Episode 10: Out of the Overflow

It's been a remarkably dry 'rainy season' this year, as
evidenced by this dusty road near our house.

Speaking of roads, these cars were getting a layer of mud applied so as to
prepare for the carnage of Carnaval (they spray paint at you here). A not
uncommon sight.

Sam in silly-selfie mode. There's definitely a west-of-Scotland thing going on here.

Remember Mariana from Trinidad? She graduated from Etnos last week! This
is a seminary with a particular focus on tribal missions and unreached peoples.
Here she is with husband  Nathan (they married just a couple of months ago).
Craig has known her since she was just eight years old and, of course, we served
alongside her at Fundación Totaí for many years. What a joy to see her graduate!

Sam with his friend Zoe, at church.

More of the same. I think that's quite enough for now.

Prayer Points

• We are busy, but very much serving from 'the overflow of the abundance' of God's grace. It's an exciting place to be. Give thanks.
• Give thanks for the progress we are seeing in Sam.
• Give thanks for the opportunity to come alongside other church and ministry leaders in Santa Cruz in the last month.
• Pray for our upcoming travels: Amanda to Cochabamba and Oruro (11th-14th), Craig to Scotland (17th-26th).
• Pray for the Langham event taking place today (Saturday 7th) and for preparations for the Level 1/2 event in June.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

The Moving Story (Part I)

The wardrobe of doom.

Two months have passed since we last updated our blog. That's probably the longest we've gone between posts while being based on the field. However, it's also a reflection of the busyness of our lives since we last posted. Between confirmation of my new role and our moving date, we had five weeks to prepare to leave our home base for a near-decade.

To make up for lost time, we will endeavour to write a short(ish) post once a week for the next few weeks, with the aim of gradually painting a picture of our move to Santa Cruz and the settling-in process. Here, I will touch specifically on leaving Trinidad.

Now given our nine years there as a couple (and almost 19 years since I first set foot in the Beni region), you may at this juncture be expecting something along the lines of a dewy-eyed BBC Sport montage. But the reality will be rather different, for two reasons. Firstly, we had so little time to get everything in place for the move that there was simply no real opportunity to properly digest leaving Trinidad and the many friends we left behind there. Secondly, if you've read our previous post, and if you've had any contact with us of late, you will be aware that we've not really felt 'at home' in Trinidad for some time; if anything, the process of saying goodbye has been an extended one, over the last year or two.

All that said, we have one last item of official business to fulfil in Trinidad: a longstanding commitment to oversee a team arriving from Canada in July. We will be back there with the team for around ten days, and our hope is that conditions then will be much more relaxed, and therefore much more conducive, to bid the place a proper farewell.

The focus for the remainder of this post, then, will be on the practicalities of the move itself -- a far from uneventful procedure!

The road between Trinidad and Santa Cruz is only about 350km in length, but the quality of its surface varies considerably; we used to be able to drive it in eight or nine hours in our car including breaks, but worsening conditions have lengthened the journey to around eleven hours. Bearing in mind this, as well as the much longer time a haulage vehicle was going to need, we knew there was no chance of completing the move in a single day. So, we arranged for the movers to come to Trinidad on the morning of the 22nd of January (a Monday). We would then stay in accommodation at Foundation Totaí that night, setting off early the next day, with the goal of rendezvousing with the movers here in Santa Cruz that evening.

What, indeed, could possibly go wrong?

Having made contact with the Santa Cruz-based removal company some weeks before, I wired a deposit to their account a few days before the move. Confirming receipt of said monies, the head of the company (also the main driver) told me we could expect them in Trinidad early on Monday morning.

9am on Monday and still no sign of them. No big deal. This is Bolivia, after all. But still nothing at 9:30. Nor 10. So I began to make some calls. Except that all of the company's advertised numbers went straight to voicemail (ie, their phones weren't even switched on). At this point, we were beginning to worry. Had we been victims of an elaborate scam? So we made contact with some friends in Santa Cruz, who helpfully paid a visit to the company's headquarters ('office' would seemingly be too generous a term). The woman there assured them that the moving team had left Santa Cruz on Saturday, and we should expect to hear from them soon. And sure enough, at around 11am, I finally heard from the boss, telling me they had arrived in Trinidad, and we could expect to see them soon. Quite frankly, I was too relieved to complain.

But this, too, proved something of a fib. The hours passed again with no sign of the movers. I called at half-hour intervals to be informed that "Estamos llegando" ("We are arriving"), a more cryptic statement than meets the eye: we learned long ago that in this culture, it can equally be rendered, "Stop bothering me! You'll see me when you see me!"

Still, we reckoned it would be worth the wait. If the company's professional-looking website was anything to go by, we could expect a modern, gleaming-white lorry, with more than enough space for our earthly possessions.

Compare...

And so, imagine our surprise when, finally, at 3pm, this contraption shambled up our street:

...and contrast.

As a motorised vehicle, it looked about as reliable as a Venezuelan election result. But that didn't phase us too much; there's practically no mechanical fault your average Bolivian road-user can't fix. What did concern us more was the size, and I made my concerns known to the boss upon arrival. To which he responded with a considered analysis of all the factors involved: "Nah, it'll be fine, don't worry about it." And to be fair, we weren't exactly in the mood to wait another few days for a bigger vehicle.

Before we knew it, the seven-strong team were making up for lost time, working furiously to get everything packed up. Having no experience of moving within Bolivia, the whole experience was an eye-opener. The first thing they did was come in with a great quantity of woolen blankets. Having arrived this late, were they now planning on staying the night?! Actually, no. They proceeded to wrap every single large item of furniture (including our eight-seater dining room table), and all of our large domestic appliances, in said blankets, before generously applying several layers of industrial-strength cling-film. This process in itself took around 90 minutes.

It was then time to start loading the truck, the goal being to pack the large furnishings as tightly as possible, while packing smaller items -- such as our many boxes -- around them. The biggest challenge here was a large and very heavy wardrobe which we had bought second-hand from a friend a few years ago, an item so cumbersome that back then, we hired a small team with ropes to haul it upstairs via one of the balconies (it was too wide to go up the stairs). Well, our friends in January came to the studied conclusion of: "Ropes? Nah!") and thus, they endeavoured to lower it from one of the balconies on to the bed of the truck among themselves. This was the result.

Apologies for turning away at the crucial moment. This is why I never went into war photography. Anyway, this being Bolivia, they all just chuckled about it and got on with the job. Remarkable.

Remarkably, by around 7pm, most items were now loaded, but a good hour or so more of rearrangement was in store, as they tried their best to fit some final things. By this point, the truck resembled a Jenga tower on wheels. They admitted defeat on a few things, which we decided to either leave behind or squeeze into our car for the next day's journey. 

And so, for all the frustration of the perennial delays, and our concerns over size, you had to hand it over them: in five hours or so, they more or less had our entire earthly possessions squeezed into a vehicle surely designed for far smaller loads. We were impressed, and make no mistake. 

Which made what happened next all the more galling.

[Note to self: Insert "dum-dum-DUMMM!" audio-clip here.]

To be continued...

A typically Trinidad sunset ends a typically Trinidad day!

At this point, we usually share some items for prayer. Please excuse any vagueness at this juncture, so as to spoiler-proof future posts about the move!

Prayer Points

• Give thanks that pretty much all our goods made the cut for the move to Santa Cruz.
• We have settled into our new rhythms and roles here fairly well. Sam is greatly enjoying his new school, while Craig has made a solid start as pastor. Meanwhile, Amanda has taken on a new, small role with Latin Link, as the interim coordinator for short-term volunteers in Bolivia.
• The latter point is especially apt, as a new volunteer -- Simon Howling -- has just arrived from England. He will be staying with us for a few days, before heading to...Trinidad! That's right. He will be working there alongside some of our old cohorts for the next couple of years. Give thanks for his safe arrival, and give thanks for Laura Szejnmann, also from England, who is here in Santa Cruz for a few months as part of Latin Link. We enjoyed meeting her a couple of weeks ago.
• And staying with Latin Link, Craig attended his first executive board meeting since being elected to serve on the board last September. Give thanks for a productive meeting for Craig and his fellow board members Graham Frith and Julie Noble.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam

Steppin' Out

It begins.

Those who sow in tears

shall reap with shouts of joy!

He who goes out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

bringing his sheaves with him.

Psalm 126:5-6

The purpose of this blog post is to elaborate a little bit on what we've already mentioned in our recent supporters' update, for those of you who are interested; a director's cut, if you like.

Some time ago, we wrote in detail about our time in Guatemala at the Latin Link International Assembly in February, and the many encouragements we took away from it. This really came at a critical juncture in our lives.

By the time the IA came around, Amanda had already been diagnosed with compassion fatigue, and we were already planning on getting back to Scotland for a spell away from here as soon as a visa could be procured for Sam. We were so dumbstruck by what was happening to us that we weren't ruling out any possibilities for the future, including leaving the field altogether. And we weren't too excited about having to attend a big conference while we were wrestling with all of this.

Bolivians and expats mix well at Trinity.

But that week in many ways reignited our passion for missions in Latin America, drawing us close to lots of likeminded people, many of whom empathised greatly with our situation and encouraged us not to lose heart. 

A typical conversation that week went like this:

Inquisitor: "So, tell me about your ministry."

Us: "Well, we work with a Christian NGO and a church."

I: "And where in Bolivia is this? La Paz? Cochabamba? Santa Cruz?"

U: "No, a town called Trinidad. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere!"

I: "And how long have you been serving there?"

U: "Just over eight years. We've not been there that lo--"

I: "Eight years! No wonder you're burnt out!"

We were still thinking of ourselves as relative novices. And compared to many others at the IA, we were. But it was clear in such exchanges that in order to continue in Latin American missions -- in which we and others felt we still had a great future -- we seriously needed to consider moving somewhere with a little more infrastructure and support.

This in many ways confirmed our increasing suspicions. As much as we love our community here, Trinidad can be a preternaturally exhausting place in which to live and serve. I'll give you an example:

Now you can't do this in Trinidad, can you.

Three weekends ago, we had severe flooding, so severe that the bridge  that links our street with the main road (essentially, a row of loosely-connected planks) came apart, floating up our street in the process! That Saturday evening (with no small effort!) I got knee-deep in the river now running where our street once was and salvaged as many planks as I could. But until the water receded enough, there was no possibility of repairing the bridge and thus using our car. 

On the Sunday morning, somewhat ironically, our own water supply then ran out! (Our street is not connected to a water supply and so, like many in our town, we rely on water companies who transport their water to us in trucks; we have to fill our tank every ten days or so.) This complicated things further. Not only this, but we had just received word that the two lost suitcases belonging to Amanda's mother (who is currently visiting us) had finally arrived at Trinidad airport after a three-day delay. So with the help of a friend, I had to get to and from the airport in the Foundation's truck, then park at the end of our street where the bridge is normally in place, and finally carry both cases at shoulder height (so as not to get them wet) about 70 yards to our house. 

And the flooding was so severe that it was not until Monday morning that, aided by our neighbours, I was able to fix the makeshift bridge again, effectively enabling us to once again use our car. This pretty much wiped out a whole morning of work. 

This is an English class run by a Trinity member for parents of children in the
local English-language school; a great ministry.

Such experiences are typical of Trinidad. "Expect the unexpected" ought to be the town's motto. And perhaps we just assumed we had become accustomed to this. But after a while, such living rather takes its toll. And the chaos can be not just infrastructural but personal. People's lives here can be particularly messy, and we had counselled many teenagers and adults over the years who had come to us for advice in a particular situation, only to effectively reject it with their subsequent damaging choices. The cumulative effect of this was a huge factor in Amanda's struggles last year in particular.

We were also increasingly finding Trinidad a rather lonely place to live in the light of our struggles at that time as a family. Though Amanda was visibly declining before the eyes of our church community, people simply didn't know how to respond. Of course, this is understandable in a place that has yet to properly grapple with the concept of mental health (much like our own countries not too long ago, of course).

More positively, however, it was also becoming clear that our goal of 'working ourselves out of a job' had largely come to fruition. Much of the work we had been involved in beginning or developing was now being overseen by capable Bolivians. There was arguably a moral duty here to step aside for the sake of local growth.

For these reasons and others, we came to an acceptance in Guatemala that we were in the closing straight in Trinidad. But where next?

In the subsequent months, I (Craig) was warming to the idea of, say, Colombia or Mexico, countries with pleasant climates and a slightly more western culture, where we knew we could serve among other friends and perhaps feel not quite so far from home; as we passed through Bogotá airport recently, I couldn't help but notice there were direct flights to Heathrow.

But the more we thought about this, we came to an acceptance that, in the light of our own recent struggles, a sudden change to a very different cultural context -- no matter how western -- may not be the best thing for us at the moment. And so, during our time in Scotland, we began to think more locally as we looked to our future. In particular, we wanted to live in a more urban environment, somewhere we could hopefully draw on more resources for mental health, somewhere Sam might have more opportunities for development, somewhere I could reacquaint myself with the arts, somewhere Amanda could just drop everything and go and get a grande Frappuccino when the need arose!

And it became increasingly clear to us, as we prayed, that the answer was a city that over the years had become something of a home from home as we sought to 'switch off' from a more provincial pace of living: Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 

A special event was organised to enable us to meet some of the church's
growing Bolivian community.

And Santa Cruz had particular potential as we were already aware of ministry opportunities. Indeed, it was back in January of this year that I first became aware of the vacancy at Trinity International Church, a vacancy we were clearly not in a position to even consider at that time, but which became harder to ignore the more we weighed it up during our time in Scotland.

So, a couple of weeks before we returned here in September, I made initial contact with some members of the search committee at Trinity, and I was encouraged by what they had to say. The position was very much centred on preaching and spiritual leadership, with administrative tasks (not my strong suit!) already being attended to by others on the church's board of directors. Amanda would clearly be given the time and space she needed to recover, as from the church's perspective there were zero expectations of her as a pastor's wife. And with such a large expat community in the congregation, there were obvious opportunities for greater on-field support for us as a family.

I submitted my application in late September and, following a Skype interview with the search committee, we were invited to come through to Santa Cruz for a week in December, the idea being that I would preach on two Sunday mornings, and we would get to know the church community a little better during the week. Following my second sermon, there would be a vote as to whether to go ahead with the appointment. 

David and Jenny, the long-serving hospitality coordinator. Every
church needs its Jenny!

We are just back from Santa Cruz and I think we can safely consider the week a success. At the various social gatherings organised for various groups (men, women, Bolivians, leadership+spouses), we both had some very positive interactions with a congregation which is clearly excited about having a pastor in place at long last. In particular, we are sensing that a real advantage we bring with us is that, unlike previous pastors here, we are coming to the job with plenty of experience of working with Bolivians -- indeed, the big change for us will not be worshipping with Bolivians, but with our fellow expats! With Bolivians now in the majority on a Sunday morning (many of them having come to the church through its excellent English-teaching ministry), this seems a useful feather to have in our caps. 

At the same time, we are obviously excited about having more fellowship opportunities with those who share cultural common ground in the North American and European contingent. In truth, for many years we had perhaps been a little sniffy about even the concept of English-language churches in foreign climates. But given our recent struggles, we have come to appreciate how wrong that attitude was. We have benefitted hugely this year from Latin Link's policy of 'member care', ensuring their people are being well looked-after in their on-field labours. It is hard to see how English-language ministry to people involved in similar work does not fall into the same category. As good as our Spanish is now, we have always looked for our own 'feeding' in English. We trust that a different social context will broaden our horizons in this area.

A men's breakfast at Starbucks (never knowingly underpriced).

We are especially encouraged by the church board's sensitivity to our own situation -- burnout recovery can take up to three years -- and their willingness to take a lead from me in areas like work hours and support structures. 

Having preached on Psalm 112 (on the 9th of December) and Matthew 1:1-17 (16th), and with nary a rotten tomato being hurled in my direction, all that remained was that aforementioned vote. I'm as humbled as I am delighted to report that I was approved.

And so now, all of a sudden, we now have just five weeks in which to pack up our house and tie up several loose ends in Trinidad. 'Daunting' ain't the word. And so Gabriel's words to Mary are especially timely in this of all Decembers: "For nothing will be impossible with God." If the past twelve months are anything to go by, we have nothing to fear.

Prayer Points

• Give thanks for the Lord's clear direction over the course of this year, particularly in the last few months.
• Give thanks for a great week among the good people of Trinity International Church. We feel blessed, nourished and greatly optimistic.
• Give thanks for the timely visit of Amanda's mother, Selene. She was a huge support to us last week in particular as we attended various events to help us get to know the church. Pray for her as she travels back to Canada on the 28th.
• Pray for us as we prepare to leave Trinidad. As well as packing up our lives, we need to have everything in order for selling our house, and we want to make sure we 'finish well' at the church and the Foundation.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam

Saturday Post -- 21/05/16

Last weekend, a group of pastors and church leaders (including myself, Craig) in the company of the eminent Eduardo Rojas, decamped to a remote location for a second spin of the Langham Preaching wheel.

Miguel

If, like me, you know your films, you’ll be aware that sequels very rarely tend to live up to their progenitors (with the notable exceptions of Toy Story 2, The Godfather Part Two, and, of course, The Empire Strikes Back). That was decidedly not the case with Langham: Level 2 (Revenge of the Bedbugs?), which both built, and improved, upon 2015’s gains. Not only that, but after a year of quite literally preaching at each other, by now the whole group was well used to the Langham modus operandi, and so, like any good follow-up, we were free to ditch any introductions and hit the ground running.

Nowhere was this more evident than in our final task: the inevitable preparation and preaching of a sermon. Last year, we were given a full two days’ notice; this time round, a mere two hours.

Eduardo in action.

After Level 1’s introduction to expository preaching in general, Level 2 centres on the New Testament, and Eduardo opted to look at the parables of Luke with us, with a particular focus on the Pharisee and the Publican, the Good Samaritan, and the Two Builders (on which we preached). If you know the gospels well, you’ll know that Luke is rich in parables, many of which are unique to the evangelist. We spent a good deal of time over the first couple of days thinking about what a parable is, seeing that there is so much more to them than simply being ‘illustrative’.

Mary

The focus on the parables also subtly reinforced some of the preaching principles introduced in Level 1. Langham Preaching programmes place great emphasis on both identifying cultural nuances in world of the passage, and communicating the force of these in terminology that people in the contemporary setting would appreciate. Most of the parables are set in and around Palestine of Jesus’ day – i.e., they’re chock-full of such cultural quirks – and demonstrate the power of communicating theological truths in a way that a contemporary audience would understand.

The study of the parables also gave Eduardo a platform from which to introduce a slightly different form of preaching. A narrative text lends itself to a narrative sermon style, and he preached twice in this way; for example, while teaching the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, he assumed the role of a listening Pharisee, i.e., one of those ‘who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else’ (Luke 18:9). The other sermon was delivered in the third-person, while maintaining the narrative tone. While this was something of a departure for most (including myself), there was at no point a sense that the truth of the passage was being somehow diluted. The group itself was not asked to deliver a narrative sermon over the weekend (I guess I’ll have to save my first-person Esther sermon series for another time), but we gave the notion plenty of thought in workshops, including a five-minute exercise in which we told each other the parable of the Good Samaritan from a first- and third-person perspective.

Occasional visitors were welcome.

The big constant from last year (aside from the bedbugs) was the preaching task at the end of the weekend, in which each of the three groups was required to prepare a sermon, to be delivered by one of its members. My group included a Langham rookie, 25-year-old seminary student Ignacio; generally, Langham HQ prefer the groups to not take on new members after the initial conference, but an exception was made for Ignacio given his experience to date. He preached his very first sermon (on the Two Builders), and literally knocked it out the park, as Jamie Redknapp might have put it. If you’ll excuse the pun, it’s fair to say he left the experience with solid foundations upon which to build.

Ignacio

Personally, Level 2 proved to be a timely encouragement. Around this time last year, it’s fair to say I was still riding the Cornhill wave when it came to my preaching, and my chief Langham joy was in seeing others get the expository preaching bug. Of late, however, I’ve felt a slight staleness, and particularly when it comes to getting the message across in terms that people can truly appreciate and apply in their day-to-day lives. I’ve often thought that, for all that we live in a very close-knit – and very Bolivian – community, Amanda and I are often at something of a disadvantage when it comes to truly understanding the lives of Bolivian families, due simply to our ethnicity and, if we’re honest, relative wealth.

For me, then, the most stimulating – and challenging – exercise, was one in which, as a group, we spent 30 minutes listing the various issues that individuals face in Trinidad, Bolivia, on personal, familial, church and societal scales. It was instructive to note how many of these were touched on by the parables (though that was sheer coincidence). I have taken a note of these lists, and hope to refer to them frequently in my future sermon preparation.

My good buddy (and fellow Trinidad coordinator), Cristian

As ever, Eduardo was keen to stress the dangers of becoming mere eventistas, and the hard work now begins as we resume our monthly meetings (in which one person preaches and the others give constructive feedback), starting in early June. We hope this is one follow-up that will not disappoint.

Langham Trinidad. Booyah.

Prayer

• Another great encouragement of Level 2 was simply spending time with each other. The majority of those in the group are the sort of people I’d only see at our meetings, yet they are great, godly people. We sometimes feel our lack of deep friendships here in Trinidad. Perhaps there is scope here; prayer appreciated.
• Wouldn’t you know it? Craig is due to give a sermon tomorrow on Psalm 62. Barely a week gone, and an opportunity to preach what he’s practised.
• Pray for Trinidad as a city. There is a pretty deplorable situation going on right now, with the government withholding salaries for municipal workers for several months (it has been speculated that this is due to Trinidad’s delivering a ‘no’ vote in February’s referendum; we can’t know for sure, but it would not be surprising). This is causing a great squeeze in all kinds of sectors; crime is on the increase; and it has touched one individual in our church, a sewage worker, directly. Pray that common sense would prevail. 

Praise

• For a great Langham weekend, and a great platform established for the year ahead.
• Give thanks for the work of Paul and Aaron, our Brass Tacks volunteers, who this weekend conclude their six-week building and maintenance work at Fundación Totaí. They have been a great help, not just with tools in hand, but also the Bible (Paul stepped in and preached last weekend while all the regular candidates were away at Langham). Their journey home to the UK begins on Tuesday, if you could remember that in your prayers. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 18/04/15

Not infrequently, as I read over my sermon notes early on a Sunday morning, I think to myself, “This of all weeks”. That was certainly my experience last weekend.

As mentioned last Saturday, we have just begun a new sermon series in 2 Peter, in which the apostle expresses his desire that his readers ‘be on your guard, so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ We do not know too much about the recipients, but it is clear that Peter is concerned for his readers’ continued growth, and especially in the light of repeated assaults by false teachers. Indeed, the theme of false teachers is woven right through the letter, implicitly and explicitly.

So where does this all fit in to April 2015 in northern Bolivia? Well, back in February, I was kindly given the opportunity to speak at a dinner for Trinidad’s pastors and church leaders, in order to promote the Langham Preaching course. The event was really my first foray into the wider church scene here, and an instructive one. The singing was fervent, the music vibrant, the prayers ardent, and chiefly focused on the need for unity among the city’s pastors. The sermon was merely passable – more a meditation on a theme, really – but encouraged by the generally positive tone of the evening, I was happy to see past that.

This group, I was to learn, met once a month on Saturday mornings; I resolved immediately to make the effort to pop along. Well, maybe it was the early start (6am!) and the lack of a free meal, but I began to get a fuller appreciation of things that morning, and I was concerned about what I was seeing and hearing, not least the sermon, which was totally unrepresentative of the text, heavy on prosperity-gospel theology, and despite this, was answered by a chorus of ‘Améns’ at every juncture (is it naïve of me to expect sermons given to fellow pastors to be of an especially high quality, given the preaching abilities of the listeners?). An invitation was then given at the end for those who wanted more of this in their ministry to come forward and be anointed with oil. All but three of us did so. In a town where education levels are so poor that people tend to simply do what someone in authority tells them without so much as a moment’s thought, perhaps I had been overly-optimistic in expecting pastors and church leaders to take the lead in the discernment stakes.

In all honesty, the only thing stopping me from not turning up last weekend was a promise to our fellow missionary KC that I would promote the Emmaus correspondence courses (which FT administers in Trinidad) at one of the meetings. This time, the meeting was largely dominated by administrative concerns, but something that got my nerves twitching was a casual reference to ‘apostles’, e.g., ‘we need to be praying for the situation in such-and-such-a-village, where Apostle Bill has fallen out with Apostle Ben’. Later, an upcoming evangelistic event was being promoted, for which it was incumbent that everyone bring as many people along from their church as possible, in order to hear what ‘Apostle Moses’ had to say.

The apostolic movement is a big deal in Latin America, with many pastors assuming for themselves the title of ‘apostle’ in order to claim for themselves an authority equal to that of the Twelve. And what need, indeed, would one have of Peter and his cohorts, when the Bible is rarely read, when it is mis-preached anyway, and when the word of a pastor in the 21^st century is supposedly more relevant than the ‘living and active’ word of God? Naturally, people tend to get seriously exploited. Up until now, these were things I had only heard about; last weekend was my first exposure to its out-workings right here in Trinidad.

Indeed, going back to 2 Peter, he introduces himself straight out of the blocks as ‘an apostle of Jesus Christ’, stating right from the off that his word carries divine authority; an early salvo against the false teachers of the readers’ time. Here there is only assumed authority in the title, and its occupants are largely preaching heresies.

The prayers for unity, this time, were harder to go along with, all of a sudden sounding more shallow. Unity in the body of Christ is, of course, a noble aspiration, but I’m increasingly realising that its implied meaning in these meetings is more like, ‘willingness to leave one’s brain at the door and submit to some seriously ropey doctrine’.

At the end of the meeting, I got my five minutes to plug the Emmaus courses, with their particular emphasis on personal growth through – wait for it – reading the Bible. For the first time that morning, there was barely an ‘Amén’ to be heard among the assembled pastors and church leaders. A silence that, to me, appeared to speak volumes.

Over the last week, I’ve been chewing over the whole ‘joint-church’ scene, and whether my continued participation can be of any benefit, to myself or others. I’d appreciate your prayers as I think on these questions.

There can be a tendency for us reserved westerners to watch the vibrant Latin American church scene from afar and get a bit sniffy about the emotive nature of it all. But to do so is to question the God-given nature of these peoples. Indeed, such passion is a tremendous asset. Oh for a taste of it in the church in Scotland! As this video reminded me, it’s a question of directing these energies down the correct channels.

Which brings me, finally, to this weekend – specifically last night – when we had our first Bible study as part of the men’s ministry. As we delved deeper into questions of Biblical manhood, I found my interjections as the study’s chairman increasingly infrequent, my Bolivian cohorts taking it upon themselves to minister to one another, be open and honest about personal challenges, and speak truth into the individual needs of the group (“But you must remember, Diego, what the Bible says in…”). So deep did we go that I effectively had to ask my friends to leave, otherwise we could have kept going till well past midnight. No loud music. No emotive gestures from the pulpit. To all intents and purposes, all we were doing was sitting around an open book. But the Latin fire was no less in evidence.

That’s more like it.

Prayer

• Amanda has just got back from the youth leadership meeting (they also take place first thing on a Saturday!) and was telling me there are a lot of interpersonal tensions between some of the young people. Mostly silly stuff, but pray that it wouldn’t become a stumbling block to their participation in the group.
• For Craig as he preaches on 2 Peter 1:5-15 tomorrow. 

Praise

• Craig was able to visit Hernán this week to begin a Bible study, which went really well. He and Elías will each be visiting him once a week in order to keep the momentum going, and give him something important to be thinking about during those long hours in that hospital bed.
• Amanda had an encouraging time this week as she began discipleship with a couple more women.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 21/02/15

Last January, the Beni region -- which is flat, vast, and susceptible to rain-related hazards at the best of times -- was hit by the worst flooding it had witnessed in 60 years. Dozens lost their lives and around 60,000 families were displaced. The floods had a devastating impact on agriculture too, with 150,000 cattle killed and 43,000 hectares of cultivated land destroyed.

Of course, we were not actually in Trinidad when this happened; indeed, having arrived here in 2010 just after some similarly bad flooding, we seem to have an uncanny knack of avoiding the worst of it. We're probably due one.

It's not likely to happen this rainy season (which tends to run from December to early April), but the last couple of weeks have seen a spate of prolonged and heavy rainstorms. We reckoned we'd got off the hook again this year when we made it to the end of January with nothing worse than a daily half-hour sprinkling. But February -- often the peak month -- has been a different story altogether, with the streets around us often completely submerged in water. No-one is having to leave their home or anything, but when we look around us, we're thankful for that council regulation we followed somewhat begrudgingly a few years back when building the house, that required us to raise the height of our land by a metre or so. Good call. 

Just about the only day we haven't seen such downpours over the last fortnight was Monday, which was a particular bonus given that it was the day of the annual Carnaval youth event. This year, the youth committee invited a guest speaker, a youth leader from a local church, having (probably rightly!) come to the conclusion that the young people are probably bored of hearing from the same people every week. He did a couple of talks -- one in the morning and one in the evening -- on the attributes of God, and did so in a way that the young people could really relate to. As is tradition, the afternoon was spent outdoors playing games mostly involving oversized water balloons. No avoiding a good soaking here even on sunny days.

The Carnaval weekend takes in Tuesday as well; if you're new to the blog, you'll soon find out that bank holidays are a national pastime round these here parts. So it's been a pretty compressed 'working week' (whatever that means in ministry), with the usual mix of HR and one-on-one work for Amanda, and sermon preparation and church leadership meetings for me. Due to the weather and other factors, I wasn't able to touch base with my own discipleship charges. Some Carnaval-like conditions, then, would be most welcome in the coming week.

This is a bit shorter than normal, but I think perfectly fair, given that we've just sent out our latest update. If you'd like a copy sent to your inbox every three months or so, just send us an email at cramandaham@gmail.com.

