Saturday Post -- 28/08/10

Something pretty amazing happened this morning. I was sitting in the car in the queue for the petrol pump, minding my own business, when some chancer on a motocicleta thundered in from nowhere and parked himself right in front of me in the queue. And here’s the thing: instead of ignoring this abuse of systematic restraint, the pump attendant proceeded to waggle her finger at him like a mother to a naughty child and, at which he slowly put-putted away, head down, lesson learned.

Please excuse my seemingly disproportionate levels of excitement, but round here, people don’t so much queue as elbow their way to the front, like John Prescott at a buffet. It can be thoroughly demoralising, not least because in most establishments, such loutishness is happily patronised by staff. So, when something like what occurred this morning takes place, it restores your faith in humanity a bit.

Anyway, as you can doubtless deduce from my ability to drive, I’m now leagues removed from my bed-ridden state of last week’s post, indeed, by Sunday, it was already a dim and distant memory. And I’m thankful it took place last weekend, because this weekend we’ve taken Friday and Monday off to give ourselves a short break. Indeed, after seven months of working straight, holidays are all of a sudden the new black as we’re hoping to fly to La Paz in a couple of weeks for a complete change of scene (and altitude).

And ‘hoping’ is the best way of putting it right now, because you may have read in the news that huge swathes of Bolivia are under a big black cloud right now. Winter being the dry season, this is the time of year when landowners traditionally take advantage of the arid conditions to burn down trees in order to clear space – smoke has filled the air for about two months here now. Except, in some parts of the country, the fires have been left unchecked and some 5 million acres have been wiped out. The consequences are several: the air quality is plummeting, 35 homes have been destroyed and, now that we have our very own version of the Icelandic volcano cloud, many airports (including Trinidad’s) cannot guarantee flight departures.

The government is in an awkward position, claiming it can’t afford to put the fires out from the air but so far failing to convince any regional neighbours to come and lend a hand. Of course, the US are just a phone call away, but the bridges were burnt there some time ago...

Essentially, then, we would ask that our blog followers become a little band of Elijahs and pray for rain to fall on this parched land, for the good of the people of Bolivia and, if possible, to allow us to get away for a while. We live next to FT and Trinidad is pretty isolated so in order to get a proper break from our work, travel is a must.

This week we were up to our usual tricks and I was charged with leading the meditations, taken from 2 Corinthians 5:6-15 in which Paul defends himself from accusations of selfish motives in the church on the basis that the love of Christ controls him, effectively rendering selfishness an impossibility. Would that I could say the same! A great challenge to us all and the chair in particular.

Prayer
• For rain (see above).
• For next Tuesday, when we’ll be heading back with a team to the remote town of San Pedro, to build on the work accomplished there during July’s 5-day clubs.

Praise
• For the refreshment of our mini-break – already feeling it by Friday lunchtime.
• For the never-ceasing vitality and relevance of the Word of God – something we often take for granted, yet so true this week.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda