Saturday Post -- 07/03/15

Last night at around a quarter past eleven, some seventeen hours since horizontality, and as I applied a little more elbow grease to the last plate's pizza residue, I thought to myself, "Back in Scotland, when visualising what this new stage in Bolivia would look like, it would have looked awfully like today."

In the morning, I met with Daniel and Yonatán for their weekly discipleship session, half an hour earlier than planned, at 8:30am, to accommodate some last-minute changes to Daniel's diary. A couple of years ago, we would have had to scrap the whole thing due to the fact that I would have had to attend Fundación Totaí's morning staff meeting, which takes place around the same time. And while I do still try to make it there most days, the fact that my only real work for FT now is in supporter communications means that I am under no obligation to attend, and can be much more flexible in the mornings. And as anyone who's read this blog with any frequency can attest, flexibility is an important commodity in Bolivia.

It was another terrific session with the boys, during which we worked through the next part of our Spanish translation of 'God's Big Picture' by Vaughan Roberts -- a text I strongly recommend, by the way, if you struggle in your Bible reading to see the macro for the micro; so easy to read, too. Resources of the calibre of 'God's Big Picture' just don't exist here, and naturally, the boys are lapping it up. It's a joy to guide them through these vitally important concepts for understanding Scripture.

Finished by 10am, I was free to head over to FT (just a five-minute walk from our house) and the office which has kindly been lent to me in the mornings. There, I took care of some more church business, writing out music for a new song, preparing for the men's ministry launch that evening, and sitting down with a church member and FT worker to discuss something that had come up in the church leadership meeting the night before.

With everything pretty much in place for the evening's activity, and having worked morning, afternoon and evening since Tuesday (Monday being our day off), I was able to afford myself a few hours of relaxation in the afternoon, during which I touched base with a former Cornhill colleague via Skype. Since coming back, I have set up a network of four friends from the UK, who vary in age and background but who also share a passion for the gospel. They have each agreed to meet online for about an hour once a month, which in turn means that I can get a bit of encouragement most weeks. I hope they can too. The effort it took for me to set all of this up has already paid great dividends.

Weather permitting, Friday late-afternoon usually sees me running podcast-assisted laps on the track at the nearby stadium (I try to do the same time on Mondays and Wednesdays too). Exercise is another important tool I have in maintaining personal sanity, and Fridays are particularly anticipated, what with the Guardian Football Weekly/Kermode & Mayo double-bill.

I then had a couple of hours to make myself socially acceptable again, before the first motorcycles revved up the driveway for the church's first official men's ministry meeting (the front garden soon resembled a two-wheeler garage). We enjoyed some Wii U, the half-dozen pizzas that one of the group had specially made with his wife, and a whole lot of blokey banter, before I gave a short talk I'd prepared about how the world's perceptions of manhood conflict with what God has to say on the topic, prompting a short discussion before we wound things up at around 10:30pm. There was a general acceptance among the group that strong male spiritual leadership both in the home and in church (with the latter's activities all too often encroaching on the former) too easily becomes something for which we eschew our God-given responsibility. I'm very excited to see where this ministry takes our church.

But just to keep our feet on the ground, Amanda's afternoon yesterday could hardly have been more deflating. As has been mentioned here before, she's now in charge of Human Resources at FT and just needs a bit of assurance now and again that she's doing her job well, particularly as she's not been trained in it. Anyone who knows Amanda will know that she most certainly is; the discouragement comes when positive results are not all that forthcoming. 

What with Google translate and other such tools, this is not the place to go into details about what happened yesterday, but I'll try to hit the main notes. Essentially, she had a long-arranged meeting with members of the health staff, most of whom were not Christians. And for most of the meeting she had to walk a tightrope: laying down discipline where required, due to some grumbling about the working conditions; but endeavouring at all times to do this in a way which maintained her own, and FT's, Christian witness. 

The meeting was made particularly difficult by the fact that one of the participants was asked by Amanda to adapt their working method a little to help the others and staunchly refused. This was especially hard to take from the one member of the group who is a believer; indeed, the person in question plays an active role in our church and is someone we would generally consider to be a good friend. The loneliness of leadership, in a nutshell.

A great contrast in experiences, then, yesterday, and not in any way untypical of an average day here; Amanda has had to support me through some challenging days too. As individuals who are not always the most stable, emotionally and mentally, we in no way take for granted the great gift that God has given us to stand strong when such circumstances arise: each other.

Prayer

• It's been mentioned here before, but particularly in the light of experiences like yesterday's, please keep Amanda and this new work of hers in your prayers. The FT board (on which Amanda sits) are also dealing with a few weighty matters just now and have their monthly meeting this coming week. Wisdom required by the bucketful!

Praise

• We had a really encouraging members' meeting at the church on Wednesday night, where the leaders (including Craig) put forward proposals to alter the programme. It is possible for a church member at the moment to attend up to six meetings a week, and while we're glad that such a range of services are available, most people quite understandably can't make it out to everything, and attendance has taken a hit. So we've dropped one of the two midweek meetings -- we'll now alternate the prayer meeting and the Bible study on Thursday nights -- and are going to drop the communion service the first Sunday of the month to incorporate it into the family service. There was a generally positive response, and some constructive discussion too as to the overall direction of the church.
• For the men's meeting last night; an encouraging start.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda