turned and ran and, no matter how much I called her, she just kept going. I went after her and, when I got home, there she sat in front of the door, tail tucked between her legs.

It made me think about how many times I've allowed fear to send me in the opposite direction from where the Lord was telling me to go and how many times it made me disregard His call. Then, when it was all said and done, there was nothing to really be afraid of at all because my Master had been in control the whole time. If only I had remained beside Him and trusted that He would not lead me where He could not protect me, I wouldn't have to return to Him with my tail between my legs.

I can summarize what it's like to walk with Him like this: There are times when I get ahead of Him, and I hear His voice and feel the tug that admonishes me to stop and wait. There are times when I lag behind, and I hear Him calling me to come forward and join Him. And, if I don't, He just drags me along until I catch up. But, if I'm right there beside Him, I often don't hear His voice or feel His presence at all. Maybe I should learn to be OK with that... because it means I'm in step with Him.

Oh, the things you can learn from walking a dog. Maybe you non-pet-people should take note.

The Government is Upon His Shoulder (Part V)

2010-10-15T17:38:00.008-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

The training preview weekend that Leah and I had a while back was a great success! We had four young women participate, and it was amazing to watch what the Lord taught them in such a short time. Ester, Fabiola, Ximena, and Soledad (left to right, pictured below) all learned the creation story in Spanish, and all four expressed interest in participating in the full training that will begin at the end of this month!

Additionally, we recently made our last trip to Ayuma until the beginning of next year, and it was wonderful! Nelly (pictured here with her son Oscar) learned four new stories in just two days and was hungry enough to continually ask us to teach her more stories. She has now, in total, learned eight stories of the life of Christ, and we are hopeful that she will begin sharing them with those in her community.

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray that God will call out exactly the women that he wants to participate in our upcoming missionary training. This involves seven weeks of living in primitive conditions, going on short trips to Quechua communities, memorizing great portions of Scripture, and learning a lot of material. The timing requires the participants to miss spending Christmas and New Year's with their families, so there is a lot of sacrifice involved. Pray that the Lord will remind the women He has called that "anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:37-38).

2. Be in prayer for Nelly. She has had some health problems recently, so pray that the Lord would be glorified in that situation, whether that is for her healing or otherwise. Please pray that God's Word would burn in her heart like a fire that cannot be quenched and that she would only have relief if she shares those words with others.

3. Please pray for Misty (pictured here with me as we were waiting at the airport for her flight), who has recently returned to the United States after the faithful completion of her two-year term of missionary service here in Bolivia. Transition back to the American culture can often be more difficult than coming to the country of service originally, so please pray that she would remain close to the Lord during this time and that she would be faithful to obey.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Please go back and skim through parts I-IV of our visa process if you can't remember what's happened up to this point.

After leaving Cochabamba, we arrived back in Sucre late on a Thursday night with hopes of leaving on the following Sunday evening on a bus bound for Lima, Peru, to attend our team meeting. Since we had not been able to obtain our visas in Cochabamba and were having to essentially begin again in Sucre, we didn't entertain much hope of getting the visa itself and were really just hoping to come out with a letter that would allow us to leave the country without penalty. There was a part of me that was hoping the Lord would come through and give us our visas... but it was a very small part that was continually being crushed into submission and told that it was an idiot by my larger, more rational side.

Our visa runner from Cochabamba had very kindly offered to come to Sucre to help us begin the process there. So, first thing Friday morning, we met her at the immigration office. She had already been there for an hour or so and told us that she had explained our situation to the immigration official, so we quietly followed her into his office to listen to the requirements we would need to complete in order to receive our letters.

What we heard next had my head swimming and my heart pounding in disbelief. The official told us that, if we could get him all of the paperwork necessary by the time his office closed at 6:30 that afternoon, we would have the visas within 72 hours.

I blinked at looked around at the others in the room with me just to see if I had misheard or misunderstood the Spanish. But the stunned looks on the faces of my colleagues told me I had understood correctly and that the man had just said we should have our visas by Tuesday!

We solemnly agreed to the plan and left the office quickly. Once out on the street, we nearly jumped for joy but were quickly brought down to earth by our visa runner, who explained that we were about to understand why she was called a "runner," because that's exactly what we would be doing for the next eight hours or so.

And run we did. Our first stop was the hospital to obtain a medical certification that claimed we were healthy. The doctor at the hospital assured us that all we needed for that was a negative HIV test, so our next stop was a clinic to get this done. Once there, our visa runner had to convince the doctor that we did not need the version of the test that required three days for results. We already had negative results from that test in Cochabamba but, absurdly, each city's doctors usually require their own laboratories to perform the testing. However, after much begging and explaining of our situation, the doctor reluctantly agreed to perform the less accurate one-day version.

The next step was to go to the police station to get a background check done and to ask them to come to our house to verify that we lived there. By the time we went to a local bank to deposit money into the account to pay for those things, it was almost lunchtime. So what, you say? Oh, if you only knew...

If you've ever lived in a Latin American country (or Spain), you know that things shut down from about noon to 2:30. Bolivia is no exception to that, but we knew we couldn't sit on our hands for 2-1/2 hours while they ate lunch and napped. But, thankfully, the police were receptive to being paid overtime for coming to our house during their lunch hour.

So I drove them to our house while Leah and the girls went to get our witnesses. That's right, witnesses. We had to have two Bolivian citizens who knew us and would vouch for us that we lived where we said we did. The receipts for our bills were not enough; we had to have our friends say that they knew we lived there. We are blessed to have wonderful brothers in Christ who were willing to come to our house during their own lunch hours in order to help us out.

During that time with the police at our house, anything that could go wrong did. Earlier that morning, we had locked ourselves out of the house and had to break a window to get back in. What do you think THAT looked like to the cops? :) And the police officers asked for multiple copies of every document we had, causing our printer/copier to run out of ink, forcing us to go down the street to our friend Trent's house to make copies. Then, Trent's copier ran out of ink, forcing him to have to speed into town to buy more. But, finally, after two hours, it was all done, and the police agreed that we lived where we said we did!

We drove the cops back to the police station and set off to find a lawyer to draft an official letter requesting permanent residency in Bolivia. After obtaining that letter, we separated into three groups. The visa runner ran off to find a notary to notarize various documents, Leah went to the clinic to get our HIV test results, and I went back to the police station to pick up the official documents for the background check and verification of legal domicile.

After all of that, we all met up at the notary's office to sign a variety of documents, then flew back across town to the immigration office. The last customers of the day, we were led into the official's office... at 6:24!

He glanced over the documents while we held our breath and, after several minutes, he looked up and told us we were lacking the medical certification we needed. We were crestfallen. The doctor in the morning had told us the HIV test results were all we needed but, evidently, there was an official document that certified more than that. The official then proceeded to tell us that, if we would bring him the medical certification first thing on Monday morning, we would still have our visas by Tuesday afternoon. Wow!

We walked out of the office that day rejoicing! We still had two more things to do - the medical certification and the payment of some fines - but we would have the visa on Tuesday!

On Saturday, we stood in line at the bank for two hours to pay the fines. On Monday, we got the medical certification and then took it to the immigration official, who told us to return at 5:00 the following day to pick up our passports and visas.

That Tuesday afternoon, just as he promised, the official handed us our passports, complete with shiny new Bolivian residency visas inside! A few hours later, we boarded a bus bound for Peru and, a couple of weeks later, I boarded a plane that would take me on my first visit to the United States in eighteen months. It was fantastic!

We had spent eight months waiting for a visa in Cochabamba, and my faith had been sorely tested and been found lacking. But my God is faithful. After months of waiting, He granted our visas in just three days!

"In the LORD's hand the king's heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him" (Prov. 21:1).

The Government is Upon His Shoulder (Part IV)

2010-09-08T21:02:00.006-04:00

Check out the bottom of the blog for some fun pictures!

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Misty and Amy have had an encouraging time in the community of Taramarca, where they are particularly focusing on teaching their stories to three young women. One of the women has already learned the most recent story and is planning to teach it to her family this week! (Here is a shot of Amy with a young family from Taramarca.)
Additionally, Misty and Amy made a short trip to Ayuma and began teaching the stories to Isadora, who kept asking for more. She then happily proclaimed, "I can't read or write, but I now have the Word of God in my heart!" Wow, that is what we have been hoping for all along, so please thank the Lord for His answers!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please continue to keep the women in Taramarca and Ayuma in your prayers. Pray that they will continue to learn the stories and that they would grasp the importance of sharing them with others and would obey in doing so.

2. Misty's overseas term is complete in October, and she will be leaving to return to the US in about a month. Pray that we would be comforted as we lose such a vital member of our team, and pray that she would continue to use the things the Lord has taught her here when she returns home.

3. Leah and I are conducting a weekend preview of our missionary training for the women who have expressed interest. On September 18 and 19, we will spend the weekend on the land that we will use for training. We plan to teach them the story of creation in Spanish, along with allowing them to get a good feel for what their living conditions will be like. Please be in prayer that the Lord will use this time to draw us closer to one another and that He will make it clear who is to participate in the upcoming training.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

The drive from Cochabamba to Sucre is a long one, roughly eight hours. The four of us were pretty quiet as we drove out, and I was consumed with my own thoughts. The major concern I had was about mishearing the Lord's voice. I have often wondered whether I'm confusing His voice with my own thoughts, something I'm sure most of you can relate to. But I was just distraught with this situation. I kept wondering how I could ever obey the Lord if I couldn't hear Him correctly.

We always listen to music when we drive long distances, and I had put in a CD of Christian music that I had burned. One of my favorite songs, Avalon's "You Were There," came on, and I began to pay more attention, especially when it came to this part:

"You were there when obedience, Seemed to not make sense."

Those particular lyrics are referring to Abraham and how God was right there with him even as he raised the knife to kill Isaac, the child of promise. And I began to think about how Abraham surely must have wondered if he had discerned the Lord's voice correctly. Really, how could he not have wondered? God had just said this:

"Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." (Gen. 22:2)

But Abraham obeyed anyway, and Scripture says he did so for this reason:

"By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death." (Heb. 11:17-19)

He obeyed because he knew that God could raise his son from the dead, and he believed God would do that. It hit home with me at that point what faith really is... and what it looks like. What it is is believing that God is able to fulfill what He has promised to do, even when it looks impossible, and what it looks like is obedience even in the face of insurmountable odds.

I meditated on that passage of Scripture and on the life of Abraham as a whole for the rest of the long journey to Sucre, and I wish I could say that, from that point on, I had great faith in my all-powerful God. But the truth is that I felt almost betrayed by what had happened in Cochabamba. I still didn't understand what I had done wrong there, and I was scared to get my hopes up again. But the LORD was beginning to show me great things about my faith - or lack of it - and about how to pray according to His direction.

What I learned was that putting a timetable on God is putting a limit on my faith. When we prayed that He would grant us the visas before we left Cochabamba, we were essentially saying, "We will only believe You until we leave Cochabamba but not a minute more." But who are we to tell Him such a thing? Once again, Hebrews shows what real faith looks like:

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance." (Heb. 11:13)

These great warriors of faith died without ever receiving what God had promised, yet they still believed Him. But I had the audacity to try to control how He would accomplish what He had told us to pray for. That, my friends, is pride, and God has promised never to bless that:

"God opposes the proud but grace to the humble." (Jas. 4:6)

Thankfully, though, my Father is ever forgiving. I began to ask for His forgiveness and to seek how to trust Him more, and He answered that prayer in an amazing way.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in part V. Coming soon! :)

And let me explain the pictures below. In our cultural learning, we have noticed some things about the way the Quechua take pictures. They never smile (they're supposed to look more sexy when they don't smile), and they love to hold up random objects in their pictures. As you can see from the photo to the left, they especially like holding up the Bible or musical instruments. So, one afternoon, Amy, Misty, and I decided to have a little fun taking pictures Quechua-style. Let me know what you think of our impersonation of our people group? Have we got them down or not? :)

The Government is Upon His Shoulder (Part III)

2010-08-29T19:02:00.006-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

After I asked for your prayers for God's financial provision for our upcoming missionary training, He miraculously provided the total cost... through one donor! So please praise Him for His answer to your prayers.

Also, on our last trip to the community of Ayuma, Nelly learned two more stories of the life of Jesus. But what was even more incredible was that we got to watch her share the story of the birth of Christ with one of her friends. (Click below to view the video. It's in Quechua, but you can still get the idea.) Wow! That is a HUGE step towards our goal of Quechua reaching other Quechua with the Gospel, and we are so excited about this!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Jeremiah once said, "If I say, 'I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,' his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jer. 20:9). Please pray that God would instill in the people of Ayuma a passion for His Word that will burn in their hearts as it did in Jeremiah's such that they would not be able to hold it in but would HAVE to speak it to others. Pray that His Word would spread like wildfire from this community to the rest of the province.

2. Please lift up Misty and Amy, as they have 3-1/2 more weeks to go in their last trip to Taramarca. Pray that they would remain faithful to share the stories with the people there, and pray that the people would really grasp what the girls are trying to teach.

3. Pray that God would send us exactly the right women to participate in our missionary training that begins November 27. As of now, we have 13 who are interested, but a smaller group of 4-8 is preferable. Pray that He would show them and us the ones who are to be trained at this time. (We are pictured here with two different groups of girls who are interested in being trained.)

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

OK, so where did I leave off last time? Oh, yeah. After reading Mk. 11:23-24, we had just prayed that God would grant us a miracle and give us our Bolivia resident visas in a mere three days. Never mind that we had waited eight months, and it seemed impossible. We had no idea how He would accomplish what we had requested, but our God is a big and powerful God, and we knew that He could do it!

But then, the unthinkable happened.

Immediately after we prayed together, Leah and I went to the immigration office in Cochabamba. When we walked back to talk with the immigration official, we explained everything: That we had begun the visa process in Cochabamba but now lived in Sucre, that we had been telling the truth about where we lived when we began the process but that our location had now changed, that we had been waiting eight months to receive the resident visa. And then we listened as he very politely explained that there was nothing he could do and that, according to new immigration regulations, we would have to begin the process over again in Sucre.

We were crushed, but we weren't quite ready to give up yet. I asked the official if we could just get a letter from the Cochabamba Immigration Office stating that we were in the process of receiving our visas. Such a letter would allow us to leave the country for our meeting (and my vacation in the US) and return to Bolivia without penalty.

We were very much looking forward to the team meeting but, if we left the country without that letter, we would have to spend time outside the country trying to obtain special temporary visas to allow us to re-enter Bolivia in order to get the permanent resident visa. And there was not even a guarantee that we could get those temporary visas, as they're next to impossible to get in Peru. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that spending any more time away from the Quechua meant losing invaluable time teaching them stories from the Word of God. So I can't begin describe to you the feeling of my heart sinking when that official gave us a very firm no.
We returned to our apartment sad and discouraged, and the girls felt the same way upon hearing the news. But we still weren't ready to give up. After all, God was more powerful than this Bolivian government!

For the next three days, we talked to everyone who could possibly help us. We talked to the immigration officials. We talked to lawyers. We talked to our visa runner. We talked to other missionaries. And we talked to God.

But, in the end, we wondered if He was listening.

During those three days, I struggled with faith like I rarely had before. Our friends suggested that we focus on trying to obtain the letters that would allow us to leave the country, rather than pursuing the visas themselves, but that felt like doubting God's power. And, while I didn't doubt whether God could grant us those visas, I did doubt whether He would. And I wondered whether that made me the double-minded man that the Scripture talks about:

"...when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does." (Jas. 1:6-8)

So I prayed and cried out to God for wisdom and for understanding. I read the roll call of faith and was troubled by this passage:

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance." (Heb. 11:13)

Did that mean we were not going to receive the visas before we left Cochabamba? I knew that, if that were to come to pass, it would not have been because God had been untrue to His Word but rather because our prayers had somehow been amiss.

But I struggled tremendously with the implications of our prayers being amiss this time. The four of us had been in agreement that this was a word from the Lord and that we were to pray according to that word. And there had been no doubt in my mind that God had taken me directly to Mark 11. If we couldn't hear Him correctly when we were all in agreement, and if I couldn't hear Him when He had spoken to me so clearly through His Word, how could I ever trust that I correctly discern His voice?

On Thursday afternoon, we met with our visa runner, resigned to having to begin the visa process over again in Sucre, and she agreed to accompany us to the immigration office there the next day in the hopes of getting the letter from there before we left the country the following Sunday.

But, as we drove out of Cochabamba without our visas, I felt nothing but despair and doubt, and the one thought that kept going through my mind was this: How could I have misheard my Lord so badly?

The Government is upon His Shoulder (Part II)

2010-08-14T10:43:00.010-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah, Misty, Amy, and I recently spent some time in the community of Ayuma, where our friend Nelly learned two of our stories and is so excited to learn more. (The picture to the left is me telling the story of the birth of Christ to the village women.) In addition, Leah and I went to Sijcha Alta, another nearby village, and shared the birth of Christ with Evarista, who quickly learned it and wants us to return to teach it to her daughters as well. The LORD is at work in these women!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Please be praying that God would provide for our upcoming missionary training at the end of this year. We have around 15 Bolivian women who have expressed interest in receiving this training that will prepare them to serve as missionaries in their own country and beyond, and we are so excited about that! But we need the funds to train them, and we need for God to specifically call those that He wants to participate. Be in prayer for those things and that these women would persevere in His call despite any difficulties that may arise.

2. Please be in prayer for the women in the communities of Taramarca and Ayuma, where the four of us have been working recently. (I'm pictured here shepherding sheep in Ayuma while Misty talks to Piscinta, one of the local women.) We will be heading to these communities next week to share more stories with the women and to teach them that they are to share them with others. Pray that God will continue to work in the hearts of the women and will embolden them to teach the truth of His Word to those around them who haven't heard.

3. Lift up Evarista and her daughters, who live in Sijcha Alta. (Evarista is pictured below with two of her daughters, Maria and Ana.) Pray that they would learn well the stories of Christ that we are sharing and that they would understand that they are not just to keep them for themselves but are to share them with others.
Bonus for the Readers:

To continue the story of our visa process, in late April, we made the eight-hour drive to the city of Cochabamba to speak with Bolivian immigration officials there about our resident visas. We had been waiting eight months to receive them and were getting ready to leave the country to attend a team-wide meeting in Peru. However, we were apprehensive about doing so because we had just been told we would not be granted the visas in Cochabamba and would have to begin the process over again in Sucre.

When we arrived in Cochabamba, we immediately went to the office of our visa runner. We sat down and listened carefully as she began to explain what had happened. Evidently, in the past, the immigration officials had never verified the applicant's address with a physical visit but, very recently, they had begun sending the local police to confirm that the visa applicant lived where they said they did. And, of course, when they arrived at the address in Cochabamba that we had given (the apartment where we lived during language school), we no longer lived there, and they now thought we had lied about the address.

This was news we expected, and we had come to Cochabamba for this very reason, to try to explain to the immigration officials that we had lived at that address when we first began the visa process but, because it had been eight months, we had since moved to Sucre. However, the next thing our visa runner said was not something I expected. She pulled out a map of Cochabamba and asked me to mark on the map where in the city we lived. She handed me a pen and nodded at me, assuring me that, if I would just mark the spot and make a quick calla to our former landlords, they would be glad to tell the government officials that we still lived there, and we would have our visas within the week.

Here I was, looking at the expectant gaze of this woman who had helped hundreds of people through this very complicated process, feeling the heavy stares of the others on my team as they awaited my decision. We had been waiting eight months for this, and here was this great promise that we'd have it in a week if only we bent the rules this little bit. After all, why shouldn't we? Didn't the Bolivian government, who had been nothing but a barrier to us every step of the way, deserve this? And, really, what difference did it make?

But, even with all of that, the offer wasn't even tempting. I couldn't think of anything besides this verse:

"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold" (Prov. 22:1).

And I kept thinking of the One Whose name I was really representing:

"We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (2 Cor. 5:20).

There was no way I could lie and say we lived in Cochabamba, knowing we were Christ's representatives. So I told our visa runner that I couldn't do it and that we needed to go talk to the government officials instead. She looked at me like I was out of my mind but told us where we needed to go.

After that meeting, the four of us went back to the place where we were saying to rest before going to the immigration office. I pulled out my Bible and began to read from Mark 11. As Jesus was going into Jerusalem with His disciples, He was hungry and went to search for fruit on a fig tree that was in leaf. When He found none, He cursed the tree and, the next morning, Peter pointed out to Jesus how the tree had already withered. And Jesus' response to him just jumped off the page at me:

"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mk. 11:23-24).

I read those verses over and over, wondering if the the Lord was telling me what I thought He was telling me. Finally, I read the passage to Leah and Amy, who were both in the room with me. I then asked them, "This government bureaucracy over our visas is really a hindrance to the Lord's work here. Do you think it's a mountain that the Lord is telling us to cast into the sea? Do you think we should ask that He would give us the visas while we're here in Cochabamba?"

Amy immediately responded that she and Misty had just been learning about great faith and told me that the Lord had them both reading about Abraham and his faith. And, when they had finished reading about Abraham, the Lord had told them to go and read about him again. They had both been thinking so much about faith that they had been wondering what God was going to do. Amy was pretty convinced that we should pray that we would receive the visas.

Leah then shared how she had been praying for months that we would receive our visas prior to our team meeting in Peru and how she had been asking her prayer supporters to be praying the same. She, too, was convinced that we should ask God to give us our visas.

When Misty came in later, we asked her what she thought, and she said that she really wanted to see God do something big, something that only He could do. Getting those visas would certainly fit the bill, so we were all in agreement that the Lord was telling us to do this.

So, on that Monday afternoon, Misty, Amy, Leah, and I prayed together as a team, asking that God would grant us our resident visas by Thursday when we left Cochabamba. It was a step of faith for us, but we knew that our God was big enough, and we couldn't wait to see what He would do!

Stay tuned for part III, coming soon to a blog near you... :)

The Government is upon His Shoulder

2010-07-12T17:57:00.008-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

All four members of our team received our one-year resident visas here in Bolivia... just in time for me to go home for a three-week vacation. Thank you so much for praying, and praise Him for answering!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Misty, Amy, and I are leaving in the morning for a trip to the village of Ayuma. While there, we will be sharing stories especially with a young believer named Nelly (pictured here), who has specifically asked for discipleship. Please pray that we would be effective in teaching her the stories and that the Lord would ignite in her a passion to share God's Word with others.
2. Misty and Amy will be returning in August to the community of Taramarca, where they will be working for the remainder of their time overseas. Please pray that the people of this village would grasp the vision of Quechua reaching Quechua and that God would use them to begin a mighty work among this people group.

3. Please be in prayer for our Bolivian men's Xtreme Team, as they begin to work with a new people group in a different part of Bolivia. Also, Efrain (pictured here), one of the young men who has been part of the team for the last few years, is leaving us tomorrow after four years of faithful service here, and it has been a sad time for all of us. Please be in prayer for him that he will be refreshed as he gets to spend some time in his home country of Colombia, and pray that he will remain obedient to do the next thing to which the Lord calls him.

Bonus for the Readers:

As many of you know, I just returned to Bolivia from visiting the U.S. for vacation in late May and early June (I'm pictured here with a group of great friends from Virginia). It was a wonderful time of refreshment and rejuvenation for me and, afterwards, I could wholeheartedly relate to and agree with these words of the apostle Paul in Phil. 1:3-5:

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now" (Phil. 1:3-5).

While at home in Virginia, I had the privilege of being able to share with my sending church, London Bridge Baptist, a little bit of the miracle God did in providing us with our resident visas. But even LBBC folks don't know the whole story, so let me share with you just what a mighty God we serve!

Back in September of 2009, Leah, Amy, Misty, and I began the laborious process of obtaining missionary visas that would allow us to be legal residents of Bolivia. The process is complicated and constantly changing, so we use a visa runner who is familiar with the nuances and, even more importantly, who has lots of government contacts. The visa runner is expensive but far more efficient than us doing it ourselves.

I should stop and explain a little about the government here first. Bolivia is a third-world country with a third-world government. I don't mean that as an insult so much as a statement of fact. Let me illustrate my point here: Do you hate going to the DMV because its inefficiency will likely cost you an hour or more of your time? The DMV is an absolute model of efficiency by comparison with any Bolivian immigration office. You can ask for a list of the documentation you will need to obtain the missionary visa and walk into the office the next day with every last piece in your hand, only to be told you now need something else because the list has changed. It's a moving target that you can never anticipate, so you eventually learn to stop asking why and just do whatever they tell you to do in the hopes of one day getting the paperwork you need to legally remain in the country doing what God has called you to do. Visa work is a constant battle with frustration.

OK, now that you know the background, you can probably see more clearly why we use a visa runner. The particular one that other missionaries with our organization have used is located in Cochabamba, a city about eight hours north of where we live in Sucre. We debated beginning the process in Sucre but chose to begin in Cochabamba because our visa runner was there and because we would be there anyway to begin Quechua language school.

So, on a weekday morning in September, we gave our visa runner our passports and filled out the necessary paperwork to begin the process of applying for missionary visas. The whole thing took just a few hours, and our visa runner assured us that all we had to do was wait.

Little did we know we'd still be waiting eight months later. By that point, it was late April, and our annual team meeting was drawing near. The meeting is held every year in Peru and, without our passports, which were still in the hands of the Bolivian immigration officials, we would not be able to go. And I was hoping to begin my vacation right after the team meeting, so all of this did not make me very happy.

At this point, we got in touch with our visa runner, who assured us that the immigration officials would write us a letter allowing us to leave the country and return with no problems as long as we returned within 90 days. With that information, we began making plans for Peru, and I booked my plane tickets home.

But, a couple of weeks later, when we called to find out when we could expect our passports, we got the worst news we could imagine. Apparently, a new rule had been instituted that required the immigration officials in Cochabamba to verify that we lived at the address we had put on the application. The problem was that, though we had begun the process in Cochabamba during our time in language school, we no longer lived there but in Sucre. And the immigration officials now thought we had been deceptive and were refusing to grant us our visas or the letters we needed to re-enter the country. Our only option was to go to Cochabamba to talk with them in person.

There is much more to this story, and I learned so much through the experience. But, as you can see, it's a long story, and the Lord's work in this situation merits that I do it justice. So I promise to get you the next installment when I return from my community trip in a week. Truly, He has done great things!

Memories of Matt

2010-05-01T17:52:00.005-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Misty and Amy have returned safely from their latest community trip and, though it was discouraging in many ways, the LORD taught them so much everyday! Praise Him for His constant revelation of Himself to His children!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:
1. We are having some serious visa issues right now and will be traveling to Cochabamba tomorrow to try to sort those out with the Bolivian immigration officials. Please pray that we would be accurate representations of the character of Christ before these government officials and that we would be humble and wise in our words.

2. Please be in prayer for our upcoming women's Xtreme training this fall. We have several national women who have expressed interest in being trained to go out and serve as missionaries, and we are so excited about all of this! Please pray that God would call these women first to Himself and then to His service.

3. Please be in prayer for my partner, Leah, as she has been facing some difficulties and discouragement lately. Pray that she would be encouraged by our Lord and that I would be able to encourage her as well.

Bonus for the Readers:

This will be a little different than most of my blogs, and I know some of you might be very glad to hear that. :) I wanted to use this space to pay tribute to my brother, Matt, because this coming Monday, May 3, will mark the fifteenth anniversary of his death. In some ways, it seems like he’s been gone forever but, in some ways, it seems like only yesterday. Matt was my only sibling, and he was 17 years old when he died. This is one of the last family pictures we had taken, from 1993 just before Matt was diagnosed.

Let me tell you a little about him. He was born in October of 1977, when I was in the first grade. At first, I thought he was pretty cool, because I got to leave school early to go to the hospital to see him for the first time. But that was before my dad traded in our beautiful sports car (which had no back seat) for a more practical, but far uglier, van. From that point on, Matt was just my annoying little brother.

Because of the six-year age difference, we weren’t all that close as we were growing up. He had his friends, and I had mine. We fought frequently, of course, but I learned to stop fighting physically when he got big enough to beat me. :)

But we did more than just fight. I remember having some surprisingly in-depth conversations with him. When I was about 14, our mother decided to quit her job to stay home with us, and Matt and I took a walk around the block the night our parents told us that. I remember telling him, “We’re going to have to make some changes and not be as greedy.” And his response was pretty astute for an 8-year-old: “Yeah, we can’t ask for so much stuff.” :)

That being said, Matt never had many problems with asking for what he wanted. When I was in college, I worked as an assistant manager at a local movie theater when I was home from school. One night, one of my employees came to tell me that my brother was there to see me. When I came to see him, I discovered that Matt had brought along with him the entire youth group from church, all of whom seemed to think I would allow them in to watch the movie of their choice for free. And you know what? I did, and my brother just grinned as he walked by me on the way to his free flick.

I was in college when we found out that Matt (pictured here to the right) had lymphoma. We were all shocked, of course. He was 15, six feet tall, a robust and healthy football player. Until he wasn’t.

It’s funny how life can change in an instant. One minute, I’m a 22-year-old college student with a perfectly healthy family back at home. The next, my brother is a cancer patient. Cancer. That’s a really ugly word that inevitably leads to one even uglier thought: Death.

Matt and I had never talked about faith. As a matter of fact, at that point in my life, I wasn’t following the Lord very closely, so I never had any real desire to talk about such things. But, thankfully, my dad asked the tough questions. One day, he asked Matt whether he was afraid, and Matt said no. Dad was understandably surprised, but Matt just said, “Why would I be afraid? What’s the worst thing that could happen? That I could die. But that’s the best thing that could happen.”

Wow. My brother had never really talked much about his faith before, but that explanation showed so much of how the Lord had worked in his life.

In May of 1995, Matt’s faith became sight when he stepped into the very presence of God, never to leave again. I’m sure he heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I still have mixed emotions about it. Does that surprise you? I mean, really, why should I be mixed up about Matt’s death? Shouldn’t the only emotion I have be sadness?

Nope.

Don’t get me wrong. I definitely feel that sadness. Even today, fifteen years after his 20-month-long battle with lymphoma ended, I still miss Matt (pictured here after his bone marrow transplant). I miss how he used to start small fights between my grandparents just so he could sit back and laugh at their bickering. I miss watching “Beavis and Butt-head” with him and listening to him laugh his head off at the antics of two completely idiotic cartoon characters. I miss seeing him do the silliest things to entertain his best friends. I even miss things that never happened, like seeing his high school graduation or being a part of his wedding or watching him play with his children.

But I also feel happiness. Shortly after Matt’s funeral, my dad told me something that was completely beyond my grasp at the time. He said, “If I had the opportunity to bring Matt back today, I wouldn’t.” I didn’t understand that at all then, but I get it now. My brother is in the very presence of God! There’s no more pain, no more crying, no more darkness, and no more death for him. There is only worshipping in the loving arms of His Lord and knowing Him fully. Why would I ever want Matt to come back to this world when he has all of that?

Which brings me to the third emotion I feel: Jealousy. Not in the sense that I want to trade places with him but that I want to be there with him! I now understand completely what Paul meant when he said:

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21)

There was a time when that concept was completely foreign to me. I remember my dad once told me how much he was looking forward to going home to be with the Lord. I was a teenager, and I thought, “I don’t want to do that yet! I want to finish school and have a great career and get married and have kids. All of that heaven stuff can wait!”

Yeah, I don’t feel that way anymore. I have learned that this world has nothing that can possibly compare with eternal life with my Savior. Can you imagine what it must be like to be with the Lord, with nothing standing in the way? Yeah, I can’t either, and I know it would be beyond anything I can even imagine.

Jesus describes eternal life for us in the midst of talking to His Father:

“Now this is eternal life: That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (Jn. 17:3)

And Paul gives a little information on the subject in these words:

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12)

One day, I will know God fully, even as He knows me. This, my brothers and sisters, is eternal life. Until then, we just have to persevere in what He’s called us to do. But all my hope is beyond this life.

Can’t wait to see you again, Matt. I think it just took me a little longer to learn the lessons you got in seventeen years. You weren’t short-changed; you were rewarded!

The Power of "I Can't"

2010-03-29T21:45:00.010-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Misty and Amy had a great week in the community of Ayuma. The church there was so glad to see them, and they had several opportunities to share the stories of God's Word with the people. We are so thankful for this community and the constant encouragement that they are to us!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Please continue to be in prayer for Misty and Amy as they have now moved on to the community of Falsuri, where the church has struggled with division and strife. Pray that the girls would be a true representation of what the church should always be - unified - and that they would be an encouragement to the people there.

2. Pray for the people of Falsuri and the girls' next community, which is still to be determined. Pray that the people would catch the vision of taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth, beginning with those of their own culture and language who have not heard.

3. Pray for Leah and me as we go on our own community trip next week. We will be taking Gretzel, a national believer who is interested in working with our team and who wants to get an idea of what the work is like. Pray that we would all be an encouragement to one another and to the church and that God would direct Gretzel's steps after she graduates from seminary this fall.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

Misty and Amy are currently out on their fourth community trip. Prior to this one, they have spent time in a variety of Quechua villages. The first was a place called Finca Esquina (FEENK-ah eh-SKEE-nah), which I'll, from now on, just designate as "Finca." (In the pictures are Misty with a cute kitten from Finca and a sunset over one of the mountains there.)

Finca is a place that's near and dear to our hearts. It's the hometown of our dear friend Simón, and everyone on our men's and women's teams have visited there multiple times. It's kind of like our home, too.

On the girls' first trip following language school, we hadn't planned to send them to Finca, as they had already worked there before. But the Lord had other ideas and, when our plans to send them to a neighboring community fell through, it was our next choice. The girls spent two weeks there, going from house to house and developing friendships with believers and non-believers alike. During that trip, they had multiple opportunities to share the stories they had memorized.

Now, I'm not sure if I've fully explained how we work before, so let me take the opportunity to do so now. If you've heard this already, just skip the next few paragraphs. :)

We choose stories from the Bible that will address different barriers that we have seen among the people with whom we are working. If we are trying to evangelize an animistic people group who believe they need to influence the balance of power among evil spirits (like the Quechua), we would incorporate stories which show God has power over those evil spirits (the Gospel has LOTS of examples of Jesus driving out demons). In our case, we are seeking to disciple women, so we incorporate stories about how women are loved and used by God. An example would be something like the Samaritan woman at the well, where Jesus spent time in conversation with this outcast woman, resulting in her salvation and subsequent missionary efforts to bring her entire town to meet Jesus (see John 4:1-42).

Once the stories have been chosen, we carefully craft them to a manageable amount, using as much directly from the Word as possible. If necessary, we summarize large sections (for example, the flood is recorded over three chapters of Genesis, so the story is largely summarized), but we try to use as much direct quotation from Scripture as we can. Once the story has been crafted, we memorize it and share it with the people so that they can memorize it as well.

Now that sounds very easy, but it's not at all, either for the trainers or for the listeners. Memorization by hearing requires listening to the story multiple times. We as trainers do as much as we can to help the people memorize, particularly by incorporating actions and other memorization aids into the teaching, but the main method we use is lots of repetition. This gets tiring, and it's just plain hard work for everybody involved.

That being said, that was what our girls were trying to do in Finca (and on every trip they make). Unfortunately, they weren't having much success in getting the people to memorize the stories. The main excuse they heard time and time again was, "I can't."

When the girls are out on a trip, they call Leah and me twice a week to let us know how things are going, how we can be praying, and what struggles they're having. On that trip, they called us very discouraged, and the reason for that discouragement was that they kept hearing that excuse.

Let me give you a little background on the Quechua. This is a downtrodden people group, if ever there was one. Descendants of the powerful Incas, they were conquered by the Spanish in the 1500s. When that happened, their culture, their language, and their religion were all superseded by those of their conquerors. Suddenly, they became second-best and, 500 years later, this still continues. If they are educated at all, they are taught in Spanish and, sadly enough, most cannot even read in Quechua, though it is their first language. They are typically farmers (see the picture of us helping sow potatoes and beans in one of the fields in Finca) and live in the rural areas, meaning they are of a lower socioeconomic class than their Latin counterparts. Even if they have money and want to come to the cities, they are often precluded from living in certain areas simply because they are Quechua. Their animistic practices of animal sacrifice are also viewed as inferior to the practices of the Catholic church, meaning they frequently incorporate Catholic saints into their spiritual viewpoints.

Now, in addition to this second-class mentality of the race, imagine where the women are in social status. They are the lowest of an already low class of people. Is it any wonder these women think they can't memorize a story?

