Many Blessings

We are so blessed! I say it all the time but do I believe it? Do I realize how blessed we are? Not really. So many times I take things for granted. The little things such as food, clothes, education, and health. Unfortunately, I am usually completely oblivious to God’s many blessings unless He shows me those who are less fortunate. These days our lives are surrounded day in and day out by those who are less fortunate.

The last two weeks I have spent a lot of time with our Shawi friends. I have traveled the rivers and spent time in their communities. We have attended a church anniversary. And this last week we had a Bible training here in town for 30 Shawi pastors and leaders. I spent the week just talking and getting to know them. After spending the majority of two weeks with our Shawi brothers and sisters God has opened my eyes to many things and I am still processing it all. 

Last weekend we were invited to a church anniversary in a community. The anniversary lasts two days and people travel from the whole district to attend. I talked with one person who traveled three days in a canoe to attend. The men dressed in their Sunday best as the woman dressed in their traditional dress and painted their faces and feet. I had the honor of preaching for the Saturday morning service and we stayed for a baptism service in the river that afternoon. Ten young men and women were baptized. It was an amazing day of fellowship and celebration. The men and women of the community had to sacrifice a lot to prepare food for all the visitors. Having extra food is a blessing. 

Then last week during the Bible training I got to know the Shawi men much better. As I meet people it is important to know where they live. After I ask I always look at my map of the district for their community. They were so interested in my map because I am sure most of them had never seen a map of their area before. Soon I had 20 men gathered around me looking at my small map. So I went and made 30 copies of the map and returned with one for each of them. They spent the next hour studying the map and discussing it with each other. There is no actual map of the Balsapuerto district so my map is homemade and they helped me by adding some missing villages and correcting some mistakes. I had a great time learning more about their rivers and communities. Maps are a blessing.

Some of the Bible teaching was about the nation of Israel and one of the guys asked me, “Does Israel exist today?” “Well, yes,” I answered and they asked, “how long does it take to get there?” This gave me an idea, so I ran home and returned with a globe. It blew their minds! “What is all the blue stuff?” they asked. When I responded that it was water they said, “wow, there is a lot more water than land.” I pointed out Peru and Israel and said that if you could fly direct it would take around 15 hours in a plane(just guessing). It seemed like very little time to them considering it takes longer than that to get home in a canoe. Roads are a blessing.

Then one of the older guys pointed to Europe and asked, “Is that the beginning or the end of the world?” I was so confused by the question I had him repeat it three times and then I realized he thought the world was flat. I explained that the world was round and that was why the globe was round and that led to an interesting conversation about how the sun only shines on half the earth at a time and the cause of day and night and many other things. Education is a blessing.

When I visit a church it is common that there is only one Shawi Bible in the whole church and the believers share. I began to research the Shawi Bible and ask about the need for more Bibles. The men told me that the biggest problem is that the Shawi Bible is incomplete. The New Testament is complete but they only have portions of the Old Testament. The men speak Spanish but the woman do not and this makes it difficult to teach from the Old Testament. The Spanish Bibles they have are an old version called the Reina Valera and due to the use of old Spanish words they understand little of it. I can relate because I don’t understand it either and I have to use a more modern translation. As a result, it is a huge challenge to read and teach from the Bible. Complete Bibles in our language is a blessing.

By the end of the week I had spent six days in a row with some of the men. One of them, a pastor of a community 12 hours up river, brought his wife and two of their children along on the trip. I took notice that none of them had changed clothes all week. Then it hit me, the clothes they were wearing might be the only clothes they own. The ability to buy and have clothes is a blessing.

This same family is still here in Yurimaguas. The mother got really sick at the end of the week and went to the emergency room (the doctors are all currently on strike here so ER is the only option unless you can pay for private healthcare). The hospital said she had a urinary track infection and sent her home with some antibiotics. She has laid in bed all this week and not eaten anything. Yesterday Jennifer was talking with her and upon examining her found an abdominal mass.  This morning Jennifer took her back to the hospital and explained everything to the doctors and it looks like she may have a tumor. I am unsure how someone goes to the ER with stomach pain and they don’t actually examine her stomach (likely they were brushing people off due to the strike). Healthcare is a blessing.

My family and I lack nothing. We are so blessed! Even more we are blessed to have the opportunity to be here. We have the opportunity to be God's hands and feet and to share his love. We have the opportunity to help our Shawi brothers and sisters. I am praying for extra food, better roads and easier travel. I am praying for better education and healthcare. I am praying for Bibles that can be understood. But even more I am praying that through it all God's love and glory would be known throughout the jungle. 

