God is incredible, and He's still leading me

Embarrassing Tales - God is good through it all!

2011-10-03T00:16:00.002-05:00

My AFCOE outreach partner and I been driving his car, and he thought he smelled oil. I was navigating, and suggested a right turn, which happened more quickly than intended, resulting in a minor exchange of paint with a vehicle on our right. After dealing with that in a nearby parking lot, we finally got to check the oil. I got a quick look at the dipstick and thought it looked a bit strange, but didn't pay too much attention, just helped add the oil and we got back on the road. Unfortunately, in between adding oil and getting on the road, it's usually best to replace the oil cap. Somehow, neither of us did. This of course, caused the oil to splash, and the splashed oil started to scorch, the fumes of which caused us to pull over again to investigate.

Fortunately, the cap was still in the engine compartment. We checked the oil level again. Hearing it was low, I bought more and we added again. Replacing the cap this time, we started to head home, but noticed that there were now copious white fumes coming out of the exhaust, so we stopped again. We were getting low on fuel anyway and I was concerned the dubious jerrycan of free fuel we'd added earlier that afternoon might be a contributor. While I added some more trustworthy gas, my partner again checked the oil, resulting in a key realization - we hadn't been checking the oil at all, but the transmission fluid!

Actually checking the oil, we found that there was plenty there. No surprise, since we'd at this point added three whole quarts (Something about that really should have clued me in to a problem... Even the splashing shouldn't have lost us that much!) That explained the white smoke, but made the solution a bit unclear. My tools were in my car, being borrowed by a team without their own vehicle. And even it I'd had them, I don't carry an oil catch pan!

A couple phone calls later a large convention of AFCOE friends began to converge on the scene - bringing several sets of tools, including mine, and eventually, an oil catch pan in the possession of someone's friend who lived nearby. After draining the oil and replacing (an oil change was due anyway!), we were finally on our way. The white smoke faded away, meaning that all rings and seals should still be intact, praise God!

That is the story of the white smoke. We have much to be thankful for! It also teaches me two things. First, when something seems wrong, it's usually worth voicing: "That dipstick looks weird... There really should be a jack point that doesn't require crawling under the car to reach... Why don't we break down in that other parking spot, the one that doesn't say "5 Minute Parking Only, Fuel Tank Filling Zone" (and yes, the fuel truck came while we were there!) Second, I definitely want to continue my quest to learn more about auto mechanics, so I can be sure I know those things, rather than just having the idea but not enough certainty to cause action!

To save yourself, work to save others

2011-10-01T22:07:00.001-05:00

While looking something up today, I came across this story. It powerfully illustrates a truth that can be very easy to miss.

I have read of a man who, journeying on a winter's day through the deep, drifted snow, became benumbed by the cold which was almost imperceptibly stealing away his vital powers. And as he was nearly chilled to death by the embrace of the frost king, and about to give up the struggle for life, he heard the moans of a brother traveler, who was perishing with cold as he was about to perish. His humility was aroused to rescue him. He chafed the ice-clad limbs of the unfortunate man, and, after considerable effort, raised him to his feet; and as he could not stand, he bore him in sympathizing arms through the very drifts he had thought he could never succeed in getting through alone. And when he had borne his fellow traveler to a place of safety, the truth flashed home to him that in saving his neighbor he had saved himself also. His earnest efforts to save another quickened the blood which was freezing in his own veins, and created a healthful warmth in the extremities of the body. These lessons must be forced upon young believers continually, not only be precept, but by example, that in their Christian experience they may realize similar results.--Testimonies, vol. 4, pp. 319, 320

The principle is true spiritually: we can't expect to stay healthy if we're not seeking to bring others to Jesus. That's definitely the most important application. But it's also true socially - if feeling lonely, look for someone to help. It's true physically - on a hike, those that feel their soreness least are the ones encouraging others (Admittedly, those who are less sore may also be more likely to encourage others, but I'm convinced the causal relationship runs the other way as well!). So don't wait - help others!

Go therefore and pick blackberries

2011-08-19T23:47:00.000-05:00

I love blackberries. Any berries, really - salmonberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries.... mmm. In general if it grows on a bush and I can pick it, it's good. Even kinds of berries most people don't really care for (salmonberries) are plenty to motivate me to spend time and collect scratches wandering in berry patches. I go so far as to tell people (mostly tongue in cheek) that I think it's my Christian duty to pick any berries I see - being eaten is really a berry's ultimate purpose, so to not eat one I had an opportunity to is to keep it from real fulfillment!

A couple nights ago, I went for a lone night run on the trails around the Weimar campus where AFCOE is held and ended up sitting on a wooden bridge over a small creek. After sitting a while, I moved my headlamp and noticed that just off to my left was a cluster of ripening blackberries. Just out of reach - or so I thought. When I got balanced just right, with my toes right on the edge, I was able to reach a few. And then noticed a few more, and a few more. Each required a little more stretching, and sometimes reaching through other less fruitful branches. I started getting a few scratches on my arms, and started having to grab branches (yes, spiny branches) to pull berries within reach.

As I was picking berries I thought to myself "It's a good thing my mother isn't here." I was alone on a trail at night, stretching out as far as I could from the edge of an aging, unrailed bridge. There was a definite possibility of falling, and if I did, I would certainly meet the blackberry bush on the way down before landing somewhere on the steep bank dropping off toward the creek. And even if I didn't fall, I was knowingly subjecting myself to a fair degree of scratches and pokes.

Weighing everything in the balance, I decided to keep picking blackberries. You see, I love blackberries. A few scratches didn't even stack up at all against the joy of popping those perfectly-ripe flavor grenades in my waiting mouth.

Then the thought came to me, if I'm willing to go through all this for blackberries, how much more is it worth sacrificing to tell people about Jesus? Quite a bit. (Infinitely more?)

(Before you send my mother to come get me, the stream was less than 6 feet below and really only a tranquil trickle.) But the point remains - I'm willing take risks and put up with a fair degree of discomfort for the sake of blackberries. How much risk am I willing to take and how much discomfort will I put up with to pick people?

The importance of Purpose

2011-08-16T19:34:00.001-05:00

This summer, for the first time in 5 years, I didn't work a summer job. I was planning to go to medical school this fall, and wanted a chance to see my family and dear friends (time with whom has been precious and scarce, living far from home and working all of the last 4 summers!) But in doing so, I lost two things that had been important parts of my last 4 summers. I didn't make a conscious decision to live with a ministry purpose, and I didn't have a group of others who had made that decision to spur me on and keep me accountable. As an insightful friend put it: "It's hard to stay focused without something to focus on."

It fits in very well with a concept I learned today in my first day at Amazing Facts Center for Evangelism. It's not a new concept, per se, but fresh in my mind. There are three (at least) major disciplines in the Christian walk: Bible study, prayer, and witnessing/sharing. Without all three, it's hard to grow spiritually. If Bible study is like eating, and prayer the breath of the soul, sharing about Jesus might be like exercise. You can't live without it. It may come through daily tasks, but if it's not there somewhere, you'll atrophy. Get bedsores. Lose pulmonary function. And worse!

(Now you don't have to be officially working in a job focused on leading people to Jesus to have that purpose. It's even possible to be employed in and still not care about evangelism. But I hope whatever you're doing, you do it looking for ways to share Jesus with others. I know when I don't, life just isn't as much fun!)

"Working to bring people to Jesus will change your life. It's the greatest joy this side of heaven." - Wes Peppers

Summer + new year.

2009-08-18T09:57:00.002-05:00

Wow, I haven't blogged in a long time.

Summer was crazy fun, working with IRR training in Colorado (an amazing place to be with 45 other outdoors nuts. Basically camping all summer while they learned rescue and I cooked, then going on adventures on weekends - camping/backpacking, of course!) Then summer camp, working maintenance in Washington. A lot of fun, something new to do every day, and got to help out Waterfront and Challenge Course on occasion too. With more outdoors adventures on days off.

And now back to Union for my Junior year. Still IRR premed, but starting to wonder if God might have other plans besides med school afterward. We'll see.

School starts today, but I got here about a week ago-early for RA training. It's the first day of classes, but all I have are chapel (optional, and doesn't happen the first week) at 10:30 and then Physics lab at 2:00. And my first class of any morning is 10:30, a good thing considering how late RA's are often up - 11:30 would be the absolute earliest bedtime even possible.

I'm taking Physics and 3 honors classes, only 15 hours. Could be crazy. And checking if I need to add a 3 credit World religion. I hope not... I'd love to have a little free time to take guitar and/or piano lessons again.

Three Cups of Tea

2008-11-28T00:01:00.002-05:00

This may not make complete sense if you haven't read Three Cups of Tea. I could provide a brief synopsis for your benefit, but I'm not sure it would be. It might be of more benefit for me to leave you wondering, and have you actually read the book. I recommend it highly.

I just finished Three Cups of Tea - late at night, again, proving to me there's a lot more time in my day than I think, at least for things I really care about. It pretty much cuts through any excuses about not knowing how to make a difference, or not having time, or...

It's sweet to see how people with so completely different backgrounds and perspectives can and do agree and pull together on real issues. The point one of the main characters, Haji Ali, kept driving home, that you never go somewhere without getting to know someone respected there is so easy to forget - but I wonder how many mission and NGO messes come from exactly that. And the scene from when the first school, in Korphe, is finally under construction - and Mortenson (protagonist) is trying to hurry everything along and Haji Ali pulls him aside and takes away his clipboard, and tells him to calm down, to stop trying to hurry the construction along, driving everyone crazy in the process - that's a lesson I've been being taught, and I'm sure still need to learn, about how often my ways, or new ways, are actually not better at all. And then when it was all done, getting the ledger book back with every expense recorded, exactly, better than he could have done it himself.

I just looked up the verse that speaks to that same idea "do not think too highly of yourself..." I didn't realize how much of that chapter seems to fit with what 3 Cups has me thinking about. "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices..." "Honor one another above yourselves..." "Never be lacking in zeal..." "Share with God's people who are in need" "if your enemy is hungry, feed him... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12 - (and there's a lot of good stuff in between those snippets, too!)

God, Outdoors, and Service

2008-10-09T07:50:00.005-05:00

I wrote God a letter this morning. About how in the last few days, I haven't been taking enough time to really notice Him and enjoy what He's done. Which for me, starts a downhill spiral - the less I spend quality time with Him, the less I want to. That's a bad direction to be going, until either God gets my attention, or I notice how much I'm missing Him, just by how much less exciting my life becomes (I'm sure God's involved in me noticing that too). And it started me thinking: how exactly does that happen? I've noticed for a long time that it does. But how? Here's what I thought of:

I started thinking about the outdoors. Why is it that I seem to need to be outside, regularly? More specifically, why do I need to spend time with God outdoors? Not because God can only be found outdoors. Not because I can only concentrate on Him outdoors. Neither of those are true - so why? The reason that makes most sense to me is, because outdoors is where I can see the little (and big) things God does for us, not because He had to or is supposed to, but because He loves us. The absolutely absurd - and totally unnecessary - bands of plum and salmon and glowing coals at sunrise. The delicate, pale pink and white striping on the 1/4 inch flower that I nearly squashed by the side of the gravel path at Holmes Lake. The undulating waves of long grass blown by the chilly Nebraskan October winds. The things that remind me, not just my head, but my heart too, that God loves me.

Then service came up. Why is that so important? Not from a standpoint of belief, but from experience - if I'm not active, serving, my own relationship with God suffers. Why's that? I was already thinking about God and the outdoors in the relationship analogy - Pr. Collette's description of it as "God giving me chocolate" comes to mind. Where would that perspective put service? As doing things together - shared activities? If the outdoors fit into the love language "gifts", could this be "quality time?" Maybe - but isn't worship "quality time?" Perhaps it is - but I can hardly see it as doing something together. If the Bible is a love letter, helping an elderly couple move to a new apartment is kayaking in the Boundary Waters together. Or maybe building a treehouse with your dad.

Worship, as quality time, might be a deep conversation. But actually, to think about it, I see that more as prayer - real, two sided prayer. Worship - (not church - which includes worship, and prayer, and...) I see as "words of affirmation". Recognizing and then expressing the good qualities we find in God. And with Him, when we say good, we'd better think amazing or incredible.

I'd bet we could carry it further - link acts of service to God answering prayer, perhaps, or stepping in to answer prayers we didn't pray. Try to figure something out to put for "physical touch," just to round it out. But I'm not going to - for today, I'm enjoying God's gifts to me - I saw the sunrise again this morning, and it's another blue dome and crispy shadows day outside my window. I'm enjoying memories of "kayaking" with Him and looking forward to doing more together soon. Keeping my eyes open for opportunities to worship and affirm. And simply being glad God got my attention again.

I choose life - and more

2008-10-02T06:40:00.006-05:00

"Would I want to become a Christian like me if I was not a Christian and observed me "being" a Christian today?" Pr. Rich wrote in his morning email yesterday. It's an incredibly important and relevant question. "Would I want to become a Christian like me if I was not a Christian and observed me "being" a Christian today?"

I should hope the answer is yes, resoundingly. If not, there's something missing.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10 - Among the things the thief loves to steal, kill, and destroy is our joy and fullness of life. And what better thing to destroy? If we don't have life, and life to the full, why should anyone want to have what (better Who) we have?

Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." And "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3). I read that: Life_{_{with Jesus}} = Life_{_{Eternal, Full}} .

If knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ is eternal life, when does eternal life start?

If by being with Him we have life that's full and eternal, can we be with Him and have life that is less that full? I don't know. Maybe by holding onto parts of our own life, the way they were before, keeping Him from filling them?

I'm picturing one of those long, skinny balloons that balloon artists use to make figures - dogs, flowers.... all of that. It comes empty, naturally. The balloon artist fills it - but if someone is holding onto the balloon, as it was before, not letting it fill and swell - well, it doesn't! It stays there, kinked.

At first, that's where I thought the analogy broke down. Because kinks are essential for balloon art. Without them, the balloon just stays straight - no sculpture. But notice - the artist always blows the balloon up first, so He can place the kinks where they need to go to fit in the sculpture. Now, if there's a kink in the balloon naturally, He can probably still use it - but He's limited, has to work around a kink He didn't want. Three or four or more kinks - we're limiting Him even more - but He's an amazing artist, and He still knows how to use us.

As easy and familiar as that empty shape felt, it's always worth the stretching of being filled.

"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." Mk 10:29, 30

Does that say a hundred times more in the age to come?

"With them, persecutions," - but even with that in the picture, it still says we "receive a hundred times more" just in this age than we give up - not counting the next!

Life_{_{with Jesus}} = 100 Life_{_{without Jesus}} + Eternity

God's answer to my questions

2008-09-23T07:20:00.001-05:00

I'm amazed by how directly God has answered my questions about whether to commit to going on an IRR hurricane response tomorrow, missing a week of school. From this morning (well, actually yesterday morning by date, but I always bump the schedule back a day so I can have a lesson on Sabbath morning that's relevant, rather than not having one then and starting the next week's topic Sabbath afternoon - which isn't when I have study time):

From CQ (the collegiate quarterly)
"There is need of coming close to the people by personal effort. If less time were given to sermonizing, and more time were spent in personal ministry, greater results would be seen. The poor are to be relieved, the sick cared for, the sorrowing and the bereaved comforted, the ignorant instructed, the inexperienced counseled. We are to weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice. Accompanied by the power of persuasion, the power of prayer, the power of the love of God, this work will not, cannot, be without fruit." - MH 143, 144

"To everyone who becomes a partaker of His grace the Lord appoints a work for others. Individually we are to stand in our lot and place, saying, 'Here I am; send me.' Isaiah 6:8" - MH 148

And then from the adult quarterly (I translate from the Spanish)

"The point here is that Isaiah, without divine intervention, unless his sins were blotted out, or covered, could not have done anything for God. He had to put himself right with God first; only then could God use Him.

In short, the message to me:
"Go - don't let worries about school keep you from love and service. That's what I'm calling you, all of you, to - not to get jobs in the church or as missionaries, but to love and sacrifice for those I put around you. --- But wait, before you get caught up in serving me and all you think you have to do - I come first. You need me, or it won't work."

The (ig) nobility of independence

2008-09-14T20:19:00.002-05:00

I'd long believed that independence was undisputably a virtue. That being a bother, asking for help unless absolutely necessary, well, simply shouldn't be done. I'm beginning to think I was incredibly deluded. In fact, trying not to bother people (at least at times) can even offend the very people one was trying not to bother.

Asking for help:

Affirms the person asked.

Builds friendships.

And can sure make life a lot easier.

Memories - heart cargo

2008-08-24T21:00:00.002-05:00

It seems strange even to me, but today is the first time I've really thought back, pulled up memories, revisited the part of my life in and around Pucallpa, Peru. There was a lot there, a lot that I didn't even realize. Depth of feeling. Love. Pain. Longing. Joys and regrets. Sadness for a little brother I barely got to know. Longings for people I learned to love - Jenni, Mauro, my SM family, Hermano Miqueas. Friendships - Alfonso, the taxi driver I'd eat supper with, and the watch repairman who's name I can't even remember, but who I could sit and talk with for hours, even if my visits were months apart. The lady with the clothes stall in the market, who never forgot my telling her about harvesting pineapple - or that I needed to buy more clothes from her - and how happy she was when again, at the very end of my time, I needed to, getting long sleeve shirts to cover my healing skin. I'm not one who easily cries - not that I conciously avoid it, but the need to rarely seems to come up. But I've cried three times this summer - each time, seemingly for a different reason, feeling alone on a bus, overwhelmed by a non-stop camp schedule and responsibilities - but I can't help thinking that those weren't the real, or only reason. They were forerunners of the single tear that ran down my cheek while I looked at Jenni's pictures and wrote this paragraph. One lonely tear - and the feeling of some enormous weight lodged behind my sternum, for friends, memories, for Willem, still keeping all those little trees out of the junge by hand, hoping for a tractor, and for Hector.

I didn't know how much I loved that cute little 7 month old - it's just starting to hit me now. I know I can't tell his story as well as Jenni already has (http://memories.touchofloveperu.org/). I wish a lot of things. For heaven, when I'll get to see that little guy again - with no more ever-present IV tubing, no more viral loads. And that until then, this world had more people like Jenni, willing to to take on the task of loving little baby boys dying of starvation, and keep at it, even after finding out what a miracle we were asking for. And for me, I choose to live that way - loving, even knowing it will - or does - hurt: schedule, pocket, ego, body, or, hardest of all, heart.

Camp and Learning

2008-07-24T13:22:00.002-05:00

Camp - at once fulfilling and utterly frustrating. Perhaps that's partly because of the reentry experience rolled in there. The campers have been generally amazing, and the staff too. I love weekdays and Sabbaths, and nearly go insane most Sundays--despite the fact that it's (usually) my day off. Because until these last few weeks, I knew that if I took the day off, the trip would not be ready to leave Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. Or I was just too worried that even taking time off, my mind couldn't.

But the good side is much more significant. It's hard to pin down - mostly, just being with people who love God and love others, and getting to make a difference. From the moments when my campers open up and let their thoughts about God show, to today's high of showing our office staff the wonders of mail merge (That was a huge rush! If you don't know what I'm talking about and ever find yourself wishing you didn't have to do some repetitive task in Microsoft Word, you might want to find out.)

Long time

2008-05-28T02:07:00.002-05:00

This blog is long overdue. Since my last post, I:
- finished up the Bible work I was doing with Hermano Miqueas,
- got 1st degree burns on my right arm and face, (thank God they weren't more serious - they're almost completely healed now)
- helped prepare for and run a clinic with a group of volunteers from Michigan,
- flew to my new "home" in Oroville, CA,
- visited PUC
- attended Keri's graduation at Maxwell
and am now spending a couple weeks with her in Uganda.

Each of those is worth a post of its own, but only time will tell if they ever get it.

My People are Perishing for Lack of Knowledge

2008-04-14T18:22:00.003-05:00

They are. For lack of knowledge about Peru´s free state insurance, they are suffering from dengue at home instead of going to the health posts. For lack of knowledge about God´s love, they are perishing in alcoholism. And their children are looking at the same dead future, without dependable food now, or schooling to fill their lack of knowledge.

It´s true - there are people dying, some quickly, some slowly, all around me, because of what they don´t know. Ignorance

A thinking - judge for yourself.

2008-04-07T19:24:00.001-05:00

I´ve spent some time thinking about what could be the line to know when to keep things or spend on self - on things like education, health... If I trully put others first, won´t I live a life worse off than the hardest off person I have contact with? Maybe - unless by doing so, I diminish my ability to help others in need. That´s where I´ve ended up - that the criteria really always is how can I best serve my neighbor. I have to keep up reasonable health, and maybe educate myself to be able to accomplish greater good. Why me instead of someone else? No reason, except that if I´m really thinking and putting others first, the investment won´t be wasted. If I´m not committed to living that way, better for me to look for someone more committed than I am and spend on them. (Which means, I´d better get busy loving my neighbors more than myself, even if only because I want to have a good reason to make my own upkeep and education justifiable!)

Bible Work

2008-03-23T17:14:00.002-05:00

I´ve been working with Brother Miqueas as a Bible instructor this past week, and will be doing that until the end of April. I like it a lot - lots of chances to talk with people, a project I feel is really important (reinforcing the churches that haven´t grown too much since being planted by the project). It´s really good for my Spanish too. I´m staying with a church member´s family, a nice middle class home for here, with a concrete floor, canister gas stove, 2 bedrooms, living room, and kitchen. They also have a separate shed for a bathroom, running water, and a shed/motokar garage (the dad works as a mototaxi driver) and big thatched roofed, opensided chicken house, where they raise 500 chicks for sale. None in it right now, but some to come soon apparently. I eat breakfast (a few white bread rolls and some tea - not so good for me, but that´s what they eat - and it´s real tea too - may work on that, there´s good popular herbal teas around, at the same price, and just as common) and then after I leave to meet with Hermano Miqueas, some fruit from a vendor. Lunch is with some other family, by turns -- rice, with some veggie stew with one largish meat chunk, usually. Supper, I´m on my own. Or so I hope. They wanted to make me eat all the meals by turn, but besides it being harder on the families, it´s harder for me. More running around town, more dealing with weird schedules, more unpredictable food. With me handling supper, and a half breakfast, mostly for socializing, I can put in my fruits and veggies, or whatever else might lack. And if I need to, I can leave the little suburb in the evenings (after these first two weeks, when we have meetings each night) to do email or other work, especially making my fundraising project possible.

In between times, so far we´ve been visiting already baptized families, mostly, and visiting together. Miqueas knows them, since he worked with them in the campaign to baptize them. He thus tends to dominate the conversation, since he knows them better and can talk faster. But I´m getting to know most people now, and have made some contacts of my own, especially on the day it rained and he didn´t show up (Peru rain phobia - you´ll get sick in the rain. Maybe you will. I don´t think you get cold enough in such warm rain that it makes a dif, and we both have raincoat/poncho or something. Manuel, another guy, believes that wet shirts are incredibly unhealthy. Or more precisely, drying shirts. The sweat and water have to be going somewhere, so obviously the body is reabsorbing it. I figure it´s probably evaporating. But all that reabsorbing means you´re taking all the toxins back in.... Some medicine and science stuff, I just have to keep my mouth shut on. Like that Dengue fever gets cured by ¨cool¨ herbs, not medicines. True, medicine doesn´t cure Dengue - there isn´t a cure, just symptomatic treatment. It goes away in 3-10 days, normally (unless you´re one of the unfortunate few). Hmm, funny thing, 3 days, that´s how long ¨cool¨ took to cure Miqueas. But who knows, the herbs might have some impact. I haven´t studied it, so I can´t say for sure. Stuff like that.)

(Text borrowed from a Happy Birthday letter to my beautiful sister.)

Going Fishing

2008-02-10T14:41:00.002-05:00

The silvery projectile bounced off my arm and fell to the floor, wriggling in the black plastic bag holding my lunch. It´s a flying fish, fresh out of the Ucayali river, that just flew in the side of the peki peki.

I thought about picking it up. I thought about taking a picture of it, as it´s shining, almost-white silver body writhed between my feet. But, I´ve never been a fisherman. And, I was scared. Not white, what-am-I-going-to-do-now scared, but do-I-really-want-to-touch-this, what-if-it-has-spines scared. And before I could get over that, it flopped down the crack between floor slats into the belly of the boat, still visible 4 inches below. I got out my camera, but found to my dismay that the batteries were, very inconveniently, completely dead. (I supply a fairly close approximation. I´m going to get my camera in full working order, and I will use it. I will force myself. Even though I hate to - because it makes me stand out more like a tourist or spectator, less like one of the crowd. But I know I´ll wish for more pictures later. And I know you wish for more pictures now!) And Brent and I laughed - such is ordinary weirdness of Ucayali River travel. Our trip to Masisea, (to visit and check up on a new church planted this last summer) was right on track.

When we got to the port, the motokar drivers all squeesed onto the narrow space a the bow, pushing forward, bent double under the wooden roofrack/sunshade trying to secure passengers. Of course, two white boys must be needing a motokar, so we were the first targets. When we didn´t show interest in any of their offers, the let us out and up the muddy clay bank, where we were again barraged by offers. Oh, the looks on their faces as I told them we were walking! They informed us that Masisea was still three and a half kilometers away; I laughed inside. I´d walked it in 15 minutes the last time I came. I won´t argue with the distance though. I´ll just let myself think that Brent and I are simply amazing, 10 mph speedwalkers, even at what seems to us a leisurely pace! (That time´d make for a two-and-a-half hour marathon time - just imagine if we tried running!)

As we walked past the church on the way into town, we noticed the doors open and the Ruis family already inside, who told us they were waiting for sundown worship at 5 o´clock. The time: 4:52 pm. Brent and I rushed to the hostel to drop off our backpacks and switch out our sweaty t-shirts. I even sneaked a quick rinse-shower, and we walked the 3 blocks back to the church (5:13 pm) to find no one there! Hermano Ruis, who lives right across the street, sitting outside his house, and appologized to him for getting there so late, thinking that the worship had been unusually short. My puzzlement was justified - he told me they were still waiting for more people to arrive. We finally had worship, and a good one at that, at around 6:10pm. I never did find out if we´d simply been told the wrong time, or if we experienced Perú reaching new heights of excellence.

Sabbath morning brought new happy surprizes: more people at Sabbath School, a children´s Sabbath School leader, everything more organized, and the members participating, confidently and competently. When I first visited in October, one couple, the only Adventists in town before July, had to lead having prayers up font, I-whisper-to-you, you-repeat-after-me style. I´d come ready and expecting to be called on to fill in any/almost all of the service, like I´d had happen on previous visits. Today, everything was so under control, everyone prepared and organized, all I found to do was join in as a second adult present in children´s Sabbath School! After the sermon, we got to see the inauguration of the new grupos peqeños (small groups of 1-3 couples that meet together for Bible study and work together to invite new people into their circle). Each had put a lot of thought and work into deciding on and presenting their group´s name, key verse, and goals, and we prayed for God´s blessing on groups Luz Divina, El Rey David, y Jose (Divine Light, King David, and Joseph).

After a couple hours for lunch and descanso (rest), we met again, at the other end of town, to visit church members who hadn´t shown up or other people interested. At each house we´d sing a couple greeting, handshaking songs, had a short thought from the Bible, talked a little and had prayer.
I even got the chance to visit some people I knew. Nahi Flores, and her little boy, Jan, who I´d met the last time I´d come. Jan loves coloring and Bible stories. He wants to learn to read too. But the only book the family has is the old Bible - and Mom´s eyes are too old now to see the little print. No one sells Bibles in Masisea; the smiles on their faces were incredible when they saw the Giant Print Bible from Pucallpa. And the family of the pastor of the Living Water church - they stopped me in the street when they saw me walking into town with the Bible for Nahi on Friday, and wanted to send money with me to bring another one. When they asked where I was going to church, my answer was met with the exclamation ¨Across from the our friends the Ruis´ house?¨ Yup, that same Ruis house, where they´re having Bible study twice a week.

It´s amazing how friendly and receptive people are - not a one person we visited seemed in the least annoyed! At worship that night, during sharing time about the day, I realized, ¨This is the best Sabbath afternoon I can remember.¨ Really fulfilling - a Sabbath spent like it was meant to be - reaching out, not hiding away. And despite having walked all afternoon, I felt rested and ready for the week to come. Hey, they always said fishing was relaxing - I just happen to like the happy, handshaking fish betterh than slimy silvery ones! (¨Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men.¨ - Matthew 4:19 NIV)

Before, a few people showed up late Sabbath morning, fumbled through the motions, and headed home. No one made the trip for Friday vespers or Sabbath afternoon programs. The difference in the church´s atmosphere, the energy the members have for spiritual growth and reaching out - it´s incredible. They´re ALIVE!

The difference? The last two weeks, a Bible worker has been in Masisea. He´s not running the church, or leading the small groups. He´s not doing all the preaching, or teaching the Sabbath School classes. The members are. But he´s made a huge difference.

Imagine yourself a new church member, just baptized after an evangelistic campaign. You´ve never spent any time in a church before. Maybe you´ve never been at all. Or you´ve been to a couple Christmas masses, and were baptized as a baby. After the baptisms are over, the campaigns are done, what are you supposed to do? You´ve no examples, no mentors, no idea where to get materials or ideas. But you´re pretty much on your own, to grow or fall away.

In many areas, there really are no Adventists around. In others, while there are, they´re already full up with responsibilities. One pastor may have 20 or 30 churches under his care (you can imagine how much individual attention he can give!).

You don´t take a baby, buy it a house, and ask it to grow up and take care of itself. But spiritually, that´s awfully close to what´s happening. Why? There´s simply not been ¨parents¨ available. But that can change. That needs to change. How? Leave a Bible worker behind, after each evangelistic campaign, to be there to answer those important questions: ¨We´re suposed to ´grow in faith,´ - but how? ¨I liked that idea about personal devotions - but what if I don´t understand what I´m reading?¨ ¨How do I know what to say when someone asks me about why I keep Sabbath - I remember reading about it in the Bible, but where was that?¨ ¨And how am I supposed to find Habakkuk, anyway?¨

The results can be amazing. It´s not too long before those ¨babes in the faith¨ are growing up, ready to talk, share what they´ve found. Then standing confidently, even helping new Brothers and Sisters. And not too long after that, they´ll be ready to move out, starting up new churches, in new places, walking firm in the Spirit. Only there are so many churches that need nourishing, never enough people or resources to send them with. Pray that God will tap some shoulders.

¨Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,¨ - 1 Peter 2:2 NIV

¨When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.¨ 1 Corinthians 13:11, NIV

Calaminas, Trusses, Travels

2008-02-10T11:38:00.000-05:00

Friday, 5:25 am - I head to the kitchen to start cooking breakfast. A satisfying (but slow cooking) breakfast of lentils with cabbage and a very fine, somewhat quinoa-like grain, I´m catching up on proteins, whole grains, and vegetables, since both the past week and the weekend to come were mostly away from home - restaurants and people´s houses - meaning rice and meat, with (maybe) an occaisional egg or salad or soup. With leaving out the meat, that´s a lot of white rice, especially since right now, with the only road to Lima washed away by flooding, vegetables are scarce and expensive.

The morning started a little earlier than the normal 6:10, but it´s not a normal day either. Rather than the usual routine of work in the chacra, I´m headed in, toward Pucallpa, to a little neighborhood called La Perla. Since Monday, I´ve been working with the crew of guys building a church for the new congregation there.

I´ve been sleeping most nights in the first elder´s son´s house, but since I´ll be heading off in the noonish peki peki for a trip upriver to visit another new church in Masisea, I headed home last night to get Sabbath clothes and leave off dirty laundry and other unecessaries. But that means leaving home early to get to work at even close to a decent hour! First, the 5 minute walk out our dirt road/long driveway to the recently paved careterra. Then, between 30 seconds and 30 minutes of walking along the road, waiting for a taxi, combi (minibus), or motokar (motorcycle modified into a 1-driver, 3-very-friendly-passengers tricycle). If a taxi comes by, it´ll be 30ish minutes to my drop off point. If a combi, 45 minutes. If it´s a motokar, 10 minutes to Campo Verde, where I can catch a taxi. When I get off the taxi, at the dirt road to Acho Mego, it´s another 10-15 minutes motokar to the church. Sum total: 45 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes. My actual (and fairly average) time this morning: 1 hour.

The last three days of work had moved us from having twelve 4¨x5¨ posts in the ground for the two walls to having all the roof supports up, ready for nailing on the corrugated tin. (I wish I´d been more faithful in taking pictures - I´ll be working on that. I´ve gotten too lazy in using pictures from our faithful photographer, Laura. She gets lots of good ones, but she can´t be everywhere, and I´m often not where I can get them from her either.)

This morning, thankfully, the roofing sheets had been delivered on time, and the contractor had brought an extra helper, bringing the total up to 5 guys - constructor, his helper, another experienced roofer, the church elder, and me. We attacked both sides, constructor with his helper on one, roofer and elder on the other. I landed in gofer - haulding and handing up the 3ft x 10 ft. sheets to both crews, keeping them supplied with nails, etc.

By 11 am. we´d finished the first row. With only two rows plus ridgecap required, and the second row being half-size sheets, it looked impressive. But the second row is twice as hard - out of reach for getting supplies, and with the extra care of not messing up the first row by stepping on it! I´ll have to ask later how it went - by then, it was time for me to be leaving for the riverport for a weekend church visit.

Fix My Eyes Too

2008-02-03T16:36:00.000-05:00

The list is full. 45 people: 78-year-old cataract-laden grandmas; tooth-gapped first graders; sun-weathered farmers; and mothers of three under-four-year-olds. And people are waiting around the door, asking if I can add them to the list. It seems everyone in the caserio needs glasses.

One man, Wilder Huaman Pacasmayo, waits anxiously, knowing he, with his father and brother, are almost last on the list, fifteen people still to go. Each time I call out a name, he quickly searches the huddles of faces gathered nearby, and whenever The Called One cannot be found, he triumfantly calls out, ¨¡No esta!¨, ¨Ya se fue,¨ or ¨Esta en medicina,¨(¨Not here!¨, ¨They already left,¨ or ¨They´re in the medical clinic.¨) ¨

Finally, I reach his father on this list: ¨Humberto Huaman Rios?¨

Wilder looks slightly distressed, ¨He´s close!¨ he assures me as his brother, Alfredo, runs to look for good old dad. As always, I move on down the list, to come back later for anyone who wasn´t present at their turn.

¨Alfredo Huaman Pacasmayo?¨It´s the running-away brother, now disappearing into the school building where the medical clinic is being held.

¨Should I go get him?¨ asks Wilder.¨
¨It´s alright. I´ll call him again later,¨ I assure Wilder, knowing he´s next anyway. Even if he ran after his brother, I´d still have to call another patient before either of them. With more patients that I we see already lined up, there´s no time for waiting with an empty optician´s chair. But Wilder´s nervous energy is still running high; before he can hear my reply, he´s already gone in seach of his brother, who´s seaching for dad.

¨Olivia Paredes?¨ Chuckling, I´m on to my next patient, sure that at least this time, I´m sure to see my missing patient back again before the afternoon is over.

A few patients proved less humorous and more trying on the patience. One twenty-year-old, Veronica, tested with perfect vision. She insisted that every lens measurement on my test wands made her vision worse, but ¨the glasses my friend loaned me were PERFECT!¨ The weakest lenses, +0.50, were bearable (as expected for someone who doesn´t need any at all) and she wanted a pair! However, besides my objections to giving someone glasses they didn´t need, all the available pairs of +0.50 glasses, in Sahara vs. thunderstorm contrast to the +0.50 tester, left her saying, ¨Completely fuzzy, dark. I can´t see anything!¨ Why? All the +0.50 lenses I had were 1914 vintage, two inches in diameter. Obviously not stylish, and for Veronica, trying to hop on the village´s new fad, they simply wouldn´t do! (Didn´t we have some like her friend´s, a trendy pair of -2.75´s? Only without prescription lenses?) It took some persuading, but she finally believed me that no glasses would work quite right for her.

Later in the week, Josué Murayari, a we recognized from Monday´s clinic came back, his new glasses in hand. ¨Are your glasses working alright?¨ Brent asked him.

¨Oh, they´re great! I see perfect now.¨He replied. ¨Only, I still can´t read at night very well.¨

¨Do you have a light?¨

¨Yeah, I see fine when I have one. It´s only the dark times that are a problem still.¨

Our stock of night vision goggles was unusually low that day, so the only option was to recommend he stay in the light.

Hundreds of patients, each with their own different story. All (ok, almost all) earnestly seeking clearer vision. But am I? Looking for a clearer picture of who God is, and who he wants me to be? Or am I so anxious about what others around me are doing that I miss out on God calling to me (a lá Wilder)? Am I willing to tolerate vision that´s as ¨in a mirror dimly¨ if it makes me look better here, rather than holding out to see ¨face to Face,¨ a lá Veronica ? Or maybe wondering why I can´t see God´s leading, when the trouble is not that it´s not clear, but instead of following the Light, I´m trying to see in the dark places I don´t need to be going, like Josué?

I want to see, and I pray you do too.

¨Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.¨
Psalm 119:18, NIV

Baaa

2008-01-22T16:42:00.000-05:00

White grubs, 3/8 inch long, wriggle as I pick them out from the rotten flesh between the two halves of a deep brown ewe´s back right hoof. The first time, Tomas pulled out around a hundred and twenty. By the third day of treatment, there are only two. Neither of us bothered to count the little, 1/16th inch worms or the eggs, both are far too many. The hoof is still swollen to two and a half times the size of the healthy one on the left side, and the sheep won´t even touch it to the ground. My hand gets so stinky just from holding the hoof still while I work with forceps that even after two washings with strong bar soap, the smell disgusts me when I try to eat afterward. Only the special, fruit essence smelling soap covers it sufficiently.

The treatment regimen; wash with soap and water, soak the hoof in gasoline, pick out any eggs or grubs that wriggle to the surface, coat with old motor oil to prevent new eggs being laid. Perhaps I got ahead of myself - actually, the routine starts with 15 minutes of chasing sheep, then continues where I began. The sheep are not docile, easy to pick up fluffies like in the Jesus pictures. They have short wiry hair, like a Doberman Pinsher´s, and look like goats. They love to hide under the old mission house, built threee-and-a-half feet high on stilts. No problem for two foot sheep. Lots of problems for 5´7¨ me. And they´re fast. Even if they can be persuaded to go into their pen (a doubtful and tiring task, involving a lot of running through high grass and a little animal psychology), they dash from one corner to another unless very carefully cornered. You have to approach from almost exactly the middle of the angle between the two fence lines coming together to a corner. As the sheep considers one way of escape, then the other, you have to make just enough motion in that direction to make it reconsider, not enough though to make it sure it should run the other way. Sadly, having only three weight-bearing legs makes little difference in sheep velocity.

Several days of this, and an eventual switch to using Gensiana de Violeta, a deep purple antimicrobial ointment and a antiparisite spray eventually calm the infection down. The foot is still swollen, but starting to take some weight, barely stinks, and hasn´t had worms or eggs for over a week. If we had a raised stable, with wooden slat floors to keep the sheep hooves out of the dirt at night, and a tray of copper sulfate, we probably wouldn´t have to deal with this. But the thought of building one is far in the future, when God provides funding (first we have to get some more urgent needs out of the way - electricity and a tractor, etc).

Short Update

2008-01-07T11:14:00.000-05:00

After a nice 2-week vacation (though very busy and bus-y, with a total of about 56 hours on buses, with quite a few more buying and comparing tickets, etc), life at 38 is setting back to normal. Campaign is coming up next week, we´re gettting close to finishing clearning out the second half of our orchard-to-be, and running our cultivadora (weedeater, a heavy duty model with a chest harness, that we usually use with a metal blade rather than string) hard to make up for the slack built up in the 3ish months it was in court custody after someone tried to steal it (somehow hand macheteing we ended up cutting a lot less area than we´d have wanted clear around the houses, for snake, bug, security, and asthetic considerations.) And my time is up. I´ll try to catch up on vacation happenings later, but life always seems so busy, I never know if I really will.

Titicaca

2007-12-24T19:36:00.000-05:00

Pictures of Lake Titicaca, the Floating Islands, and Taquile. Merry Christmas!

Machu Picchu

2007-12-20T13:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, it´s beautiful. And it isn´t as crowded as Disneyworld. Actually, Keri and I managed to get a few pictures taken that show very few people.

We also wandered around some very impressive cathedrals in Cusco, mostly built on partly remaining Inka ruins. And walked aroud some craft markets, rode come colectivos (taxis from city to city, that wait to leave until full). And much more, I´m sure. I´m just not so good at remembering it.

Now, we're about to take a night bus to Bolivia, on Lake Titicaca. Even my travel-jaded (though still travel-loving) self is a little excited.

A long, long time

2007-12-17T18:45:00.000-05:00

It has been. A long time, that is, since I last wrote a blot. I´m not even sure where to start now. Perhaps with a few highlights I hope I haven´t written about any of this before (yes, it´s been that long, so long I don´t know how long it´s been!)

Clinic always makes good memories. This time they are of a lot of (well deserved) teasing about my slightly disturbing to fall asleep suddenly (and sometimes inappropriately!). While I´ve gotten used to flighting (with varying degrees of success) against it in the Sabbath School at 38, I rose to new heights (fell to new depths?) by nearly falling asleep talking with a patient, and missing a couple of the night evangelistic meetings due to not being awake. I definitely am glad it hasn´t been a consistent trend.

The next week, I got to spend a day with Hermano Alfredo, an expert at making finished lumber out of big trees, a chalk line, and a chainsaw. It´s amazing what he can do, and even better that he´s a good teacher too. That was the main point of the day, for me to get to learn enough to be able to work on recovering the fair amount of fallen timber on the land, so it won´t rot, burn, or otherwise disappear and be wasted. I can still use a lot of practice, but I think I can cut some tolerable tablones, (planks between 2-4 inches thick, 3 or 4 meters long, and as wide as the logs will take, after accounting for curves, twists, and tapers).

I´ve also had some interesting times on my days off, trying to get tickets and plans figured out for the two weeks of travel we have in December, to leave the country for new visas and just see a bit more of this amazing country. Sometimes stressful, or confusing, but very educational.

And now, actually going on the trip. It started on Saturday night. Our first adventure turned out to be simply finding the bus company´s office. After walking around for a few minutes, dangerously close to our departure time, we gave in and hired a motokar (tricycle taxi) who took us to the right spot, just in time to board fairly peacefully and settle into the orange and blue seats before setting out on the looong, 20ish hour trip to Lima. I slept a fair amount, and then woke up to amazing Andes scenery. But about that time, I started feeling a wee bit sickly. An odd, not quite nauseous feeling, and a lot of burping. Then after climbing some stairs at a bathroom-and-breakfast break, I felt light headed, and had to sit down to avoid fainting (I was told ¨Your lips look the same color as your teeth¨with an unknown measure of exaggeration).

The dizziness went away, but the odd burp kept up, and a couple hours from the end, I finally succumbed to true nausea. Most went in the convenient plastic baggie provided for such events, and what didn´t used up most of my meager TP supply cleaning my shoes, lower pant legs, backpack, and floor. Fortunately, not very much in any of those places! Also, I immediately felt much better.

On arriving in Lima, I immediately headed to the airport (though probably a little slow, since I was figuring out on the fly Lima´s chaotic bus system - or is system an appropriate word? It got me there, so won´t bash that, and cheaply too).

From there, it was back to the Plaza de Armas, to meet up with the other SMs again, where we happened on a parade with a crack military drill team. Next, supper at a Chifa (Chinese-Peruvian food) and back to the airport for check in. Back out to an internet cafe to let my parents know Keri, my sister, had arrived safely, then back into the airport to sleep on the benches before our morning flights - Keri and I to Cusco, and the other SMs to Arequipa. A little sad that we ended up traveling separately, due to my tendency to try to pack too much in too little time, but with hopes of possibly crossing paths, as we´re headed to mostly the same destinations.

Just let me burn!

2007-11-22T19:04:00.000-05:00

Really, I´ve been wanting to. A lot. For a long time. (I´m trying to keep this minimally confusing, so I´ll tell you right now, there´s more than one level to this.) Acutely since about 2 months ago, when the tangles of underbrush and thorns a ways back on the Project´s land started falling by the edge of the sword, (some people call them machetes) and growing stronger with every sunny day, [and maybe even more with the rainy days, when I was tempted to wonder if the invierno (winter/rainy season) had arrived in earnest, undermining my dreams]. And since my early childhood, when I would switch back and forth between lighting and putting out fires of dry grass. But also much longer than that, Looking deeper into my heart and my past, I couldn´t tell you when the craving started. It crept up on my consciousness, first sprouting before I was cognizant enough to put words to what was happening, and growing so gradually (though certainly not uniformly), that I usually had absolutely no clue of what was happening inside me.

(You may be wondering by now whether by ¨trying to keep this minimally confusing¨, I meant that I am trying to minimize the confusion, or am attempting to create confusion, though not too much. You might be right to wonder. . . .)

Alright, now to undo this ¨tangled web¨. Lets start with the middle level of meaning. Fire is a longstanding hobby of mine -since I discovered the power of magnifying glasses (I still have yet to make one actually start a fire - it always just chars the leaves, despite the relentless power of the sun pounding through cloudless Equatorial skies, and baked, 3-months-into dry-season fuel.) There´s nothing exactly like watching the dancing lips of blues, oranges and yellows as they steadily lap up burning coals, begin shyly to lick new wood, and leap uninhibited into the air. Then there´s the feeling of awe and wonder that all this change (whether a big or little fire - changing raw fuel into nearly pure carbon, oxygen into carbon dioxide, etc - but even more so with a big fire, of course) came from such a small start. And the power it holds - for incredible good, controlled; or for immense harm, uncontrolled (being a choleric, I like to be in charge of the fire, directing its path and its growth) It´s like running heavy machinery - the thought of such huge possibilities resting in my hands.

The first (most acute and shallowest) level: since I found out about the plan to burn the layer of cut thornbushes, leaves, and dry branches clogging up the new field at Km. 38, I´ve been looking forward to the hot day. Hot both because we had to wait for a sunny day, when the tangled overgrowth would be dryest and burn most completely, and because of the fire, which we all knew would be impressive, [even for charred-black fire admirerers like me, who´ve been burning little (well, only in comparison to the BIG one) piles of brush just about every sunny day for the last 2 months]. Yes, it was impressive.

And now for the most important level. As you´ve seen, I´ve been spending a lot of quality time working with (and thinking about) fire. I´m sure none of you have missed out on the many spiritual applications of fire - the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire, God as the All-Consuming Fire, and fire as the trials and challenges that refine us, like silver, with God as our Smith (a lá this quarter´s Sabbath School lesson). But the one I´ve thought about the most is (a little) different.

Fire has three basic needs: fuel, air, and heat. Without fuel, there´s nothing to burn. Without air (really, oxygen), the fuel just sits there. Without heat, (and even though fire produces heat once started) fuel and oxygen just sleep together like a Golden Retriever and a fluffy lap cat who´ve grown up together, not like the ravenous Rottweiler and shrieking, fighting alley Tab we know as Fire. Lets make humans Fuel. And God, Air. I´ll save Heat and Fire for later.

When we make a fire, we usually worry about two things, fuel and ignition (heat). Not air. Why? Cuz Air´s always there. Always has been. Always will be. No matter where we go on this earth, unless someone has persistently, with much effort, refused Air entry, pumping Him out of a vacuum bottle. And even then, He´s not all gone - just less noticeable.

Now, we have Air. Now for some Fuel. Obviously, there´s many types of fuel. We all burn a little different. Some light up easy, others not so much (and usually along with that, the same some burn up fast, and the same others burn slow and long). Some burn yellow, others blue, orange, or red. Some even green, pink, or nearly invisible clear. But pretty much anything will burn - just depends on the conditions. And none is really better than the other - you wouldn´t want a bonfire with only newspaper, or want to try to start a bonfire with only 18 inch hardwood logs. It takes all sorts to make a good Fire. (So what is the Fire?)

Pretty much nothing burns without other Fuels burning around it. While a single Spark can light a blaze, most of the time if you take a stick out of the fire, it will eventually go out. And a Coal (a certain type of Fuel) can stay hot for a long time, burying itself in a layer of insulation (but it doesn´t give out much Heat this way.) Only if it´s put with other Fuels does it light up. And the more Burning Fuels that go out and in contact with Unburning Fuels (or Unburning Fuels brought in?), the more likely the new Fuel will catch and light up. Not only that, but new Fuels are indespensible. No matter how good your Burning Fuels are, eventually they burn up. If no New Fuels come in to replace them, the Fire dies. (Ok, for sure you know Fire now.)

And about heat. Really, it´s the heat that catches New Fuels afire. It doesn´t matter how close Fuels are to the Fire if the Heat can´t reach them. Heat. It spreads out everywhere, in all directions, irrespective of what it´s heating. (That wonderful warmth, ardor, invisibly spreading out in infrared Light, the Love of Jesus.)

So, my prayer is, ¨Let me Burn¨. And really, I don´t care if I burn short or long. Let the blaze sweep the earth, catching up and burning all the Fuels.

Plan. Change. Repeat. Persevere.

2007-11-18T15:11:00.000-05:00

“Who will go to Masisea? We need someone to take the chainsaw so they can cut out posts for the new church.” My hand shot up. I love the town’s 4-hour-by-outboard-canoe isolation, the small church warmth, and the wealth of unavoideable Spanish communication.
“But I don’t have any clean clothes.” The 7:00am-Friday-morning departure time (from learning about it Thursday at lunch) left little time to spare, but my clothes were only moderately wet when I crammed them into my backpack the next morning.
When I met Brother Mikeas, the snow-capped Bible worker, at the boat dock, I learned that I would be staying until Monday, not early Sunday morning, working with the 3 church member volunteers cutting the termite-resistant hardwood posts from their jungle plots.
Sunday morning dawned early, with the first church member arriving at 6am, refreshingly early for the appointed 7:00 am start time, but by the time the last team member arrived around 8 am, hope for getting all ten posts from tree to finished lumber (with only manpower, chainsaw, and a skilled operator), was beginning to fade.
When we got to the tree, thirty minutes by footpath through banana groves, pastures, and jungle, we found, to our dismay, that the wrenches had been left behind, leaving no option but to run back for them. When they finally arrived, we got chainsaw ready and pulled the starter. Twice. Four times. Ten times. Nothing. Adjusted the spark plug. Made sure the cylinder wasn’t flooded. Tried again. Still nothing. After praying and another unsuccessful round of pulls on the starter cord, we accepted the inevitability of hiking back for more extensive maintenance.
Five hours, a lot of dis- and re-assembly, and a new sparkplug later, the chainsaw started up again. But too late, with the hike in an out, to get any useable work in before nightfall.
Monday morning, with an 6:00-planned, 6:40-actual start, we were sure we could get all the posts finished by early afternoon. But continued chainsaw problems slowed the process, and when we split the last log at 4:00pm, it had a huge hole all the way down the middle – completely useless. There wasn’t time to cut another tree down, and although we were sure the owner would give permission, we wanted to ask first.
The owner gave permission, and even told us there was a tree already down that had enough wood left for the three last posts. But Tuesday morning, a rain storm pushed starting back until 9:00, squashing our hopes of leaving at noon, on the last scheduled boat. 3:30 . God was sill watching out for us, ans went an enpty boat, going our way, to the port. And what amazing dedication He’s given these new believers, that each of them would give three days of their own time and hard work, when they have little extra to spare in their own homes, working to build God’s house.

While all this was happening, God´s been impressing me with how much better He is than anything else I could want. Check out Mt. 6:44-46, noticing especially that the man went to sell all he had WITH JOY. And one of my favorite verses for a long time, that I´m still praying God will mold my heart to, Ps. 73:25. If we could say that, nothing could get us down, because we will always have all that we desire (Deut 4:29, Jer 29:13).

And Romans 8:28-39, from this morning´s Sabbath school lesson. Powerful, as always, but this time I especially noticed the juxtaposition of verses 29, 33, and 36. If God poured out His firstborn to save us, and He was to be the first of many brothers, shouldn´t we expect and want to be treated the same, for the sake of our brothers who still don´t know they are brothers?

Speaking of Slow

2007-11-04T19:34:00.000-05:00

Talking about slow work clearing the jungle by hand, the Project just sent out something called "Donate to Emancipate" that´s pretty funny, and pretty accurate about how life here works. No, I´m not going to try to trick you - it´s a fundraising letter. I hate being tricked into reading things. I genuinely think it´s worth reading - judge for yourselves.

Donate to Emancipate

The Current Situation

Could somebody please free us? We are stuck in a hostel room, which we have affectionately named, "The Cage." Spending almost all sleeping and waking hours in the same 8'x12' room, you can see the appropriateness of the name. The problem is we can't leave, at least not now because we have responsibilities and tasks to complete, but it sure would be nice. You see, we are trapped by the necessity of electricity, but unable to leave because we lack electricity back home at km. 38 where the rest of our family lives. Emancipate us!

Machete. Machete grass. Machete vines. I wish I had my lawn mower from home because I am feeling like one. Machete some more. I wish we had a tractor. Ouch! Got stung by a wasp. Again. Now out to the chacra to machete trees. Of course, once we cut them down we have to haul them…on our backs. We don't have a chain. Could they be any heavier? Oh yeah, we could use a cart, which we pull by hand. I wish we had a tractor. Machete some more. If we had a tractor, we could bushog the back acres, mow the lawn, haul logs for the carpentry shop, and pull the chicken poop in a cart, all in a day's work, not a month's. Emancipate me!

Emancipate. What does it really mean? Freedom. Independence. Liberty from something or someone. Absence of obligation. Over the centuries, the word has been used by various religious, political, or minority groups to represent their desire for freedom from a particular cause. What if 'emancipate' was used to describe those who are poverty stricken, those with physical illness, or those who are struggling spiritually, but want to change and break free from the bondage of life they are currently under?

The Plan

A.M.O.R. Projects has a plan to emancipate the people in the Amazon Basin of poverty. Lack of education, health problems, and unemployment plague the jungle villagers. A.M.O.R. Projects' purpose is to found a surgical-medical clinic and trade school to serve the villagers' needs for health care, health education and trade development. Through the clinic, health issues can be addressed and treated. With the trade school, useful skills such as carpentry, mechanics, bakery, dairy, and fish farming can be taught. The people can then use their newly learned skills to make a living, thus reducing poverty and unemployment.

In order to continue moving towards building the clinic and trade school, we have two big needs: electricity and a tractor. Electricity is vital for the development of industries, on-site administration work, use of quality power tools, project site security, and much more. Right now our volunteer team enjoys a simple lifestyle of candlelit evenings, but electricity is very important for project advancement. Below is a breakdown of the costs for electricity:

$10,450- poles, hardware, equipment, and wires
$9,000- transformer & meter
$1,700- equipment installation
$3, 850- wiring buildings and other expenses
Total = $25,000USD

This is a lot of money to raise, but God is good and anything can happen with His leading. We are setting a goal to raise this money for electricity by Christmas Day. With God's help and yours, we can reach this goal!!

The Plan, 2

A tractor is essential for the development and maintenance of our 249 acres of land. Hauling logs, cultivating, upkeep of dirt roads/driveways, and pulling out stumps are just some of the many jobs around the property that would be made a lot easier (meaning more will happen faster, and be done better too!) if there was a tractor. Below is a breakdown of the costs for a tractor:
$28,500- John Deere 5403 tractor
$5,000- attachments (bushog, boxblade, cart, etc.)\
$1,500- transport from Lima to Pucallpa
Total = $35,000USD

A huge project, yes, but definitely possible. Goal is to raise the money by New Year's Day!You can help. Each and every donation, small or large is very much appreciated. To help with electricity or tractor, there are two ways to donate (all donations are tax-deductible):

1. Send donation by mail (please make checks payable to A.M.O.R. Projects and mark electricity or tractor) to the following address:
A.M.O.R. Projects
P.O. Box 212
Loma Linda, CA 92354

2. Online donations possible mid-November at: http://touchofloveperu.org

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. Please share this with a friend, family member, or someone else who has the same vision of helping others. We are so excited to see how God will lead in this fundraising campaign. Please continue to pray for God's guidance as we work towards emancipating the people of Peru.

In His Service,
The A.M.O.R. Projects Team
(Dr. Richard Mathews, Jenni Goodwin, Laura Clark, Kaitlin Elloway, Kristin Goodin, Emily Moore, Brent Sherwin, David Skau, and Tara Weeks)

Sometimes it Rains

2007-10-28T17:04:00.001-05:00

It´s true. More times than it used to. Meaning that brushpiles don´t burn very well, because they´re soggy. I spent a couple days on the classic machete-swinging, which I like much better the way we´re doing it now , just cutting the vines/smallish plants, etc, and letting them fall to the ground, rather than trying to pile them up in mounds. Since where we´re working now wasn´t burned by the brushfire six weeks ago, there´s enough it will burn without being piled, and needs to be spread out to dry anyway. It goes way faster this way, and I feel less like I´ve hacked at one small-room-sized area all day long. Clearing brush with hand power alone is still slow, but we´re almost done, ready to plant the little trees this next week.

Other excitement included digging up and transplanting two 2.5m/8ft-ish mandarin trees, to make room for grading our very muddy driveway (their leaves are now falling off - survival hoped for, but we´ll have to see), and caring for a sheep with a cut on it´s back leg. It´s weak, and though the cut is on its back leg, it will only kneel with it´s front legs, though it will stand with the back. Un poco confundido (a little confusing). But I´ve gotten to give my first two injections, Penicillin and Ceftrexona, IM to sheep gluteus.

Mangoes are in season. I love them. Our trees drop them on the ground, just waiting for me to pick them up and devour them (a lot of them split falling from the HUGE trees, but that only means I have to eat them sooner, since they´re going to spoil and attract ants, right?) I wish for a fruit dryer and some canning jars, to store up the wealth of fruits that are ready now. Apparently, jars are available somewhere here, and I´d like to find out where and how much they cost. And if I get around to it, I may try making a dryer, either with solar reflectors (rainy season still has a lot of sun in between the rain), or with a wooden box and a hair dryer (not sure if I can find that either, but I think so - the more tempting option, since I know it will work, but it´d only work in town, since we don´t have electricity!). We´ll see what I find time for (and how much things cost).

Baked Bees Don´t Sting

2007-10-28T16:43:00.000-05:00

(An article I wrote for the the October issue of AMOR Projects eNewsletter´- email me if you´d like the rest of it)

The charred patch of ashes with scattered stumps creeps out-ward, slowly pushing back the tangle of downed trees, spine-encrusted vines and mini-bamboos. Weeks of memories melt together in the combined heat of the sun and brushfires, leaving onlythe deepest-engraved behind. A machete arcs down toward a half-buried two-inch vine; two men--straining, quivering, grunting--tilt a two-foot-wide, four-hundred-pound hardwood log vertical, thenwatch in exhausted satisfaction as it crashes into a roaring brushfire. These scenes duplicated themselves hundreds of times over the last two months. Other memories stand alone, lone boulders braving the waves of routine, unmistakably different. Like reaching my bare hand into a newly opened beehive, then squeezing the comb bees and all. The drops
of orange juice concentrate-flavored honey dribble into my mouth, courtesy of a race of bees that only sting hair. The mundane juxtaposes with the
extraordinary, and I go on clearing land for mango,
tangelo, and mandarin trees, that are soon to arrive.

Una Semana Differente

2007-10-23T17:39:00.000-05:00

Don´t ask why, but I´m feeling very disanimated about writing a blog. But I might tell you why, even though you (I´m sure!) aren´t asking. Maybe because I left it until last, and don´t have other stuff to look forward to afterward. Maybe because I started the day by delivering piñas to market, starting the drive at 4am. Or maybe because I had so much fun wandering around Pucallpa today, talking with vendadores (vendors/shopkeepers), I´d love to be outside talking with them more. But whatever the reason, I´m warming up to blogging now that the ideas are flowing, so I´ll give you a rundown on the week.

Since last week, lots has happened at Km. 38. We´ve pretty much finished preparing the chacra (field) to plant little mango trees, though we have a few more logs in one corner, that will have to wait until we get our motorsierra (chainsaw) back from the shop. The bigger section, that outside contractors were working on, is pretty much done too, but now the brush needs to dry for a while, then be burned. Unfortunately, another change seems to be the beginning/approaching of the rainy seasion, invierno. We´ve had two torrential downpours, with water covering the flat land aroud the house to a depth of 3-4 inches, and windblown rain running down the inside of our clapboard walls, making us move clothing, food, and books away from the outside walls and off the floor. But no real damage, and we´ve got the system down now. Pray for some more dry weather so we can get the chacras ready for planting.

We also lost Edwin, our expert chainsaw man. He´ll be working in Pucallpa (we´re 38km out, hence the name Km38!), closer to his wife´s family and easier to work on his house there. That meant some chainsaw lessons (and a little practice) before sending them back in, since they weren´t quite up to par when we got them back from when they were worked on a couple weeks ago, but we were waiting until the most urgent parts of the chacra project to send them. While Doctor was teaching, he taught us about the gun too, in case we have to use it on snakes, and to make sure we´re all clear on being safe around it. (The picture at the right was a one time only, check 5 times that the gun is unloaded and the safety is on, only for pictures exception to the no-pointing-at-people rule.)

This Sunday, Mauro, Brent, and I started harvesting piñas. None of us had ever done much with piña before, but the rains were making them ripen fast, and the farms around were harvesting tons, so we started in, not knowing how many we´d find, or even exactly what to look for. We´d been munching on the early ripeners for a couple weeks, so we´d started to get a little idea of when they were ripe, but still a lot of unknowns. By the end of the day, we had about 250 piñas picked, carried to the start of the path from th field, and wheelbarrowed the several hundred yards back to the house. A couple sacks we carried too (kudos Brent, for the huge sack when we were pushing to get the last of them in before dark!)

Monday, we started in on repairing a leak in the pipe from our water tower, but needed some info on how complete of an overhaul we wanted to do. That took a while, since Doctor was busy with patients. In the meantime, we washed some clothes, and were on our way to start transplanting some mandarin orange trees, when Mauro found a dead sheep. We couldn´t figure out why, and were digging the hole to bury it when Jenni got a hold of Doctor, who reassured us that the meat should still be good, since the sheep wasn´t sick, at least for the dogs. So Mauro butchered it, and we cooked it for the dogs. That took us almost to suppertime, a delicious tomato, potato, pepino (cucumber), onion, garlic, cabbage soup. We pulled a trick on the girls, late to supper because they were bringing the pickup back from their day in Pucallpa, and put the meat soup on the table instead. That brought some fun facial expressions! Then we gave them the real soup, and thankfully their appetites didn´t suffer too much. Then we loaded the piñas, and went to bed, in anticipation of today´s early (4 am!) morning drive to make the market before the fruit sellers open for retail business.

Then today, with the adventures of shopping, getting my watch glued together and a rip in my pants sewed up, and talking with my parents. And then I wrote about it here!

Campaign - I do post pictures!

2007-10-14T14:55:00.001-05:00

We were leaving at 9 o´clock Saturday night. Or 10. Or 11. Or 12. Or by the time we shuttled medical gear out to the road to load on the rented pickup, that couldn´t make it down our dirt road because the already loaded and tied down evengistic tent poles hit the overhanging mango trees, 12:30am. It was cool how nobody got the least bit bent out of shape as we waited for the missing truck to show up.

Having 7 adults (4 in back, 3 in front, packed into a doublecab has it´s advantages - readily available shoulders to sleep on, with a minimum of spinal torqueing. Good thing we´re frie-amily, and everyone has a good sense of humor! At around 1-1:30 am, the pavement ended. Around 2:00, I took over the wheel, with Jenni keeping me awake, and catching me up on a lot of background information I´d been wanting to know about the project, vision, and Peru life. Somewhere near 4:30, I switched out with Brent, and grab a couple more minutes of sleep.

The road passed over (or in a couple cases, around using nearby fords because of shaky condition) lovely plank-over-treetrunk, sagging-in-the-middle, bridges. The scenery was the usual slendidly brilliant green, with cattle fields and pens (and a man carrying a clean, good looking, though disattached, cow´s head) . At least after the sun came up. During the night, I was surprised by the number of people walking the roads, and partying in the little hamlets we passed. Likely had to do with it being Saturday night, but a noticeable change from the very strict, moral Muslim culture I´m most used to from North Nigeria. The parejas de enamorados (enamored pairs - couples) and their public affection too.

On arrival, we ate two scrumptious breakfasts (bread, cheese, fried yucca, fresh calamine tea, and pan de arbol - breadfruit, but way different from Asian, little nutty-potatoey things about walnut sized for the first, and I don´t remember what, but even more for the second - we ate well all week long, despite the lack of fruit for sale in the city - apparently ours came in with travelers, at the church ladies´request! Amazing hospitality!). Then we got to work on setting up for clinic. It took some figuring out where, as plans usually change, but we ended up setting up burlap partitions in the church (outside at left). In the slow moments waiting for decisions to happen and rain showers to pass, we caught up on worships and sleep. We borrowed tables and chairs from church members, and hauled them to the church for our clinic!

The afternoon we spent putting up the huge evangelistic tent, a task made more interesting by the fact that we´d only brought half the poles, since the rented pickup couldn´t handle the weight of all of them! The rest were to be replaced with bamboo/roughcut wood. Hard work, and my lack of sleep and water started catching up with me, in fatigue and a headache. But with the help of a lot of church members (and apparently, random bystanders as well!), it it was up just after dark, in time for a very welcome supper, then bed in the beautiful yard of a church member (more amazement at the sense of beauty here! Hibiscus, rock paths, an eyesore drainage ditch turned into an attractively landscaped pond-stream, incredible!)

The next day began my dental training. Between two hours of watching videos on oral anasthesia, doing one coached trial of each type (inter-alveolar, palatal, and that other one - lingual?) on Laura (and experiencing one, supposed to be one of each type, but left as good after my body´s unconsious needle hatred made me faint), I felt vastly underprepared, but with watching Manuel, Brent, and Laura, and knowing that one of them, usually Manuel, with 10,000 extractions under his mask, would bail me out, I started in. One tooth out on Monday, one more on Tuesday, and three on Wednesday, along with lots of assists, sterilizing, and quite a few started that others finished. There really is a good feeling when a tooth you´ve been wiggling at gives the good pop (not the cracked root pop!) and pulls free!

Thursday and Friday, I moved over to triage, first listening to Jenni, then moving more on my own, taking basic patient histories and symptoms, to pass on to Dr. Matthews (or if I´m really lucky, it matches uncomplicated ¨bichus¨- parasites, and I can follow a prescribed EMS style protocol, and treat them with Mebendazole from our farmacia! Definitely exciting. And makes me more sure I actually do want to go on with med school, to be able to handle the more interesting cases too!

Thrown in during all of this were plenty of exciting (may I say, often times hilarious?) moments. Manuel opening and closing a huge pair of forceps, right in front of his already screaming 5-year-old patient. And calling for ¨gaza de mono¨(gauze of the monkey), in reference to our self-folded and well sterilized 2x2´s, but yes, made the same room as the monkey was (incidentally, our living/dining room at 38). ¨Vegetarian¨chicken soup, with hearts in some bowls, wings or legs in others. New fruits, including pifwayo, which apparently is only for women and macho men, because the high progesterone levels might put lesser men in danger. :) I like the stuff. And

doctor knocking out our tiny (much loved and much griped over, from differing quarters) monkey, with a dose of diazapan, which left him out/severely uncoordinated for much of a day.

Then pack up, and repeat the journey, back home to 38! I rode part way in a cozy nook in the back of the pickup, well wedged and tied in, until rain drove me in, then later Dr. took the spot over (much to my delight, as he´d insisted as I made it that it would be dreadfully uncomfortable!)

Another Km. 38 Week

2007-09-30T15:12:00.000-05:00

Days of hacking brambles, hauling logs, and burning brush slowly blend together into a few mental images of sun baking a charred landscape; blazing piles of small and not-so-small trees and vines; and lots of bilingual ribbing, joking, and laughter. Early in the week, after a scorching day, we decided to switch to a siesta schedule, with an early breakfast around 5:30, putting us in the chacra (field) by around 6:15, in time to put in a good five hours of work before the hottest part of the day. Then after lunch and some indoor chores and rest, we’d start back up around 3 pm, working until 5:30 or so before quitting for the day. It took a little while to figure out, working in meals and team worships around the chicas’ (ladies’) teaching schedules. We’re still tweaking it a little, but it’s much nicer to be hauling logs and tending our roaring brush fires in the cool of the morning and evening. We’re also getting close to done with the hectaria (hectare, 100m x100m – 2.47 acres, I believe?) that we’re clearing to plant lemon trees, to graft tangelos and mandarin oranges onto in a couple months. Maybe it’ll be ready by the end of this week, when we leave for a week of clinics.

Friday afternoon, we didn’t go back into the selva for our couple hours of afternoon work, but worked on some jobs that needed to be done near the casas. I dug up several wheelbarrows full of burned trash beside the house and carted it out to our trash pit, then worked with Mauro and Brent on digging a new trash pit and covering over the old one with dirt. Brent also took some of the dirt we dug out of the new pit to fill in some bucket-sized holes near our outdoor dishwashing station.

Early Sabbath morning, I took a walk into the selva with my binoculars, looking for birds. I’ve seen some really pretty firefinch types, with intense red patches on black bodies. The light wasn’t very bright yet, but I saw several that will be fun to look up when I find a bird book somewhere!

After escuela Sabatica y culto divino (Sabbath school and divine service), where I fought with my hereditary tendency to “rest my eyes” during church, and a good Sabbath lunch, a few of us headed back for choir practice and la programa de la sociedad de jovenes (youth program), where I gave an impromptu special music on my French horn, and also gave the short message, about the importance of time spent in devotions with God’s Word.

Masisea

2007-09-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

About 4 hours by boat up the Ucayali river from Pucallpa lies a little town called Masisea. That´s where Manuel, Brent, and I spent this weekend, visiting a recently planted church. It´s about 7km off of the river, on a dusty dirt road, an easy half-hour trip by mototrycycle when dry, but according to Brent, who experienced it´s muddier joys firsthand a couple weeks ago, it can turn into a real marathon when wet! The road winds through huge fields of caña brava (a relative of sugar cane, used for building), papaya orchards (our moto driver heard us craving them, and gave us two large boxes free - they normally cost 1 sol per box of 5 very large ones here where they´re grown, or 1 sol a piece at a market), and plátano (plantain) groves.

Masisea itself is a fairly little town, but very impressive in its civic pride. With my childhood in Nigeria, I´m used to third-world public spaces being squalid, trash-strewn, and completely unmaintained, when present at all. It blew me away to see the sidewalks beside the dirt road, then a plaza with attractively painted buildings, grass, and shape-trimmed trees, and then on top of that, that people were PAINTING the slightly aged green concrete planter boxes, and not only that, they´re sanding them first, and putting on TWO coats for adequate coverage, with dry time inbetween! INCREDIBLE!

We spent our nights in a hospedaje owned by one of the couple´s in the new and small Adventist church, which meets in a rented 20x12 ft living room a couple blocks away. Our rooms were very small, long enough for a bed with a thin mattress, sheet, and light blanket, and wide enough to fairly comfortably stand beside the bed. Pit toilets are around the corner, with the ingenious odor-reduction system of adding handfuls of wood shavings, abundant from the selva´s booming lumber industry, after each use. The shower was definitely welcome, though the black trash-bag door was prone to windborne adventures, stopped a foot and a half above the ground, and had an 8 inch horizontal rip about a foot above that. Not bad at nightime, but a bit odd when I showered at 4pm before the Sabbath afternoon meeting.

Manuel, the evangelist, led out in Friday night vespers with about 6 members present. He also gave the lesson study for Sabbath School, when we had close to 20 attend. Then came the exciting part for me - the divine service, for which Brent was preaching, with me as the translator! I´m sure I slaughtered a lot, and I didn´t feel like I had the gift of tongues I´d been praying for, but I think people got the message, about the importance of prayer as our lifeline/life ring when we´re drowning.

That afternoon, we took a walk for a couple hours through the fields, and sampled some ripe papaya (Manuel assured us it was ok - once the papaya ripen, they´re worthless to the dueños-owners-because they´ll spoil in transport). They were delicious! About the best I´ve ever had, and I smeared it all over my face eating it watermelon-style, except cut only into thirds, not slices!

Then we returned for the Sabbath night, saying-goodbye-to-Sabbath program. We had a health talk, by Manuel, on water and healthy eating, then I gave a sermon on personal devotions, how they´re the thing that I can look back on and see as the deciding factor in determining whether I´m joyful or stressed; in God´s light and peace regardless of what challenges or hardships I face, or frustrated and discouraged by little things, struggling with all sorts of temptations. I talked about Jesus example, prefering God time to food in the desert, and Enoc, who was so consistently with God that God took him to heaven, the instructions in Deuteronomio 6:5-9 about meditating on God´s word, and the promise in Santiago (James) 1:25 that God will bless the one who ¨looks intently into the perfect law.¨

After that, bedtime, at around 7pm, for our 4 am moto trip to the port, to make a 5 am boat departure. But I couldn´t get to sleep, so spent some extra time working on memorizing Mark and talking with God, while looking at the amazing stars outside - can´t get them much better than when there´s basically no electricity anywhere near! (I´m a little behind in memorising, about 3 days worth, if you´re joining me and discouraged about your own efforts. I´m actually going to put it on pause, since the other SMs have decided to join me, so we can quiz each other, and I´m going to work on some other memorization until they catch up. If you get to Mark 15:29, working from end to beginning, you´ll be ready for when we start back up in a week or so! Or if you hadn´t started and would like to, this is another chance. Why Mark? It´s the shortest Gospel, a doable length for a 8 month span, and I couldn´t think of more important material than the life of Jesus.)

The one place with electricity (generator) was having a party, with music all night, but I got good sleep from about 9-2, then woke up again and couldn´t go back to sleep, so I spent some more God time. It amazes me how intense times I can have with God at the oddest moments, when if I had other options of things to do, I´d probably have missed them. I´m glad for the lack of distractions here - even though it means communication all shoved into a couple hours on s0me weekends!

God bless!

Clearing land

2007-09-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

This week at Km 38, we´ve moved into the big project for the year (and probably several to come) - clearing land for the planned agrindustrial school and surgical clinic. The plans are extensive, with land for fields, industrial buildings, etc, all the way back on our 600m-wide by 3km-deep terreno (plot). In the last 4 days, we´ve cleared perhaps 50m square, in an area where much of the brush was already burned by a brushfire a week ago. First we move through cutting the remaining vines and larger grasses that survived the blaze, and pile them into 3-4 foot montones (piles), then Edwin, with the HUGE, 3-ft blade chainsaw cuts what trees are standing, and chops them into manageable lengths, anywhere from 15 ft on 4-in logs, to 4ft on logs 2 ft in diameter. Most are light, useless softwood, as our plot´s good wood has mostly been logged out, but some is good for leña, firewood. Here, in forest standards, that means it´s crazy heavy! Time to leave!

Piñal, Sombras, y el Torre

2007-09-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

Two weeks down - two weeks less to look forward to. I´ve settled into the routine of life at AMOR Project´s main site, Km. 38 out from Pucallpa. I´ve spent my time working with the lampa, a large hoe, digging up the types of grass that grow big and hard to cut around the two rought houses and paths, building sombras, tin roofs to stick out above the windows so rain won´t blow in, making beds, hauling chainsaw-cut boards out of our selva (forest), and keeping up with the basic necessities of life. That means a couple hours each day of shared meal prep/clean-up with the other SMs and Peruvian fellows that live with us. We have to keep pretty sharp tabs, since not soaking beans overnight ahead of time or similar small catastrophes can severely push back mealtimes! Those are fun times - with several different scopes of responsibility and schedules, times around meals are the prime opportunities for fellowship, reporting and sharing on the day´s happenings and future plans, and enjoying a little bit of the ease of English communication.

The team I´m working with is great - everyone has a good sense of humor and is wiling to adapt. Without that, we´d be stuck! Between having between 7-10 people in a small house, and the shifting needs of life where detailed advance planning means expecting that most details will change. Everyone pitches in when there´s work to be done too, from washing dishes to changing monkey diapers (though that one is definitely Kaitlin´s specialty!).

Before I go much farther, I should introduce the team. Jenni heads the team, and has been working and living in Peru for several years. She spends much of her time traveling and keeping the paperwork and logistics flowing for the different aspects of the program. Edwin is the Peruvian man-of-many hats, working at Km. 38 in whatever building/maintaining project is up for the day, and teaching us gringos how things work. His young wife, Nidia, and her little brother, Luis, 10, live with him in the second house on site.

Mauro is my roomate, a 17-year old Peruvian, working on building things at Km. 38. Brent and I work with him and Edwin most of the time, except during the campaigns about every 6 weeks, when we will be doing dental work.

Tara and Kaitlin teach English and music at several little schools around Km. 38. Emily and Kristen spend their time following up on past campaigns with a program called Familias Saludables, helping families to develop better health habits. Since most of the campaigns are quite a way from Km. 38, they live with area families or in a hospedaje (hostel/basic apartment) near the area they´ll be working in for that particular period. Laura is the media/communication/photography person, developing fundraising material for AMOR Projects and being an extra body to fill in wherever needed.

Life at Km. 38 is quite basic. Water and plumbing were installed just before this set of SMs arrived, with the last group hauling water 250 meters from the well and using a primitive pit toilet. This year, we are definitely living in luxury. There is no electricity, so after supper by the light of a couple candles, bedtime comes early. A very good thing, since breakfast takes time to make from scratch, and needs to be ready by about 7 am to get Tara and Kaitlin to school on time. Internet and phones happen once every week or two, when we all come into Pucallpa by taxi or the project pickup for some reconnection time. Speaking of which, it´s time to head back and my internet time is up! God bless!

Lima y Pucallpa!

2007-09-04T10:15:00.000-05:00

I´m here! I spent 14 hours in a layover in Lima airport, wanting to go out into the city and see things, but not wanting to lug around my carryon luggage - a french horn with duct-tape handles! But in the end, I think God wanted me to stay in the airport - it was a place with few distractions and lots of time, and I read a lot of John, worked on my project of memorizing Mark (starting from the end - if I memorize 3 verses a day, I´ll have it all in memory by when I´m done here in May! I´d love it if some - or all - of you would join me!), and read much of the mission story Through Gates of Splendor. It amazed me how many topics God put in both what I read, letters from friends I was reading, the Adventist Medical Evangelism Network conference I attended just before leaving, and in some of the scripure I read (John 12:24-26) at the same time. Like about not holding back anything from total surrender to God´s will.

When I arrived in Pucallpa last night, I was met by two of my fellow SMs. We made our way through the maze of people at the airport, found an old Corolla taxi, and found our way to a hostel. This morning was for some food shopping, calling family to assure them of my safe arrival, and checking email and blogging (as you can see!) Next up, the trip out to Kilometer 38, where I´ll be living for the next 9 months!

No pictures this time, until I figure out how to get them from my camera onto the cybercafe computers :(. Also, I haven´t taken too many, since it goes against my 3rd world security instincs to pull out a camera in the middle of a city - too much advertising!

There´s plenty to see though, tin roofed concrete buildings, motortricycle taxis, and lots of friendly people. I can´t fluently talk to them yet, but that will improve. For now, I can get around, read signs, and ask basic questions, but when someone strings many sentences in a row, I´m a gonner!

Warning - GOD AT WORK!

2007-08-29T13:10:00.000-05:00

Since God got me started thinking about student missions, He's been hard at work making all the details work. First, He delivered my application to a mission location I'd never heard about or applied to. Then He arranged for me to be able to contact them, despite the program leader's travels and my location in the isolated, phone and internet deprived, Colorado mountains, and for them to accept me without filling out an entire new application the organization usually requires, which I simply wouldn't have been able to get done. When I finally got done with the awesome, but highly time intensive job of leading teens on trips and mentoring them spiritually for Sunset Lake Camp in Washington, there were only two weeks before I was supposed to leave. But with no tickets and no money, I didn't know where to start.

I thought that I might have to pay the expenses out of pocket, at a time when my family needed as much of my summer earnings as possible to get through a financial crisis and move. But God stepped in again, and persuaded Union College to let me go, on the faith that my funding, to the tune of $2500, would arrive. We booked the tickets, finalized plans, and began packing to leave.

The next weekend, at my home church in Brunswick, Maine, God provided the opportunity for me to tell a little of where He'd been leading. So many of the church members expressed their support, saying they'd be praying, and giving donations. On the way home from church, when I opened the envelope where I'd been placing the donations, I found there MORE THAN ENOUGH! I'd expected to raise a couple hundred dollars, perhaps, but God had decided to blow me away with His faithfulness and the generosity of the church! Thank you so much to everyone who donated or is praying for me - God has used you to increase my faith, and let me know He's got everything under control!

Now I'm in the final flurry of putting clothes and supplies in my 2 boxes, packing up my room, and spending time with my parents, who I won't see until next May! I'm so glad God's been clear that this is where He wants me. Otherwise, the stresses of leaving great friends at camp, moving, leaving Brunswick and the wonderful people there, uncertainty about my parents and their jobs, AND going to a new country, with a language I speak inadequately, would simply be too great. I know I couldn't handle it alone. But as it is, I know that God is in control, and that as overwhelming as challenges may seem, God dwarfs them all!

The pictures are borrowed from Ansley Howe, who worked with Touch of Love this last school year and summer. I hope to have my own to post soon!

Check back regularly, for more news of how God leads His project in Pucallpa, Peru!