But, my friends, while it's very easy to understand and even sympathize with these women, let me remind us all of this: THAT IS AN EXCUSE!!!

I bet you're wondering how I, an American who's had every possible educational and financial opportunity, say that? Because Scripture tells me this:

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." (Phil. 4:13, NAS)

And it also says this:

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor. 12:9-10, NIV)

See, there is no excuse for any of us because it's not we ourselves who are doing the work anyway. It is all about Him, His power, His strength. None of this is about us.

When the girls told us about how the women of Finca didn't believe they could memorize the stories, they wondered why they were even there. If the women weren't willing to put in the effort to learn the Word, why should our team even stay there? And I will admit that I wondered the same thing.

The next day, as I was praying about that very thing, God led me to this passage:

"'This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the LORD Almighty."'" (Zech. 4:6)

That day, it was not the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel but the word of the LORD to Kelli because it was the key to everything for us. See, this work that we do will not be accomplished by us. The Quechua believers will never, by our might, come to know that they can do this work, and the Quechua non-believers will never, by our power, understand that there is One True God Who came in human form to redeem them. They will only know and understand these things by His Spirit.

So, if you think you can't memorize Scripture or share the Good News or anything else that God commands you to do, just remember how powerful that "I can't" mentality is. Then remind yourself of the Truth that nothing you do is by might nor by power but by His Spirit. Then you'll recognize that, through Him, you can.

Making People a Priority

2010-03-22T21:45:00.008-04:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our enemy tried his dead-level best (through some attacks on team unity and a mechanical problem with our truck) to keep our journeygirls from making the latest trip to three Quechua communities (Ayuma, Falsuri, and one still to be determined), but they made it safely to Ayuma on Sunday and will be there for three weeks. It was very clear to us all that the timing of this trip was of the Lord, and we are thankful that He got the girls where they need to be safely. It will be exciting to see what He will accomplish through them on this trip!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:
1. Please pray for Misty and Amy (pictured here with me) as they spend the next three weeks investigating these Quechua communities. They will be sharing stories with the women and are looking to see where the interest is high and where the people are willing to memorize the stories and to share them with others. Their research on this and a future trip will determine where they will focus the remainder of their time on the field. Pray that the Lord would make it abundantly clear where they are to work.

2. Pray that the believers in these communities would catch the vision of "Quechua reaching Quechua." This is the goal the Lord has shown us, so please pray that He would reveal it to them as well and that they would grab on to the idea and run with it, planting churches among the unreached of their own culture.

3. Pray for wisdom for Leah and me (pictured here), that we would remain purposeful in choosing our activities. There are lots of demands on our time and, at times, it is overwhelming. Pray that we would know where to focus our efforts in relationship-building and that we would be able to effectively prioritize a variety of tasks.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." (Eph. 5:15-16)

As many of you might know, my parents have served the Lord in Europe for the last few years. What you might not know is that God has now called them to return to the United States, where they're continuing to serve Him in a slightly different capacity. That's sort of tangential to the point of this blog, but your prayers for their new ministry would be greatly appreciated.

Something my mom (pictured to the right with my dad) did a few months ago really made an impact on me, and I wanted to share it with you, in the hopes that it will ring true with you as well. The Christmas season in Europe is hectic just as it is in the US, especially if you're an American who is getting together with other Americans to celebrate the holiday.

Such was the case with my mom, who was responsible for bringing several dishes to the office Christmas party. She was bustling around the house getting ready to start cooking when there was a knock on the door. When she went to open it, she saw her 8-year-old friend Sophie standing there, accompanied by her 12-year-old brother and his friend.

I think I should explain some things about my mom before I continue. She's kind of a social butterfly, though she would probably disagree with that assessment. I don't mean that in the sense that you'll see her on the high-society page of your local newspaper. No, she's just a very genuine and sweet person who really cares about other people and, for that reason, everyone loves to be around her. She radiates the Lord's love.

But she'd had kind of a difficult time making friends in her new city, and that was very hard on her. She'd been praying for friends, and she was a little surprised that God had answered that by providing Sophie, a little neighbor girl with some physical disabilities. But Mom accepted what the Lord gave and spent time with Sophie.

On this particular day, Mom knew that she was on a tight schedule, so she seriously considered asking the kids to come back at a better time. After all, there was lots to get done and not much time in which to do it. Asking them to come back later was a perfectly reasonable option.

But that's not what she did. Instead, she invited all three kids in to help her. They spent the next few hours preparing the food that she needed to take to the party and, in the process, she got into a spiritual conversation with Sophie's older brother where she was able to plant some seeds for eternity. When the children left, Mom went to the party feeling cheerful... AND with all the food she was supposed to bring.

But the story doesn't end there. Through the kids, Mom was able to build a relationship with their mother, Lisa. One day not long before my parents left for the US, Lisa came to their house and told Mom she liked to be there because it was peaceful. When my mom inquired as to whether Lisa's house was hectic, she responded that that was not what she meant. She recognized that my mom lived a life of peace and wanted to know why. From there, Mom was able to share the Truth of the Prince of Peace with her. Wow!

But what most impacted me about this was my mom's willingness to adjust her schedule to accommodate those three kids. Without that initial act of love to those children, I'm not sure she would have had the later opportunity with Lisa.

So I started thinking about whether I would have done the same and, I'm sad to say, I don't think I would have. See, I come from the same task-oriented culture you do, and it's hard to leave that mentality behind.

There are two different types of cultures in the world: Task-oriented and relationship-oriented. In a relationship-oriented society, the relationships between people are the most valuable thing. As a result, time is less important than just fostering the relationship. Latin American cultures, in general, are very relationship-oriented.

I, on the other hand, am HIGHLY task-oriented, as are most Americans. It's hard for me to foster relationships because, quite honestly, it just takes too much time. I'm a list-maker, and spending time with people means I don't get very many things on my list accomplished for the day.

But can you see how task-orientation is contrary to the Gospel? Jesus had but ONE task: To glorify His Father. That was His one job each and every day and, to accomplish it, He spent all of His time and energy in making His Father known to people.

I remember one particular instance where Jesus was in the middle of teaching, and a synagogue ruler asked Him to come and raise his dead daughter to life. Now it was no problem for Jesus to resurrect people at any time (just see the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11 for proof), so He could have waited until He was finished with His teaching. But He immediately went with the man. However, while He was going, a woman with a bleeding disorder secretly touched Him so that she could be healed from her infirmity. When that happened, He stopped and asked who had touched Him. When the woman admitted it, He told her that her faith had healed her. Then, He continued on His way to the ruler's house, where He raised the little girl to life. (Go read the accounts in Matthew 9:18-26 and Luke 8:40-56 to get all the details.)

My point here is that Jesus cared more about his relationship with the synagogue ruler than he did about his task of teaching the crowd. But He also cared more about His relationship with the newly-healed woman than He did about the task of raising the synagogue ruler's daughter to life.

So I want to learn to be more like that. I, too, have but one task: To bring God glory. That is accomplished by establishing and maintaining relationships with people, whether that's with those on my team or with believers out in the Quechua communities or with non-believers.

There is no task I have that's more important than that one. I hope I can take a page out of my mom's book and accomplish it.

The Best Birthday Gift of All

2010-02-20T14:21:00.010-05:00

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!

Entrusted with the Gospel

2009-12-20T10:39:00.008-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

This entire blog is one huge praise report about my friend, Brooklynn. She got to hear the Gospel and now has a Bible! Read below to find out more.

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Continue to be in prayer for Brooklynn, that she would read her Bible and that the Holy Spirit would continue to draw her to Himself.

2. Pray for us as we finish up our time of Quechua study here in Cochabamba and say goodbye to those with whom we´ve developed relationships here (pictured here are Bea and Annie, believers from Sweden with whom we became good friends). We will be leaving here Wednesday to return to our home in Sucre. Pray that we will "make the most of every opportunity" and would be wise with the time we have remaining.

3. Pray for us as we prepare to make a short community trip after Christmas. Pray that God would give us wisdom in choosing the parts of His Word to share in a community of people who are believers but without access to the Bible, and pray for the people there, that they would be doers of His Word and not hearers only.

Inquring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

As I was reading the book of Jude this morning, I was struck by the great responsibility with which we as believers have been entrusted. This verse really hit me:

"Dear friends,... I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints." (Jude 3)

This week, God gave me the most amazing opportunity, and it can be directly attributed to your prayers. I´ve been asking you to pray for Brooklynn, the Belgian-Canadian woman with whom I previously got to share my testimony. (She´s pictured here with Misty, me, and Amy.) Well, this week, I got to talk to her even more in-depth, and it was certainly a God-ordained appointment.

We had learned that Brooklynn would be returning to her home in Belgium this past week, so I asked her to have dinner with me before she left. Being from Canada originally, English is her first language, so I was excited to be able to talk to her more about Jesus with no language barrier at all. I´ve so come to appreciate that!

God had prompted Leah to give a Bible to Brooklynn, so I took that with me to our dinner, along with a list of stories from the Word for her to read. I was hoping to get her to see the big picture of the Bible, culminating in the Gospel, without being intimidated by the sheer size of its 66 books. And, during the dinner, it was my hope to be able to share something of the Good News with her.

Have you ever tried to share the Gospel with someone who has very little or no background in Christianity? If so, you know how difficult it is. Even if the person has had some exposure to our faith, we often do them a disservice by just presenting a cursory Gospel presentation and pushing them to a quick decision. Following Christ is hard, and Jesus Himself told us we need to count the cost of being His disciple (see Lk. 14:25-34). This is how Paul described what it means to truly be His disciple:

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Phil. 3:10-11)

If we just show that He is all joy and love without describing the demands of discipleship, we wind up with people who fall away from Christ at the first trial. And what´s worse is that they think that, because they once prayed a three-part prayer over a Gospel tract, they now have eternal life, though their lives show absolutely no evidence of that. These are the people to whom Christ will say, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness" (Matt. 7:23). And how much of that blame for that must be laid at my own feet?

So I really consulted the LORD about how to lay the foundation for the amazing Truth of the Gospel in this young woman with very little understanding of Who Christ was or why He came. How exactly does one explain thousands of years of the history of sinful man and the prophesied, personfied grace of a redeeming God in the span of a dinner?

But the LORD gave me the opportunity and the words. Brooklynn listened as I talked about Santa Claus and how I´d always wanted that to be true, for there to be someone out there who is so good that he brings gifts to all the children of the world, regardless of who or where they are. But then I´d realized that we have a "fairy tale" that is honestly true in that we have a God Who freely offers us salvation and the opportunity to know Him, even though we´ve been nothing but naughty for our entire lives.

When I explained that Jesus had come to earth with the express purpose of dying and that all of our sins, both before and after coming to Christ, were nailed to that cross with Him, she was excited. She explained that she had known about Jesus´death but that she had never before understood why He had to die.

When I told her that she had many people praying for her and that God was calling her into a relationship with Himself, she was moved. "Really?" she asked. She couldn´t believe that so many people who didn´t know her would be praying for her, and she was overwhelmed by the idea that God was pursuing her.

But this girl is not one to just blindly follow without questioning. She wanted to know why God would cause certain people to be born into such abject poverty when she and I have both had such great financial riches. She wanted to know what happens to those who will never hear about Jesus.

Was I bothered by her questions? No way! I actually welcomed them, because it meant she was actually considering whether what I had told her was really true. She wasn´t blindly believing me in the moment, only to fade away from the faith at the first sign of struggle. She was counting the cost and, if she does choose to follow Christ in the future, I have no doubt that she will know what she´s getting into.

As we said goodbye to Brooklynn this week, it was sad for all of us. I will truly mis her. But I am encouraged that she carries back to Belgium with her in the Word of God the same power that transformed my own life, and I take great delight in knowing this Truth:

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." (Is. 55:10-11)

Please join me in praying that Brooklynn would be like the Bereans of old:

"Now the Bereans... received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11)

Pray that she will one day be able to proclaim with the Samaritans:

"They said to the woman, ´We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.´" (Jn. 4:42)

Two rainbows over our school in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Making God Big

2009-12-13T08:24:00.011-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our Quechua has improved tremendously during the seven weeks that we have been here. Thank you so much for your prayers, and I hope that you will continue to pray for us in this area of great need!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Please continue to be in prayer for Brooklynn (pictured here with Amy). She is leaving to return to Europe this week to spend Christmas with her family. Pray that God would continue to work in her life to draw her to Himself.

2. We have only 1-1/2 weeks more here in Cochabamba and will return to Sucre on Dec. 23. Pray that we would finish our time here well, with remaining focused on language learning and with saying goodbye to different friends we've made here.

3. Continue to pray for our men's team - Efrain, Javier, Roberto, and David - as they investigate new areas in which to work.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I started reading the Bible in Quechua a couple of weeks ago, and it was pretty intimidating at first. Aw, who am I kidding? It still is. :)

But it's also really enlightening to read the Bible in another language. To my ethnocentric, "English is best" way of thinking, I ought to be able to get everything that I need from the Word of God, and I never thought it would help to read the Bible in any other language. Why would I ever need to do that?

But then I read John 14:6 in Spanish, and it blew me away. In English, Jesus says in that verse:

"I am the way and the truth and the life."

Pretty straightforward, right? But it's even greater in Spanish. There are two verbs in Spanish that can translate the English verb "to be." One is used to describe temporary states like illness or location, but the other, the one used to translate "I am" in this verse, is used for things of permanence, for inherent characteristics like your gender or nationality. So the fact that Jesus IS the way, the truth, and the life is not just some fleeting thing that could easily change. It is an inherent part of Who He is, and it is not going to change. Very revealing.

So, when I started reading the Word in Quechua, I was excited to see what new things I would learn. I started in Luke, and it didn't take me long to find this one. In the English NIV, it says this:

"And Mary said: 'My soul glorifies the Lord.'" (Lk. 1:46)

In its context, this begins Mary's hymn of praise to the Lord when she goes to visit Elisabeth after being told that she will give birth to Jesus. In Quechua, the word used to translate the word expressed by the English word "glorify" here is the verb "jatunchay." I know that doesn't mean anything to you right now, but let me break it down a little further. The Quechua word "jatun" word means "big," and "-chay" is a suffix that means "to make someone or something do something." So the literal translation of "jatunchay" would be "to make big."

Have you ever really thought about what the word "glorify" means? I don't think I had. I've grown up in church, and it's been a part of my churchy vocabulary since I was a little kid. "Let's glorify God this morning by singing hymn number 166!" Or "To God be the glory." I'm not making fun. I'm just saying we throw a lot of words around without really thinking about what they mean. Words like "glorify" and "exalt" and even "church."

So it hit me like a ton of bricks that Quechua translates "glorify" as "to make big"! Mary was saying that her soul was making God big. It was doing everything it could to make Him seem bigger in the eyes of other people.

I realized a few years ago that my purpose on this earth - and the purpose of every other person and thing that God has created - is to glorify Him. In essence, my purpose is to make God big.

Because He is.

We so often make Him so small. We try to fit God into a one-hour time frame on Sunday morning when He should consume our entire lives. We offer up a beautifully worded prayer asking Him to fix our problems but then immediately forsake following His ways as we try to solve them ourselves. We sing, "Wherever He leads, I'll go" on Sunday, but we're quick to doubt His power when He leads us down a road of suffering on Monday.

But He's the same BIG God today that He was when He parted the Red Sea. He's the same BIG God Who sent fire from heaven to consume Elijah's offering and all the water that drenched it. And He's the same BIG God Who raised His only Begotten from the dead.

And yet, somehow, He's still big enough to dwell inside you if you're His follower. Now, if that's not a reason to shout His praises in the streets, to make Him big before everyone you know, I don't know what is!

The old King James version of Luke 1:46 actually translates the verse much better:

"And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord."

To whom will you make Him big today?

A man drinking from a dumpster on the streets of Cochabamba

Calling Them to His Marvelous Light

2009-12-09T15:10:00.002-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

In the midst of great economic uncertainty, our organization is making some significant changes, and the likelihood is great that those changes will soon impact the ways in which our team works here in Bolivia. But it is amazing and comforting to know that we have a God Who is completely unsurprised and unaffected by any financial problems. We can rest securely knowing that He has promised to provide our needs if we seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33)!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. We are going to meet with our European friend Brooklynn again tonight. Please be praying that the Holy Spirit will continue to provide us with opportunities to share His Truth with her and that He will grow the seeds that have been planted in her.

2. Please be in prayer the upcoming Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and for the IMB´s wisdom in its use of these funds. Every penny of this offering goes to support missionaries on the foreign field.

3. Pray for our men´s team, as they are currently scattered through various Quechua communities doing investigation and discipleship. Pray that God would give them His wisdom to know where we are to work next and to know how and what to teach to immature believers.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

One of the major advantages of our language school is that each of our teachers has at least some indigenous heritage and, as a result, we are able to learn about the Quechua culture as well as the language. To read some of the myths and legends of this people group has been enlightening, and reading about their customs has really taught me a lot.

This past week, I was able to have a prolonged conversation with one of my teachers, and he explained to me much about the history of the Quechua practice of the San Juan (John the Baptist) festival in the Bolivian community of Acacio.

The celebration begins with a bullfight on the eve of the holiday, with the winning bull and his owner both being showered with chicha (a corn-based alcoholic beverage that is a staple of every Quechua celebration).

The following explanation is a description of what happens on the San Juan holiday itself. I realize this is not the best English grammar I´ve ever posted, but I´ve translated it as best I can from the original Quechua, so I hope you´ll forgive me if there are some mistakes:

"From the sunrise, all of the people from Acacio and the surrounding villages come to the large, wide street in the plaza. Some of them arrive to fight again, still drunk and dripping blood [there were also a variety of drunken fights the previous evening], bellowing like a bull, and others are playing the charango [an instrument something like a ukulele].

"In order to fight, in that moment, they put on well a helmet, and they tightly envelop their right hands with something like a belt to make a good fist. To fight, they begin bellowing like bulls. And then, suddenly, jumping, they kick, they beat with their fists, and some fall to the ground. And when those are on the ground, the others kick heads, stomachs, or wherever.

"In that way also, sometimes the women defend their husbands. Sometimes the women fight among themselves while they carry their children on their backs; they hit each other with their shoes. Sometimes their families and those from their communities enter the fight. In that way, they have a big fight.

"Then, some of them stand up covered in blood, their heads cut, their noses broken, their mouths swollen. And, being like that, they are, of course, drunk.

"Like that is the San Juan festival in Acacio.

"But it is said that there is another, bigger festival in the month of September. Taht festival is called Exaltation [a celebration of another Catholic holiday]. In that festival, it is said that there is a bigger, uglier fight. Sometimes, it is said that they kill one another. ´If a man dies in the fight, the fields will produce well for the following year; and, if no one dies, the fields won´t produce well,´ they say.

"Like that are the customs in Acacio."

If this barbaric behavior disgusts you, good. I hope it makes you feel the darkness in which these people daily live their lives. I hope it makes you realize how DESPERATELY they need your prayers. Without them, the Quechua will continue to live in the bondage that tells them the blood of another human spilled in their fields will cause them to produce more crops, rather than knowing the Truth of the Creator God Who put a curse on Cain for spilling another´s blood:

"´Your brother´s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother´s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.´" (Gen. 4:10-12)

It breaks my heart to think of these people living in such abject darkness rather than in the marvelous light in which I walk. What a blessing I have received:

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." (1 Pet. 2:9-10)

Won´t you please join me in praying that, as we continue to declare His praises, these people walking in darkness will see that Great Light?

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (Is. 9:2)

The Cure for Cancer

2009-11-08T19:43:00.008-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Yesterday at school, I got the opportunity to have an in-depth spiritual conversation with one of my teachers, Gladys. She was very receptive and curious as I shared the Truth of Christ, and I´m hopeful that God will use those seeds planted in her and will give our team more opportunities to share with her.

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Pray that the Lord would move in the hearts of Brooklynn and Gladys and that He would continue to draw them both to Himself.

2. Continue to pray overall for the Quechua of the Chayanta province. As I learn more about this culture, it is so easy to see how the people have been frightfully deceived by our enemy (I´ll be sharing more about this in the next blog). Please pray that God would open their eyes to the Only Truth: His.

3. Back in Sucre, we just had four new believers added to our number by baptism. Praise the LORD that we have three new brothers and a sister, and pray that they would come to know Him more deeply and to serve Him in obedience.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I´ll go ahead and tell you now that this blog is difficult to post. The topic might be controversial for some of you, but I hope you´ll listen anyway. Here goes:

As most of you know, I used to be a pediatric cancer pharmacist. I loved the people I worked with, my patients and, most of the time, the job itself. :) As part of my training for my profession, I spent a year at St. Jude Children´s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a great experience that I´ll never forget, though there were more than enough sad days.

The other day, I was sitting at a restaurant here in Bolivia, and it surprised me to look up and see an ad for St. Jude on the television screen. Seriously, who knew that even Bolivians give money to St. Jude? And all of that just got me thinking.

St. Jude is an amazing place. It´s a hospital for children with cancer and other catastrophic illnesses, and the ads are true: No child is ever turned away because of an inability to pay. Every child there receives whatever treatment the doctor deems necessary, without a question of how it will be paid for. The health care professionals there are among the best in the world. And the research done there has dramatically improved the cure rates for childhood cancers. There´s a reason the name "St. Jude" is world-renowned.

And, basically, the majority of that comes down to money. St. Jude´s fundraising personnel are also among the world´s best. No expense is spared when it comes to research or the provision of care for children with cancer or other catastrophic diseases... nor should it be. The hope is always to find a cure.

Are you wondering where I´m going with all of this? Well, let me tell you.

Last year, the International Mission Board´s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering fell $29 million short of its goal. As a result, the IMB cut its short-term (2-3-year) mission programs completely and has reduced the number of long-term personnel being sent to only those who meet particular strategic needs. The Board has delayed or turned down numbers of people who are called and willing to go... simply because they don´t have the funds to send them.

Now you tell me: Which one is more important?

Please don´t misunderstand me here. My brother died from cancer at age 17. I spent nine years working with children with cancer, and I´ve seen many of them lose that fight. It breaks my heart every single time. There aren´t may things I´m more passionate about than helping kids with cancer.

But I am more passionate about taking the Gospel to the nations.

Why? Because finding the cure for cancer won´t give anybody eternal life, but giving them the Good News of Christ will. Because finding the cure for cancer may give a kid fifty more years on this earth, but it won´t keep him from eternal death. And because finding the cure for cancer may let a kid experience adulthood, but it won´t let him experience real joy.

I´m not telling you to not give to childhood cancer research. To my way of thinking, there´s only one cause around more important than that one.

But the Gospel is eternally more important.

The cure for our real illness has already been found. Don´t let the poor economy keep you from getting it to those who need it.

The Work Begins... (8/29/09 - 11/10/09)

2009-11-08T19:16:00.010-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our European friend Brooklynn took a walk with me the other day and, in a completely God-ordained appointment, I was able to share my testimony with her. She was very interested and asked some excellent questions. She is coming to our house for dinner next week, so please be in prayer that God would give us continued opportunities to share His Truth with her.

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. There have been quite a few distractions for us this week, as both Amy and Misty have had to deal with the health problems of relatives at home. Please be in prayer for their families and for them, that God would guard their hearts and minds with His peace that transcends all understanding and that they would be able to keep their eyes fixed on Him.

2. Pray that God would improve our Quechua so that we can share more of Who He is with our teachers. We have gradually improved but still only have minimal conversation skills. If not in Quechua, please ask that God would enable us to share Truth with them in Spanish.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I finally arrived in Bolivia in early September, and it was a joy to be reunited with my team again (I´m pictured here with Misty and Amy). My fellow team leader, Leah, and I spent a few weeks furnishing our house (my not-quite-finished bedroom is pictured below) and getting to know people and places in Sucre, our new home.

Sucre is in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, a city of about 250,000 people with an elevation of about 9000 feet. Though it has no American restaurants, there are plenty of modern conveniences, including a movie theater, a supermarket, and a small store where we can regularly get Reese´s Cups and Almond Joy (something that makes me very happy! :)). We have a washing machine, hot water, and high-speed Internet at our house (though "high-speed" is a relative term, so don´t go comparing it to your instantaneous YouTube downloads in the US :)). We are very grateful to the LORD for His provision and to Southern Baptists for allowing Him to use you to supply our needs.

In early October, Leah and I had to write up a master plan outlining the vision God has given us for the women´s team and how He has shown us to accomplish that vision. Writing that document really helped to clarify our work for us, and I hope that my sharing a little of it with you will help you to see and understand more clearly God´s work among the Quechua using our team. I pray that God will enable you to catch the vision for seeing this people group come to Christ and that you will be on your knees regularly begging the LORD to spread His Word like wildfire among them.

In order to engage a Quechua community where there is no evangelical presence, the plan is that our women´s team would enter that place after our Xtreme men´s team has already established a church there. But, because the Quechua are distinctly separated among gender lines, the likelihood is high that the women of the community will have never heard the Good News that the men´s team has brought.

The girls will make month-long trips into the communities, then return to Sucre for one-week rest breaks. While they are in the communities, they live and work with the women, seeking to develop relationships and to discern those who have an interest in the things of God.

They will share stories, in chronogical order, memorized in Quechua directly from the Bible, with the goal of having the women with whom they share the stories memorize them as well. Because the majority of the people, and especially the women, are unable to read, hiding the Word of God in their hearts through memorization is the only way to ensure they have it. (Incidentally, it´s the best way for you to have it, too!)

Our plan is to share 20-30 stories in order to evangelize the women. Then, once there are baptized female believers, we will share 10-15 stories in order to disciple them, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded and what it means to be the church.

From the start, they will be encouraged to share the stories they have learned with others who have not heard them and, once they have become baptized followers of Christ, that will be an expectation. If you learn a story from God´s Word, you share it with somebody who hasn´t heard it. Simple as that. You fulfill the Great Commission from the start.

We hope that, by implementing this "sharing God´s story" mindset in these new believers from the beginning, the LORD will call out missionaries from among those young churches to go to other Quechua communities and share the Gospel there. Because they don´t have to learn a new language or culture, we think the Quechua themselves will be far more effective ambassadors for Christ to their own people than we will ever be.

Are you wondering what your part is in all of this? Well, let me tell you. :)

In order to reach for Christ the 93,000 Quechua in our province alone, we need the help of Great Commission-minded believers in the States as well. We´re hoping to find seminary and university students willing to participate in summer or semester missions. We also have ideas for short-term volunteer trips which, though they would require great sacrifice on the part of the volunteers, would offer huge benefits as well. If you know of anyone who might be interested in directly participating in God´s work here, please e-mail me.

And, of course, the most important aspect of your involvement in the work here is your prayers. Please be lifting these people up to the Lord of the harvest.

"Then he said to his disciples, ´The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.´" (Matt. 9:37-38)

Opportunities Everywhere (8/7/09 - 8/28/09)

2009-11-08T18:55:00.010-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

The LORD has given us some amazing opportunities during our time here in Cochabamba for language school. In particular, we have met one young lady named Brooklynn, an 18-year-old girl from Europe. She is not a believer but, when we asked about her spiritual beliefs, she expressed that she was definitely interested in hearing about Jesus. We plan to have her over to our house this week to discuss things of the LORD. How exciting!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Please be in prayer for Brooklynn, that her heart would be receptive and that her eyes would be opened to the Truth.

2. Pray for our team´s unity. While we are in language school, the four of us are living together in a small apartment and, of course, there are minor conflicts. Pray that we would learn to love each other selflessly and that we would serve one another in a way that would continually bring glory to Christ.

3. Continue to be in prayer for the Bolivia men´s team, as they begin investigating other communities in which to begin work. Pray that God would go before them and reveal where He wants them to go next.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

In August, I went on a European vacation... Johnson style. And, if you know my family at all, you know that´s very similar to National Lampoon´s Griswold family verson. :)

My parents currently live just outside London so, when my Xtreme Team training was completed, I took a few weeks to visit them. We spent half of that time in the UK and the other half touring through different places in the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, and Germany. I even got to see my old friend Adéla in Prague (she and I are pictured below). It was fantastic, as you can tell from the pictures!

But the point of this blog is not to make you jealous, I promise. :)

Ever since I attended orientation with the mission board, I have been constantly reminded of the importance of knowing the worldview, the fundamental beliefs, of the people among whom I´m working. From there, I can address the barriers that keep them from coming to Christ.

For example, most Quechua have an animistic worldview. They believe that everything - people, animals, plants, rocks - has a spirit and that everything is a spiritual matter. They believe that there are good spirits and evil spirits constantly acting upon them and that, ultimately, evil is more powerful than good. Therefore, if anything bad happens to them, they must somehow affect the balance of power in the spiritual, either by appeasing the spirit they have angered or by acquiring the help of a more powerful spirit. As you can probably imagine, all of this leads to a superstitious and fearful people who live a life of bondage.

But the European worldview is vastly different. Their fundamental belief system is called postmodernism, and it´s one of the most difficult to overcome.

Basically, most Europeans are too "smart" to believe a God even exists and, if He does, He is irrelevant. Their intellect demands that they reject the very existence of a higher power in favor of scientific explanations for spiritual phenomena and, while they can see value in some religious teachings, they don´t really claim to be followers of any religion. Centuries of apathy and blatant corruption in both Protestant and Catholic churches across their continent, followed by decades of Communist-mandated atheism in certain parts of it, has led to disbelief in a holy and all-powerful God Who transforms lives.

But, while I was in Europe, God gave me various opportunites to demonstrate Who He is to the people there. I wanted to share about one encounter in particular because it still resonates with me now.

My mom and I were waiting for a bus one morning when we struck up a conversation with a British lady named Bev. When Bev discovered that I lived in South America, she was fascinated and asked why I had moved there. I explained that I was a missionary called there to share the love of God with the people.

Bev thought about that for a moment, then said, "I think that´s wonderful. The people here are too smart for our own good. We don´t believe in anything but ourselves. We don´t believe there´s a God, nor do we think we need one. But we´re all just terrified of death. We haven´t figured out what to do with that one."

Wow. The entire postmodern worldview, concisely summarized in five sentences, straight from the mouth of a postmodern. It was enlightening... and it made me terribly sad.

But the most telling part of what Bev said was at the end. Postmoderns haven´t figured out what to do with the problem of death, and they walk around terrified because of it. Just like the Quechuas, who also spend their entire lives in bondage to that same fear. Maybe the two worldviews are not so vastly different after all.

And that realization brought to mind this passage:

"Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." (Heb. 2:14-15)

The whole reason Jesus came is to free all mankind - the Quechua, the British, the American - from that fear of death and the bondage that comes with it.

Rejoice, O Christian! The grave has no power over you! You have been set free!

Learning to Lead (7/10/09 - 8/6/09)

2009-11-08T17:43:00.006-05:00

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our whole team is making excellent progress in our Quechua studies, though we still have a long way to go. We have only been attending classes for two weeks, but we can speak in increasingly complicated sentences and understand a little more each day. The One Who knows all languages deserves all the praise!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

I want to try to give a quick summary update on Quchumi. After discovering how the men there were taking advantage of our guys´ team, their team leader, Trent, along with Simón, a Quechua believer, went to speak with the men of the community. They carefully explained that the guys were there to work but, more importantly, they were there with something far more precious, the Word of God, and that the people of Quchumi were refusing to listen to it.

Initially, the men of Quchumi were repentant and asked for the guys to stay, saying that they wanted to listen to the stories. But Trent asked them to think about it without the guys there and gave them a calling card so that they could call to ask the guys to return if they really wanted that.

The men have not called to ask for our team to return, so Trent and the guys have made the decision to investigate other communities in our province and to begin working there. This has been highly disappointing, but God has been faithful to encourage the men´s team and our team as well through this very difficult time. I am convinced that He is not done with Quchumi, but we do not know if we will be involved in the harvest there.

1. Please pray for continued encouragement for the guys´ team and their leaders. Pray that God would grant them wisdom on the next community where He wants His Word to go.

2. Pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we plan the next step for our women´s team as well.

3. Pray for God to continue to work among the people of Quchumi, particularly the women. Because of distinct gender separations in Quechua communities, most of the women there didn´t get to hear the stories our guys´ team shared. As a direct result of the men´s rejection, these women have not had the opportunity to hear the Truth. Pray that God will take His powerful Word to those women.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I´ve been a leader for as long as I can remember.

I´ve held offices in various organizations. I´ve directed my high school band. I´ve led band groups in college.

Over the course of twenty years of employment, I´ve also done lots of things that made me a leader. I´ve been a manager and a teacher. I´ve supervised employees of all ages. I´ve taught all kinds of medical professionals. I´ve precepted students who wanted to learn what I had to teach and students who didn´t. I´ve made decisions that could improve or worsen a patient´s health.

And, for the last three years that I spent in the US, I had the privilege of being a Sunday School teacher. Each week, as I shared the lesson, ten to twenty women listened to what I taught and, hopefully, used it to apply God´s Word to their lives.

So I know how to be a leader... at least according to the model I´ve always seen. I just never realized how far that corporate American model of leadership is from the example Jesus gave us.

It´s funny to me now how ready I thought I was for this job. I do believe God used those past experiences to prepare me, but I learn every day how inadequate my methods are for His work.

A few years ago, the LORD taught me a very important lesson. He had laid a particular section of Scripture so heavily on my heart that I prayed over it for twelve hour straight, but I had no idea how to implement the things I was studying. I said, "LORD, this is all well and good, but I don´t know what You expect me to do about it."

What He told me was profound: "What I expect is for you to obey Me and to teach others to o the same."

Oh. That sort of made the task manageable. Obey God, and teach others to obey Him. Sure, it would be difficult but not impossible. God doesn´t call us to an impossible task.

That still sticks with me, even though it´s been three years since the LORD revealed it. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job at it while I was in the States. But then I moved to South America, and the LORD showed me just how far I had to go to become the kind of leader He wants me to be.

When I got to know the women (pictured above) who now comprise my team, I began to struggle with being their leader. I mean, REALLY struggling. Because I realized that I had always tried to lead in a different way than Jesus taught and, after 20-plus years of that, trying to conform to a Biblical model was just flat-out HARD.

But I continue to learn daily how He wants me to lead, and I pray that He uses my life and my feeble efforts to bring Himself increasing glory. Here are a few of the lessons I am learning:

1. My primary responsibility to those I lead is to serve them.

"Jesus called them together and said, ´You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.´" (Mk. 10:42-45)

I have always had authority by virtue of a title - manager, pharmacist, teacher. Even here, my title of "team leader" gives me authority, and the LORD showed me how I was lording that authority over my team, demanding their obedience with my words and not with my actions.

But Jesus´ approach was entirely different:

"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples´ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him... When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ´Do you understand what I have done for you?´ he asked them. ´You call me "Teacher" and "Lord," and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another´s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.´" (Jn. 13:3-5, 12-15)

The very God of all creation washed the dirty feet of twelve nobodies. Why? To set them an example. If I want my team members to obey what I ask of them, I must serve them. I must first be slave of all.

2. Being a leader does not mean being perfect.

I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but just hear me out. How many of you have put on an act when you went to a church service? Seriously, haven´t we all? I remember so many days when I drove home after being with the church, and I was just exhausted from my Miss Perfect Christian act. I mean, I was a Sunday School teacher. I HAD to be perfect, or I might lead someone in my class astray.

Then I moved here, and I lived with these women on my team... in the jungle... 24/7... for months. There was no hiding the fact that I wasn´t perfect.

But do you know what happened? I began to realize that being honest with them about my struggles gave me a level of accountability that forced me to submit to the LORD´s work in those sinful areas of my life. And that ultimately made me a better leader... and closer to that perfect believer I had always pretended to be.

"We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ." (Col. 1:28)

3. Every member of the body truly needs every other member.

"Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." (Rom. 12:4-5)

Just because I´ve been given a title of "team leader" does not mean I´m more important, and it doesn´t mean that I should never follow the example of the young women on my team. Just because I have the spiritual gift of teaching does not mean I have all the answers or that I can learn nothing from the others.

"But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be." (1 Cor. 12:18)

God has designed our team exactly as He wanted it, and each of us needs all the others in order to complete what God has called us to do. If I could just get over myself and realize how desperately I need the others, we´d all be a lot better off.

I hope these lessons I´m learning will be beneficial to you as well. Do you realize you´ve also been given the command to obey and to teach others to do the same? We call it the Great Commission.

"´Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surey I am with you always, to the very end of the age.´" (Matt. 28:19-20)