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength."                 Philippians 4:12-13

Some videos from the Church Anniversary Services:

Set a drift

There we were, drifting down the river.  A half hour earlier we had noticed our motor was leaking oil and was dangerously low so we shut off the engine to avoid damage.  There were six large sacks of charcoal and eight people in the boat, all of us huddled together under a tarp to avoid the rain. We were still two hours away from the nearest port town and I had a sudden feeling of helplessness. I had no control over the situation but then again, do we ever really have control over our lives? I couldn’t help but reflect on how I had gotten into this situation.

The day before I had left Yurimaguas. I stopped in Munichis to pick up a companion and we drove another hour to Santa Lucia, a small port on the Paranapura River. In Santa Lucia we hitched a ride in a canoe three hours up river to a Shawi village.

The port in Santa Lucia

Our plan was a short trip to visit pastors, agriculture projects and a building project. Our first stop was fruitless as the pastor was out working in his fields for the day. But the next stop was only a 45-minute walk so off we went through the jungle. The views were stunning.

 Hiking through the jungle

By early afternoon we reach the next village and visited with a Shawi brother-in-Christ about his cacao trees. He fed us lunch of boiled plantains, boiled eggs and a bowl of chicha. Chicha is a common drink made of dried corn that is ground and then boiled in water. All the water is from the river but is safe to drink in chicha because it is boiled. It can actually ferment if left to sit for a few days but the Christians all drink it fresh. He invited us to stay the night so we left our stuff and walked on to another village where they are building a new church.

 The new church

We checked on the project and met with some of the believers there to encourage them, while drinking more chicha. It was late in the day so we returned to the original village where the pastor was now home from his fields. We discussed his chickens and his needs for his church while drinking more chicha. I shared a piece of candy with his four-year-old daughter and she wanted to return the favor by offering me a large winged ant. It was a queen leaf cutter ant. They grow wings and take flight this time of year and are a local delicacy. Normally they cook them but I noticed the one she was holding was still moving so I turned it down. She just shrugged her shoulders, popped the whole thing in her mouth and crunched it up.

 The house where we stayed

After returning to our base my companion asked me if I have ever had a cold bath. “Of course,” I replied, “I live in Yurimaguas where water heaters don’t exist.” “No,” he said, “That’s not cold water, that is medium.” “The river water here is from the mountains and is much colder.” I explained to them about water heaters and that in the United States we always use warm water, but most of them just looked at me strange like I was lying. Then my companion spoke up and said he had been in a shower once in Lima with two knobs. He proceeded to tell a long story of adjusting the handles every which way and burning and freezing and screaming and we all had a good laugh. About dark I walked down to the river to bathe and I have to say, he was not lying. It was cold. The problem was the path to the river was knee deep water and mud from a recent rain so by time I returned I felt the bath was worthless. We had another bowl of chicha before crawling into the hammock for the night at the late hour of 7:00pm. What else can you do without electricity? I realized that I had not eaten anything all day except lunch and six bowls of chicha. I would pay for that as six times I crawled out of the hammock in the pitch black dark to use the bathroom that night. And of course by bathroom I mean some nearby bushes. The nighttime view was breathtaking as there was lighting and thunder in the nearby mountains and bright stars overhead.

Traveling in a canoe

Waking early the next morning our host offered to take us in his boat to the next village. It was two hours walk or 20 minutes in boat. We gladly accepted his offer. At the next village we visited Pastor Roque’s house. If you remember from our last post he eats the bones. He is a good man of God with a heart for evangelizing his people. Every chance he gets he travels the rivers preaching in villages, many hearing the name of Jesus for the first time. I had no reason for the visit except that it felt wrong to be this close to his house and not visit. We ate breakfast together and he showed us his cacao field and his chickens. We listened to his jokes over a couple of bowls of chicha before we returned to our host’s house.

We were planning to hitch a ride from a passing boat back to Santa Lucia but our host said he wanted to go there to sell some of his homemade hardwood charcoal and would give us a ride. Loading up his boat we took off just after noon but were soon flagged down by another boat. A man had a boat loaded with sacks of corn, his family and a live pig that was flopping around everywhere. His boat was over loaded and water was splashing in faster then his wife could bail. He asked if we would take his family to get some of the weight out of his boat and since we were both headed to Santa Lucia we agreed. But not more then an hour later there we were floating aimlessly down the Paranapura River.

Soon we heard a noise and around the bend came the guy with the wild pig. After much discussion we tied a rope to his boat and he towed us for two hours back to Santa Lucia.  Luckily, the only store in Santa Lucia had the gasket we needed for the engine and we spent the rest of the afternoon repairing the motor for our host so he could return home. I slept well that night not only from exhaustion but also from the knowledge that our God always provides what we need. 

 Our tow home