Hopes, Dreams and Educated Guesses

The children in the above image are, in fact, both of us on our way to
Trinidad five long years ago.

If you’ve read our blog in the past, or have some awareness of developing world contexts, you will know that the only thing you can predict on any given day is its sheer unpredictability! So it is with a fair dollop of caution that we offer up these insights into what may be on the horizon upon our return to Trinidad. In fact, we know that the very worst thing we could do is to throw ourselves straight back into a load of activities, without having first of all taken the time to assess things; so much will have changed even in the space of thirteen months.

Nonetheless, we know that you, our friends, are keen to know how you can be praying for us. We greatly appreciate this, and hope that the following will help you to get a very rough idea of the coming months.

Craig: Staying Focussed on a Better 'Yes'

In any situation, you will never be useful if your efforts are engaged in providing a need that simply is not there. It is with that in mind that, as stated above, we are keen to take stock of the current situation in Bolivia before rolling up our sleeves.

However, commendable though this is, a further refinement of resources must take place. Because, as human beings, we each bring very different talents to the table, and the danger is that we find ourselves attempting to address specific needs while not necessarily being equipped for the task. Taking this a step further still, we might well have the abilities to meet a need, yet still be wasting our energies as this is not the role that the Lord has for us.

I was certainly guilty of this at times during our first term in Bolivia. As the years went by, I gradually took on a vast array of tasks. These were all ‘good things’; indeed, they were by and large kingdom things! But I found I was scraping by in them, doing many things sufficiently, but few things really well. Worse, I was too proud at times to admit this to myself, yet the last year has certainly confirmed it; by the time we’re finished with our standard 40-minute church report, it’s hard to tell whether we are more exhausted in the telling, or our audience is more exhausted in getting their heads round all the different plates we’ve been spinning.

An extended period of home assignment like ours has its fair share of challenges. But at the same time, something really positive has been taking place out in Bolivia, which I was probably too proud to have foreseen a year ago. While we have been at home, being built up and prepared for the next stage in our ministry, things have not collapsed in Bolivia. In fact, in our absence, the Bolivians have taken on their fair share of things that we used to do. In 2014, our long-expressed desire that the work in Bolivia would decrease in its missionary dependence has taken a big leap forward.

This has been as true in the Education area of the Foundation – my own traditional stomping-ground – as it has been elsewhere. And yet, even up until a few weeks ago, I was in a bit of a fight with God over this.

You see, for some time I have known that God wants me to channel my energies into the work of the church, which is not quite at the same stage of maturity as the Foundation. In particular, there is a tremendous need for disciples to be raised up, for those who are Christians to be equipped to understand the Bible’s message for their lives and ‘set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity’. And, naturally, I’m humbled and excited to be a part of this.

But part of me just could not let go of the education ministry. What about those dozens of people each year who had so enjoyed the English classes I had taught? What about the students in the local schools who, as teenagers, have heard the gospel for the first time in their lives? The possibility of leaving behind these primarily evangelistic activities concerned me, and I don’t think there was anything inherently wrong with this.

Another happy bunch of English graduates.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting in a Cornhill class taken by a much older visiting missionary, who has long wrestled with such questions. Indeed, it is only in the past few years that he has truly begun to understand what his gifts are and what God wants him to be engaged in. Yet since then, he claimed to have been much more effective in the Lord’s service. What did he do when presented with the opportunity to become engaged in something that, while great, was not what he had been called to? He remembered the following mantra: It’s easier to say ‘no’ when there’s a better ‘yes’.

That afternoon session may just have been the most important couple of hours for me in my preparation for going back. All of a sudden, two startling realisations dawned on me. Firstly, my utter lack of faith. How arrogant of me to presume the Lord’s dependence on me and me alone to bring the gospel to these people. Secondly, my failure to see the practical ramifications for our church of such evangelistic ministry, were it to prove ‘successful’. If, as a church, we’re not quite the finished article when it comes to getting alongside people on the path of discipleship – as I believe is the case right now – then welcoming new believers into our midst will, until that time, prove challenging.

Having thus been stopped in my tracks, I feel emboldened and unashamed to focus my energies solely on the church, and specifically on discipleship. And I will do so as part of a much-depleted leadership. When I joined the eldership in mid-2012, there were five of us; now, only I and the pastor, Elías, are left. With so many needs in the congregation, and only a couple of us to deal with them, it probably will not do to simply meet every two to three weeks as we had done previously as a leadership. Indeed, I would hope we can create regular time(s) during the working week (Elías is employed by the church part-time) to meet together and prayerfully address the needs of the church on a more day-to-day basis.

The year at Cornhill, of course, will have some bearing on the coming months. I have been assisted greatly in developing my preaching abilities over the last year, and I’m really looking forward to getting to grips with some new texts from the pulpit.

With good friend and shameless mickey-taker, Wilson Menacho.

However, important though that is, I can’t help but feel that it is especially vital that I look to equip others in Bible teaching ministry in the church – be that from the pulpit or the playpen – with the necessary tools for better understanding and communicating the truths of the word of God, tools which I had mostly gone without myself until this year.

Ideally, such equipping would go beyond the four walls of El Jireh church. In Bolivia, we continue to be saddled with a copy-and-paste education system which encourages a great deal of accumulation of disconnected facts and learning by rote, and not much in the way of engagement with information or independent thought. If our pews are largely filled by the products of such a system, it is of huge importance that preachers communicate the word faithfully. I have been in touch with a renowned international organisation that seeks to equip pastors to teach the Bible in a more responsible manner. My hope is that we can begin such an initiative in the Beni region sooner rather than later.

But, more than anything, I am convinced that such a work has to begin in our church, and for this reason, I’ll be seeking to have regular, one-on-one contact with young men in our congregation, in the hope of raising up more disciples and, I pray, some leaders of the future. What form this, or any of the above, will take, I’m still not sure, but I know these needs exist today, and I know that God has graciously given me the resources this year to address them. I would value your prayers as I continue to discern the right path for me in Bolivia, and the right path for El Jireh church.

Amanda: Keeping things Personnel

People who have read the blog before, or know me personally, will know that before our year in Scotland, I spent my mornings in Bolivia working in Audiology in the Foundation. When we first thought about serving in Bolivia, I wanted to use my Health Sciences degree and my experience as a medical secretary/health care support worker experience in my work in Trinidad.

I started out in nursing and after a year was trained as an audiological technician. I have enjoyed all the time I spent in those two areas as well as the relationships I made in them. I learned so much about ear and hearing care and I liked being able to put that knowledge to practical use in a missions context.

Amanda providing a routine hearing check as
part of FT's health check-ups for every
school child in Trinidad.

However, closer to the end of our first stint in Bolivia, I felt that what I was doing maybe wasn’t the wisest use of my time. I felt that there were a number of Bolivians who could do, or could be trained to do, what I was doing, and maybe even do it better.  This sense continued to grow as 2013 was drawing to a close, and I knew with a large degree of certainty that I would not be returning to audiology upon our arrival in Trinidad again. I was not quite sure what I would be doing instead, but I felt confident that there would be a better use of my time and skills.

Craig and I have spent at least the second half of our furlough year praying and sharing with each other about what we think God might have in store for us in Bolivia. From early on in 2014 I knew that the board of directors at the Foundation had taken on the job of human resources on top of their already busy schedule, and the concept of lightening this burden for Mariana and Miguel Angel was bouncing around in my mind.

I also felt strongly about the need for more overt evangelism amongst our own staff. Staff unity has also been a problem in the past and I have wondered in the past five years or so if someone needed to focus on building unity amongst all the staff through team building events or socials. Throughout the second half of the year, as we’ve been praying, I felt God leading me to the conclusion that I could address the majority of these issues if I left audiology and moved to human resources. I want to focus primarily on developing staff unity and a sense of team amongst us all, and evangelism to staff and patients in a more obvious way.

Amanda with FT audiologist, Odalys Arce

God, who has been so good and gracious to us in all things, once again proved to me how it was really Himself leading me to this conclusion. Mariana, at the beginning of September, wanted to have a Skype conversation to talk about what Craig and I were thinking of doing once we returned. I met her online and shared with her first about what Craig was thinking and then went on to outline my own thoughts. After hearing what I had to say, she answered with, “Oh good, that is exactly what we were wanting to ask you to do.” The confirmation that God had been working in both my heart and the other board of directors’ hearts on both side of the ocean was such an encouragement to me. I can return with the confidence that the leadership of the Foundation is supportive of the need for staff unity and evangelism.

Please pray that God gives me the wisdom to perform the tasks necessary. I am confident about getting alongside some people and developing friendships, but I am less confident about conflict resolution and problem solving amongst staff. I have some ideas for developing unity, but I also know that if I really want this to work I need to think outside the box and be creative and I am nervous about this particular challenge. I am so not as familiar with legal matters that might arise and I know I will be leaning heavily on other board members for advice in these cases. And as much as I would like to jump in and make changes, I know I need the sensitivity to move at the pace that the people around me are comfortable with and to follow God’s leading.

Amanda and Elías (centre) with their team at 2013's youth camp.

In terms of my involvement in the church, I am still praying through a lot and am adopting a wait-and-see approach. I feel the need to spend a lot more time with people one-on-one. I feel that a lot of programmes have been running perfectly fine without my involvement this year, so I would like to step back from a lot of programme work and focus on individual or small group discipleship. Depending on what we see when we join the church once again, I would like to take a step back from children’s work altogether and focus on supporting, but not running, youth work. I would like to be an active member of the women’s group in our church, but again, not necessarily organise the group.

However, I feel very strongly about supporting Craig in his church work. I know how hard and challenging this work is and I know he is going to need my help. I want to be there as prayer partner with him, and I definitely want to be available to listen to him and emotionally deal with the issues that are going to come up. I would like to help him practically as well; if this means cooking meals for leader’s meetings, or doing pastoral visits with him to families, couples or women, then I need to be able to fit these things into my schedule.

Although what I have written seems relatively well planned out, the truth is that we will not know exactly what we will be doing until we arrive and settle in. We want to take the time to integrate ourselves in the church and Foundation community before asserting ourselves or stepping on people’s toes. We know that relationships are central to what we do, and we also need to make time to re-establish old friendships and make new ones as well. We appreciate all your prayers as we seek to do these things with Christian love.

Both: Family Planning

One last thing, Columbo-style, which really applies to us both as a couple, and that is the possibility of adopting. We’ve been praying about this over the last couple of years and, now that we have something of a clear run of things for the next year or two (i.e., we probably won’t be leaving Bolivia for extended periods any time soon), we’re ready to begin actively exploring this possibility pretty much as soon as we get back.

In Bolivia, as with many things, the process of adoption tends to be a little more informal. We will first of all register with social work to be able to adopt, and then it’s quite simply a case of keeping an ear to the ground for any possible unwanted pregnancies; putting out the word through friends, making maternity nurses we know aware of our situation – a child could surface within a few weeks or many months, or even years later. We just don’t know.

Then would begin the next stage, of adopting that particular child, which can take a few months. And finally, we would begin looking into citizenship in the UK or Canada.

As you can see, then, much patience will required of us, both in the initial waiting period, and then as we take on the vast paperwork which will follow. Please remember this situation in your prayers.