A Building Does Not a Church Make

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

God is consistently providing Leah and me with the grace we need to persevere in this work. We are down to one final trip out to Salvatierra before we begin packing up our house in Sucre to return to the landlord and packing up our suitcases to return to the States for a time of rejuvenation with family and friends. He has been faithful all the way!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Pray particularly for Humberto, the only adult male believer in the Salvatierra church. He is gifted by God with leadership, but he is struggling with drunkenness lately. Please pray that he will accept who he really is in Christ, a victor over sin, and that he will choose to follow Christ over the pressure to drink from his buddies.

2. Please pray for Leah and me as we prepare to disciple these believers on one last trip. Pray that we would be faithful to work hard and to faithfully demonstrate to these new Christians what it really means to be the church.

3. Pray that we would be able to make travel arrangements to arrive in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, in mid-March for a meeting with national believers on our team. Pray that our time there would be an encouragement to all and that we would exalt the name of our Lord as we meet together.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

This trip was a lot different for us than our normal trips to Salvatierra - mostly because we didn't spend it in Salvatierra. As we were on the way there, we called Mariluz to tell her we were coming, and she said that she and her family and another one of the believers and her family were in a bigger town about 10 miles away from Salvatierra. They would be there for a few weeks as their children got started back to school after summer vacation. (Remember, Bolivian summers are the opposite of American ones, so summer vacation here typically runs from late November to early February.)

The name of the town where the kids go to school is a little difficult to pronounce, so I'll just call it Big Town. It has a pretty nice hotel by rural Bolivian standards. We had a room with three twin beds, private bathroom with toilet and shower (no hot water, but that's not necessary in the jungle heat), a ceiling fan and, best of all, freedom from mosquitoes! (The room is pictured here to the right.) We also had the use of the kitchen and a refrigerator, which was a luxury and an absolute blessing, as we got to drink cold water throughout our entire stay! Needless to say, we couldn't stop thanking the Lord for His goodness.

Leah and I discussed what to do and decided that, since our primary responsibility is the discipleship of these new believers, we should remain where they were. We counted the money we had brought with us and discovered that we'd have to cut our trip short by two days in order to stay in the local hotel, but it made more sense to do that than to return to Santa Cruz for more money.

Over the course of our ten days in Big Town, we taught three stories from the book of Acts, beginning with Jesus' ascension and the Great Commission from Acts 1 and Matthew 28, respectively, and ending with the description of the early church from Acts 2 and 4. On our next trip, we have six more stories from acts and then plan to teach some from 1 Corinthians. We also spent a lot of time with Mariluz and Humberto and their sons.

We also got into a long conversation with one of the believers who is an elder of the local evangelical church in Big Town. He told us his testimony, which is a story of God's provision and sustenance even in the face of persecution. It was a great encouragement to hear how our brother came to know Christ and to learn of his faithful testimony ever since.

But then he told us one of the saddest stories I've ever heard. The church in Big Town was thriving, growing in faith and obedience to the Lord. A church from the US was sending large amounts of money for the upkeep of the church building they had built there, and the pastor of this church began keeping some of it for himself. Our friend was the church treasurer and a new believer. Knowing that the pastor was using the money, he asked the American church how the money should be spent. Their answer was that the $1100 they sent (which is a LOT of money here) should be applied towards the roof, the pews, the lights, and the communion table inside the building and then, if there was a little bit left over, perhaps that could go to help some sick and/or needy person in the church. When our friend told the American church about the pastor's mishandling of the funds, it eventually caused a church split that, to this day, causes problems among the brothers here in Big Town. And that bitter division has even had a ripple effect that has affected the new church in Salvatierra, as they encounter some here who are critical of other believers.

I'm not excusing the pastor's actions. He was clearly wrong in taking money that didn't belong to him but to the church. I'm also not excusing the church split, as these believers must learn to be more concerned with the unity of the body than with anything else, including their own hurt feelings.

But what bothered me so much about this story was how the American church wanted the Lord's money to be spent: On a building first and then, if there were any left over, on the needs of the believers. Now contrast that mentality with the early church's:

"There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." (Acts 4:34-35)

The estimated real estate holdings of churches in the United States is $232 billion dollars! Additionally, churches spend another $2.1 billion dollars annually on utilities and maintenance for those same buildings. Have any of you ever looked at your church's budget? Most churches spend the majority on their building. Now compare that with the amount spent on benevolence. It's typically a very small proportion.

Do you see the difference here? If it's convicting to read that verse, I think it should be. Is a building really necessary? Can't God's church just as easily meet in one another's homes? Or is it better to cling to an expensive building that requires ongoing payments (whether mortgage or insurance or utilities) while we neglect the very real needs for food and clothing and roof repairs and health care among our own brothers and sisters?

I think it's a good reminder for all of us that we are not the owners of our own money but merely managers of God's. I think we should be asking ourselves if this really how He would want us to spend it. And, if not, how can we change to manage His money correctly?

The Urubicha church singing "Trust and Obey" in Guarayo

Sharing in His Sufferings

Mariluz making chicha in her home

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah had a Skype call with her church that I had the opportunity to listen in on, and it was a wonderful encouragement for the both of us. Many members of the church read passages of Scripture to encourage us to persevere to the end, and it was such a blessing to hear! We've been under what we think is a spiritual attack, and the call was so timely. Our Lord is so good!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray for Leah and me as we return to Salvatierra for 10 days. We are teaching stories from the book of Acts, and we truly desire for this new church to really grasp what it means to be the church. Pray that they will understand how to be under the headship of Christ, how to truly be brothers and sisters to one another, and how to love one another.

2. Pray for Leah, my parents, and me as we seek the Lord together regarding clarity in His vision for my future. Ask that we would all be in agreement in what He says and that He would grant His wisdom to each of us in hearing from Him.

3. Be in prayer for the people of Taramarca and Ayuma. Though we are no longer working in those villages, we do miss and love those precious brothers and sisters in Christ. Please pray that God continues to work among them and that, when they hear His voice, they would not harden their hearts but would obey.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

Each of our trips to Salvatierra has brought different challenges. Our first trip, a two-day affair with our bosses for the purposes of getting acquainted, brought the adjustments of meeting new people and hearing a new language (my third new language in three years on the mission field). The second trip, just over a week long, gave us heat and endless requests. In the afternoon, it was so hot and with so little air movement in our jungle house that it was almost hard to breathe. And the villagers asked us for everything from money and food to daily rides into town in our truck (whether or not we had intended to go to town). The third trip was supposed to be just over two weeks long but was cut short by illness and, because we left our truck in another town to avoid crossing a river swollen by rains, we got to experience - three times, no less - a ten-mile hike in jungle conditions, once with a backpack full of gear.

Finally, on this latest two-week trip, we got to experience a plague of mosquitoes and trying to find dry places to sleep in a house with a leaky roof. Let me just tell you one thing: These mosquitoes did not play. They are carriers of dengue fever and other dreaded tropical diseases and, despite lathering myself in insect repellent and wearing a long-sleeved denim shirt, they often still managed to bite me through my clothes!

After we returned to Santa Cruz for a period of rest after the trip, I developed a rash and then a fever. My doctor diagnosed me with a mosquito-borne virus that took about a week to fully resolve. And somewhere between sitting in a cloud of mosquitoes and trying to sleep through a 102-degree fever, I started thinking about suffering. Prior to coming to the mission field, I had rarely experienced physical suffering. Sure, there was the occasional illness or injury, but I never before had to walk ten miles in 95-degree weather to buy food or bathe in a pesticide to avoid nasty little insects or experience the joys of tropical illness. Life in the South American jungle takes physical suffering to a level that I had never experienced.

And that reminded me of what the apostle Paul said about suffering:

"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).

Let me repeat that: "I want to know... the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings."

Now Paul didn't say that lightly. That was a guy who definitely knew something about suffering. In the book of 2 Corinthians, he gives a list of what he went through:

"Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches" (2 Cor. 11:24-28).

Yet he still wanted to know the fellowship of sharing in Jesus' sufferings. But why? Was he masochistic? Why on earth would he want suffering?

Because, through those sufferings, he would become like Jesus and, somehow, attain to His resurrection.

Here's the way I read it: Those sufferings eventually destroy the fleshly part of us, that oh-so-stubborn part that wants to do only what I want and not what He wants, and allow me to be transformed and resurrected into the new (wo)man that I really am.

Sufferings come in many forms: Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. They can seem small or enormous. They can come directly to us or vicariously through something that happens to a loved one. But they all serve the same purpose: To make us like Christ.

A sister in Christ recently shared this passage of Scripture with Leah and me:

"And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I entrusted to him for that day" (2 Tim. 1:11-12).

And when that dear sister shared that with us, it occurred to me that I can echo those words with Paul. I have been appointed as a herald, an apostle (one who is sent), and a teacher of the gospel, and that is why I have these particular sufferings. Yet I am not ashamed, and I know that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him.

These sufferings, however mild, are not in vain.

And, wow, there is no better cause of suffering than being sent as a herald, apostle, and teacher of His Gospel.

That's how I can buy into what Paul says in Phil. 1:29:

"For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him."

It has been granted to me to suffer for Him. People are granted wishes or scholarships or independence. Things that are granted are never bad things, only good ones. They're gifts, not punishments.

I hope I can remember that when I face the mosquito swarms again in the coming weeks.

Three adorable local girls in Salvatierra

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)