Prayer

• Tomorrow, Craig will be preaching his first sermon of 2015 -- and his first Spanish sermon in over a year -- as he begins a three-week stint in the pulpit, picking up the 1 Peter baton from Elías. Pray especially for clarity in communication.
• We have had to deal with a very difficult domestic situation this week involving some people we know from the church, and will probably be knee-deep in it for some time to come. This is not the place to go into details, but needless to say, we need love, patience, and a lot of wisdom. Pray for a gracious bestowal of all of these.
• This coming Friday sees the visit from Cochabamba of Eduardo Rojas from Langham Bolivia, who is coming to give information about a proposed Langham Preaching course here in Trinidad. Over the next few days, Craig will be reminding the various Bible teachers he's touched base with over the last few weeks. Please pray for a really good turnout at the meeting.

Praise

• For a great Carnaval event with the young people, and particularly for a conspicuous lack of rain!

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 07/02/15

Daniel, Yonatán and Craig enjoyed a Bible study over breakfast (for one
week only, lads!) as they began their discipleship sessions on Friday.

Last week, we signed off by asking for prayer for me (Craig) as I looked into launching some new initiatives which I feel could be of real help to the church here in Trinidad. Well, one of these began to take shape this week.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, my year at Cornhill Scotland, with its particular focus on expository preaching, was a tremendous help in preparing me for this new stage of our time in Bolivia. As the year progressed, I became increasingly convinced of the need to teach the Bible responsibly, holistically, and clearly. And as my thoughts turned ever more to Bolivia in the latter stages of last year, I knew all too well that Bible teachers here in the Beni region would benefit greatly from such insights.

A few factors here limit good Bible teaching. Firstly, there is very little high-quality in-service training and equipping available for Bible teachers. The Beni region of Bolivia is considered something of a backwater, and so there is not much here in the way of courses and conferences; the best people tend to focus on the cities. Secondly, some pastors do not have formal training of any description; indeed, it is remarkably easy here to start a new church (which can mean that congregations don't tend to persevere through difficult times). And thirdly, education here discourages critical engagement with information, meaning that people can pretty much say what they like. In my own ministry, for example, it is a rare day indeed when I receive any feedback, simply because people are conditioned to accepting that what the Bible teacher says is right -- no need for criticism there, whether good or bad.

As I thought about this state of affairs, I decided to at least look into possible approaches to addressing it. Last year, some friends of ours had passed on contact information for Langham Partnership workers in Bolivia. Langham began in the late 1960s in a move by founder John Stott to fund scholarships for young evangelical leaders in the developing world. In the decades since, it has developed into an international ministry, and one of the strands of its work is Langham Preaching, which seeks to equip Bible teachers in the developing world to better preach from God's word. Normally, the course is taught over three annual four-day conferences. In the year following each conference, the delegates are divided into smaller groups, who meet once a month, taking turns to preach to each other and receive constructive feedback on their efforts (not at all unlike Cornhill, in that sense).

Anticipating our return to Trinidad, I made some enquiries towards the end of 2014 about the possibility of starting such a programme here. It turned out, in fact, that Langham had run a course here some years ago. The annual conferences were a smash -- but few people made the effort to meet in their small groups during the year! Regardless, my contact from Langham (based in Cochabamba) said he would still be interested in starting a new course, and I expressed my own desire to help ensure that the small groups meet regularly as required, if such assistance was required on the ground.

Now that things have settled down for us here, and we are back into something of a routine, Elías (our pastor) and I drove around town this week to gauge what kind of interest there might be in having Langham again, particularly targeting those people who haven't done the course before, and Bible teachers who are in full-time non-church work. The response was fairly positive, though people still had a few queries that I wasn't really equipped to answer as a non-Langham representative. So my contact in Cochabamba has kindly offered to come through to Trinidad towards the end of this month to meet interested parties and look into a possible launch date. As you can imagine, I'm excited to see where this is going.

Things have definitely been getting busier, as I've also made renewed inroads into ministry among the younger generation. Late last year, the youth team asked a group of older teenagers with potential to come into ministry alongside them. One of the prerequisites for participation was that they sought out weekly discipleship opportunities. Three of them approached me over the last couple of weeks, and this week I sat down with them to begin these weekly sessions. Daniel has played guitar in the church music ministry with me for a few years now and comes from a Christian home. Yonatán's family are a little more 'mixed', with both evangelical and Mormon tendencies. While the third boy, Yordy, has no Christian influence at home whatsoever. Due to restrictions on their availability, I'm meeting Yordy on Wednesday afternoons and the other two on Friday mornings. We'll be working through  a Spanish translation of 'God's Big Picture' by Vaughan Roberts, to help them get a better grasp of the Bible's overall message -- so important now in their position -- and using the rest of the time at each session to pray together.

Amanda, too, has been approached by one of the team to the same end, a girl called Adriana; we've worked with Adriana for years and have seen an amazing transformation in her since our return. However, the old Trinidad-commitment-baggage (see the fifth paragraph) lingers and Amanda has twice arranged dates to meet with her, only for Adriana not to turn up. We really want to continue to encourage Adriana, while reminding her of her new responsibilities -- a difficult balancing act! Pray for wisdom there.

Otherwise, Amanda has continued this week to plough on with her new administrative responsibilities in the Foundation. The board had their monthly meeting on Friday, and simply by dint of her new HR role, she felt much more engaged and in touch with what is going on in the wider Foundation, than she had pre-furlough when her focus was Audiology. 

Later that same day, we had our first dinner guests since coming back, in Daniel & Romina, whom we'd mentioned last week. It was fascinating to learn more about life as a Christian in Cuba. He was telling us that he has only recently come to terms with the fact that his salvation is secure -- because the possibility of losing one's salvation is taught in most denominations in Cuba, including the Baptist church of which he was a member. Daniel was particularly complimentary about our Cuban musical selection for the evening (thanks Spotify!) and the steak we picked up from a local restaurant -- we also learned that meat is still prohibited for Cuban natives under the rationing system. And we thought we appreciated the steak here!

The house was also made available, as per usual, to the young women's Bible study, who met last Sunday. Encouragingly, this wasn't a case of waiting for Amanda to come back -- they'd simply continued to meet every two weeks, taking responsibility for chairing the studies themselves. We're enjoying becoming newly acquainted with our new house (which was only finished eight months before home assignment year), and particularly aware of what a great resource it is for ministry; we pray that the Lord will look upon us wise stewards of this small example of his goodness to us.

Prayer

• For Amanda as she seeks to disciple Adriana; and for Adriana herself, that she would re-dedicate herself to the vital task of being discipled.
• For Daniel, Yonatán and Yordy, and for Craig as he disciples them.
• We're hoping to begin looking into adoption this week. These will probably be some very tentative first steps -- it's a long process -- but please pray for Lord's blessing upon the whole process.

Praise

• For progress in establishing a Langham Preaching course here in Trinidad.
• For the opportunity to get to know Daniel & Romina a little better, and open up our house to a range of people throughout the week.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 10/11/12

Somewhere, in a dusty corner of a Trinidad office, sits a pile of papers upon which reside a good deal of our thoughts and prayers. Thirteen months ago, having bought two plots of land a year earlier, and having intended on building our home there, we submitted our final payment and began a process of paperwork which should have taken a month or two. Owing to a dose of naiveté on our part, but moreso to the vendor's negligence, not to mention her residing a day's journey from here, our last year has been dominated by delays, frustrations and long waits in lawyers' offices (click on the 'housing' label at the foot of this post to get a flavour). 

On Monday, we submitted documentation for both plots to the local land registry, the last stop for any land transfer application here, and the furthest we have been able to take this process to date. They required eight working days to process the documentation, so by the end of this week, we should, barring any issues with our paperwork (and there have been a fair few until now!), be the officially recognised owners of two plots of land. Please pray!

Of course, rather than build on these plots, our hope is to sell them on in order to raise much-needed funds for the house we began building back in July, on a third plot we purchased when our patience was wearing thin. The past month has seen some delays on our building project, largely owing to a scarcity of quality cement. A major technical failure took place some time ago at Bolivia's main cement supplier, down in Santa Cruz, with no indication that it will be fixed any time soon. As a result, people are either settling for low-quality material, or purchasing imported bags at inflated prices. Profiteers are certainly profiting. However, in the past week, our builder was able to secure some decent cement at a reasonable price, so we hope things will pick up again. The outer wall is nearing completion, and a laundry room (essentially a glorified shed in the back garden) is now finished. 

So it's increasingly looking as if we won't be in, as we'd been hoping, by Christmas. However, early 2013 looks likely, and we have increased incentive to have it delivered on time. Because, this week, Mr. & Mrs. A. Cunningham confirmed that they would be paying us a two-week visit in April. And with Amanda's mum also making positive noises re. a 2013 visit, we're pretty excited about playing host to our parents on our own turf.

2013 has also been my main focus this week as I've spent the week preparing next year's budget for FT's Education area. My 'department' relies completely on external support and over the past few months we have been blessed by a big fundraising effort at Strathaven Evangelical Church and the continued support of the congregation at Cartsbridge Evangelical Church (both churches are based in the west of Scotland). This has freed us up to finally be able to purchase much-needed overheads,  educational and administrative (such as a filing cabinet, my desk buckling ever more under the strain) and, God-willing, provide a salary for a part-time teacher to oversee the Community classes (see prayer items for more on that).  

Meanwhile, Amanda's been hard at it in Audiology, where she's by herself this month in the absence of her partner, Odalys, currently undergoing training in La Paz. She's just about managing to keep her head above water, but it would be fair to say that the combination of a busy week and a late night watching the election results come in on Tuesday have rendered us somewhat bleary-eyed this weekend.

Prayer

• For success in our land transfer application (see above).
• For Porfidia, who currently works in an administrative post at FT in the mornings but who is, by trade, a very capable primary school teacher, teaching in a local school in the afternoons. We would like to be able to employ her at FT in the afternoons in the Community classes, but with her administration contract up at the end of this year, this is dependent on her finding work in the mornings (schools either meet in the morning or afternoon here). Thus far, no such post has presented itself. We'd really appreciate your prayers that she can find morning work and be freed up to lead the Community education ministry, along with teacher-in-training, Elizabeth.
• For the youth group, who begin a new series in the book of Ruth this week, in their last mini-series of studies before Christmas cranks into gear. 
• For our old friend, Rachel Peebles, a former missionary here, who is on her way to Trinidad for a visit (she'll be doing the Heathrow-Miami leg in the next few hours, I suspect), arriving tomorrow.

Praise

• For a little breakthrough on our building project this week.
• For the exciting news of Craig's parents' visit in April next year.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda