Saturday Post -- 09/11/13

Craig teaching from John 21 at Samaritan's Purse on Monday morning.

First up, a huge answer to prayer.

In last week’s prayer points, I shared our frustrations over the visa for Odalys, FT’s audiologist. It was increasingly looking likely that Odalys would not get the required documents to travel to Guatemala this weekend for an audiology course that FT had put up substantial funds to send her to. Most frustrating was the fact that the visa application was sent to the Guatemalan embassy in Peru (a neighbour of Bolivia’s) via a world-renowned courier service two-and-a-half weeks ago, and by the time last week’s post had been written, some nine days later, it was in Argentina, having previously visited Miami and Montevideo. Worse still, the embassy in Lima were not answering our emails or phone calls.

Well. We received word from Lima on Tuesday that the visa was being processed and would be ready by the following day. They would send it to La Paz. We got one of our contacts in La Paz (a former FT worker) to pick it up in La Paz on Thursday and send it through to Santa Cruz. Odalys picked the visa up in Santa Cruz yesterday morning, enabling her to catch her flight at 6am this morning. Perfect timing!

There are probably a few important lessons for us as a Foundation in terms of being a little more prepared for these obstacles. But the Lord in his grace has once again proven to be our strength in our moment of weakness. Our God is an awesome God.

"Guten tag!" to Aline Sacher.

Of equal benefit to Odalys (and fellow audiologist Amanda) is a key piece of Audiology equipment donated to FT by House of Hearing in Edinburgh, and brought out here by Aline Sacher, our new volunteer from Germany. Like Ruth Young and Deborah Holmes before her, Aline has come out to Trinidad as part of the 'First Serve' programme, a joint initiative between Echoes of Service, Interlink and GLO (more information here), which allows young people to get a taste for the mission field as part of a year of training. Aline will be here till June, long after we're gone.

However, her arrival has brought about something of a neat bookending for us, particularly Amanda. Way back in the dark days of January 2010, we had barely landed when we were whisked off by KC to the police station, Interpol, the immigration headquarters and our fair share of lawyers' offices, in order to process our one-year visa (the haste is necessary in order to avoid a fine after your month's grace in the country). Well, four years later, with just over four weeks remaining in Trinidad, this time it has fallen to Amanda to do the, er, whisking. So she and whiskee Aline have spent a good chunk of the week observing the bureaucratic process at close quarters -- i.e., sitting on plastic chairs while government officials look for bits of paper they lost.

With Javier Ríos, of SP Trinidad. Eagle-eyed
readers may have noted that the sun was quite
strong that day.

Aline arrived on Sunday afternoon and she and Amanda were already knuckling down to the paper-chase first thing on Monday morning, so important is it to get a head start on these things. Meanwhile, across town, I was giving a talk on John 21 to the staff of Samaritan's Purse here in Trinidad. On the first Monday of each month, the staff lock themselves in to their compound and have a day of prayer and fasting. One of our church attenders, Javier (see picture), was in charge of putting together a programme last Monday, and asked me if I'd come and speak on missions. It was a pleasure to be able to be an encouragement to our fellow ministers.

I was also backed up by Alex Wann, from Wyoming, who led a time of singing on the guitar. Alex (who followed this blog for some time before his arrival in Trinidad) began a two-year posting with Samaritan's Purse a couple of months ago and has been a great source of encouragement to me. I have mentioned here previously that Bolivian males in particular are extremely reluctant to let their brothers in Christ scratch beneath the surface and ask the important questions, to the extent that my most meaningful Christian relationship here has been with my fellow missionary, Kenny. Kenny's absence since July, therefore, left something of a void in that regard. So I firmly believe that God placed Alex -- a guy who wastes no time whatsoever in getting down to the important subjects -- here with my own needs in mind, just as much as those of Samaritan's Purse. I'm actually writing this after having a time of sharing and prayer over breakfast, something we hope to do regularly in the short time before we leave.

Not next weekend, though! For we will both be part of the leadership team at our church's first ever campamento, now just seven days away. In our church's short existence, this is proving to be easily the biggest single logistical endeavour we've engaged in. We get exhausted just thinking about it. But we're really excited to see what the Lord has in store in a week's time. Blogging will be out of the question, but a full report will be included in the  23rd of November's Saturday Post.

Prayer

• Camp is by far the biggest prayer point this week. Pray particularly for the Lord's anointing on Jerry, who will be speaking throughout the weekend on the topic of family. Pray for Amanda and Mariana, who still have a lot of administration to wade through before the weekend, not least in collecting payments from the members of the youth group. Pray for energy for all us leaders. Pray for the 30 or so young people in attendance, particularly those who haven't yet made a confession of faith. And pray for the church, that the whole event would continue to bind us together; though it's really a youth camp, most of the adults from the church will be in attendance in a leadership capacity, and the church is invited to join us on the Sunday for a special service.
• Pray for Craig, who is doing the final teaching slot on Esther tonight at youth group.
• Tomorrow is a church leaders' meeting. Prayer always appreciated for wisdom for Craig, Elías and Jerry.
• Pray for Amanda and Aline as they continue to plough away in the visa application process.
• You've made it this far? One more then. Craig is looking to get some English-language sermons under his belt for the UK and Canada before we leave, so as not to be spending Christmas in front of MS Word. Pray that God would reveal to Craig the right topics and the right approach, preaching in the West being a very different kettle of fish to preaching in the developing world.

Praise

• Give thanks for Aline's safe arrival.
• Give thanks for opportunities for Craig to encourage (at Samaritan's Purse) and to be encouraged (by Alex).
• Give thanks for the Lord's perfect timing in the Guatemalan visa situation. Now that is what I call a lesson in faith.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda