“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?
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