Learning to Live Life in Salvatierra

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

God is at work in Salvatierra! The believers are being faithful and maturing in the faith, and God is sending more non-believers to our nightly meetings. May His Name be praised as He continues to build His Church among these people!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we deal with the many requests of the people in this village. There are so many medical and other types of needs that it's just impossible to meet them all, nor do we want to create jealousy or increased dependence on outsiders in these people. Just ask that God would give us wisdom to know how and when to meet different needs.

2. Pray that the Lord would continue to build His Church in this village and that He would raise up elders who will be able to guard them against the "savage wolves" who will come in trying to spread false teachings (see Acts 20). (I'm pictured here with one of the believers, Adela, and her two youngest daughters.)

3. Pray that Leah and I would be focused and efficient on our last two trips to Salvatierra and that we would not turn our hearts toward the United States just yet. We really want to be "all there" in these last few months of our mission here in Bolivia, and we need His help to do that!

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

This transition in the last few months of my mission term has been, in many ways, a new beginning. I've had to develop relationships with new people, learn parts of a new culture and language, and adjust to living life in a hot and humid climate in the sea-level jungle rather than a cold and dry one in the high altitude of the Andes Mountains.

In many ways, I enjoy the life with the Guarayo in Salvatierra better than life with the Quechua. The Guarayo don't really have to work very hard to make their staple crops of yucca and plantains grow. The jungle sunlight and plentiful water will make them grow, so their main responsibilities involve planting and harvesting. And even those two things don't have to occur at any specified times, just whatever days they feel like getting up and going to their fields. What a change from the hard-working Quechua, who are constantly cultivating their fields in a desperate effort to make the rocky ground produce their food.

The Guarayo, like the Quechua, also have animals - sheep, pigs, cows. The difference is that the Guarayo can just let them roam free in the abundant grass around the village, so there's no need to spend all day out of the home taking care of them. The people do work - washing clothes by hand, making chicha (a drink made from yucca), cleaning their houses, cutting grass with their machetes, hunting wild pigs and fishing - but they have a lot of down time, too. That also gives Leah and me a lot of time to study Bible stories, to read, or to write our next blogs. :) (This is me cutting the grass outside our house.)

We have church meetings every evening, and that is always the most encouraging time of the day! One of the believers is currently out of town, but the other three are almost always there. In addition, we usually have a few non-believers who come to hear the stories, though it's never the same group on any given night. We start by telling the story in Spanish and, after, a few times, we ask one of them to tell it in Guarayo. We know that they've gotten the story pretty well if they can translate it into their own language.

My favorite part of the meetings comes at the end of the story when we ask questions about what they learned. From their answers, we get to hear what the Holy Spirit is teaching them, and it never fails to teach me something, too.

On this trip, we taught a group of stories from the life of Jesus with the goal of teaching them as new believers how to be disciples of Christ, as well as some of the basics on being the church. The stories included church discipline, prayer, the end times, the Holy Spirit, and the Great Commission. Quite a broad range, huh? :)

But our favorite part of the church meetings were the discussion times after the stories. We always ask questions about the stories, but I love it when they branch off from the questions and start discussing the story among themselves.

The story of the end times probably generated the most discussion. It was compiled from Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and, as we started talking about the false prophets that will appear in the last days, we began to discuss what true prophets look like in this day and age. I went home so encouraged that night after seeing the curiosity and hunger to know Truth that is manifested in the lives of these new believers, not to mention how the Holy Spirit is at work in them to reveal His Truth!

So thank you for your prayers for this new church. The new believers are being faithful in obedience and maturing in the faith, and the nightly meetings are getting bigger as more people are coming. Praise Him for how He is building His Church among the Guarayo in Salvatierra!

Our jungle house in Salvatierra

Just an Unworthy Servant

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?

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

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

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

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

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!