Saturday Post -- 05/09/15

In Bolivia, vegetarianism is a mere rumour.

First of all, we had been hoping that by this point we might have something more substantial to say with regard to the adoption process. Things, however, haven’t moved quite as quickly as we had hoped, and so, for now, we’ll ask that you continue to uphold that whole situation in your prayers.

One upshot of what happened last week is that the judge deciding the case in question has recommended that we visit the prospective adoptee as often possible, in order to demonstrate our suitability and our caring intent. This we have done over this past week, though inevitably, we have only grown closer, which would make any decision that goes against us even tougher to stomach.

In addition, then, to the points outlined last week, please pray for emotional protection for us both right now. This is really as much as we can say right now on such a public forum, but we are happy to respond in more detail to any emails or private messages.

Many happy returns to this purdy lady.

While dealing with all of the above, we’ve had plenty of other things to distract us, not least the arrival of Amanda’s mother, Selene, at Thursday lunchtime. Her flight was booked some time ago, but we are naturally delighted to benefit from her practical and emotional support at a time when we really need it. And not just because of adoption issues! Amanda bid farewell to her twenties on Friday, and to celebrate, we’re hosting the mother of all parties at the house on Sunday afternoon, replete with a rented trampoline, 25kg of prime steak (note to supporters: it’s really cheap here!) and about 60 friends from work, church and elsewhere. We’ve never hosted an event on such a scale, but we’re delighted to be able to open the house up to so many dear friends.

Meanwhile, last Sunday, we hosted a more intimate social gathering, inviting our good friends Maicol & KC round for the evening. 15 years since KC first arrived in Trinidad on a missions team, they and their son Caleb are due to leave Bolivia for the USA at the end of this month, and we are going to miss them all greatly. What with Selene’s visit over the next two weeks, and the inevitable chaos involved in packing-up-one’s-life-for-good, we knew that we had to act sooner rather than later to get any face time with them pre-departure. Three hours disappeared as we looked back on our time together here over the last six years, and how God has been so faithful to us all. We certainly hope to see more of them before they go, but if last Sunday were to prove our last meaningful time with them in Bolivia, we wouldn’t have much to complain about.

Nor do we at church, where we continue to be encouraged by what we are seeing. The Dig Deeper Bible study seems to be only growing in popularity, with most of the books we ordered for the church now having disappeared. Thursday evening saw us consider the importance of parallelisms; if it all sounds a bit technical, I can assure you that our study of the parallelism in Hebrews 1:1-2 was immensely emboldening and affirming to us as a church in this ‘Jesus-plus’ evangelical culture.

It was also of great encouragement to us to see FT president and church elder Miguel-Ángel take to the platform on Sunday to deliver his first ever sermon (you may remember that Miguel-Ángel had been among the main beneficiaries of the Langham conference back in June). This will prove a huge help to me and our pastor, Elías, and we pray that the church would be challenged to see another of its members expound God’s word.

So much to be praying and giving thanks for this week, and again, we ask you to uphold the adoption situation before the Lord in particular (see last week’s post for more specific prayer points). In addition…

Prayer

• For Maicol & KC as they prepare to leave Trinidad in just over three weeks’ time.
• For the various individuals with whom we usually meet for discipleship each week. Our current challenging circumstances have caused this to largely be put on the back-burner at the moment. Please pray that this would be a time in which those individuals can experience growth in their faith, and that we, in particular, would depend on God for this rather than developing a messiah complex!
• Craig and the elders again had to address a challenging pastoral situation involving church members this week. Pray for continued wisdom here and for a softening of hard hearts.
• For a great time tomorrow afternoon with friends and family.

 Praise

• Speaking of Langham, Craig’s small-group met last Sunday afternoon, and the momentum from June’s conference has largely been maintained, with both small-groups continuing to meet once every month. Give thanks for this.
• Give thanks, too, for the young women’s Bible study, who met once again in our home last Sunday, and who continue to experience a deepening of fellowship.
• Finally, give thanks for the Lord’s great faithfulness in Amanda’s life over her three decades to date.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post - 04/04/2015

Craig has had a really busy week and couldn’t think of anything to say. I have had a most boring week and have tons of things to say. Also, Man U are playing in 15 minutes and Craig wants to watch it. Due to all of the above, I (Amanda) am writing the blog this week. As my week was slightly on the monotonous side, my entry is probably going to be more a collection of musings than an accounting of time as my week consisted of lying in bed, drinking lots of water and trying to take extensive naps. Yes, that is right… I have been sick… again.

Dengue is the horror flu that never ends. At the end of rainy season, before the water levels have a chance to go down, there is a lot of still water, which is the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos. An increased mosquito presence generally causes an increase in dengue fever, which is a virus transmitted by mosquitos. There is no vaccine; you just have to treat the symptoms. We have previously wondered if maybe we had contracted dengue when we’ve felt poorly before, but I am now convinced that this was my first time with it.

I know I had a very minor case of it. I experienced the traditional flu symptoms with a fever that persistently came and went, but a lot of the secondary symptoms, thankfully, bypassed me. One of the worst aspects of it, for me personally, was the weakness. There were times I would feel fine, but still couldn’t get out of bed and do anything because I just had no energy. At its worst I had to take breaks between taking a sip of water and lifting my fork to my mouth and other times I could do one task, like wash the dishes, and then go back to bed. I frequently thought I was getting better, just to have the fever come back… I was more frustrated and bored by the end of it.

I am also really grateful because I know dengue can be extremely dangerous and life threatening. Some years dengue can get so bad that they declare an epidemic; the government goes around town fumigating all public buildings and they give time off work so people can deal with the pools of still water around their homes. In the really bad years a number of people die from dengue that has developed into haemorrhagic dengue. Like I said, my case was relatively minor and I was able to stay at home in my own bed instead of getting admitted into hospital.

I am still recovering my strength and decided to skip the 6 am youth leader’s prayer meeting this morning, but I’m planning on actually attending the youth meeting tonight… my first public appearance in over a week. Which is probably why I have so much more to say than Craig this week. I’ve only really spoken to Craig and Arturo (the dog) for the past 7 days and I think Craig has gotten tired of listening to my thoughts on the origin of the word mosquito. Mosca in Spanish means fly, and ‘ito’ at the end of the word makes something small, so mosquito means ‘little fly’… but then Craig had to ruin my startling conclusion by wondering why ‘mosca’ was a feminine word and ‘mosquito’ a masculine one. Shouldn’t it be mosquita? Way to ruin my mental epiphany of the week, Craig.

I would like to continue by stating how absolutely terrific my husband was this past week. He had to get all his own work done, plus all my household chores, and take care of me… and let me tell you that I once I taught him how to use the washing machine, he became a laundry expert. I am scared I might not be able to reclaim my previously beloved task of washing the laundry; he is that enthusiastic about it now.  In all seriousness, Craig was a real blessing as he selflessly took care of me. I think by the end we were both ready for me to get better, but he was a treasure and I am extremely grateful for everything he did for me. I am sure he is very tired of me saying, “Feel my forehead, do I have a fever?” and him replying “I have no idea.” I think we need to buy a thermometer.

On to musings that actually matter: the young women’s Bible Study has started a Beth Moore study on the book of Isaiah called “Sea Libre”; that literally means “be free”, but I am not entirely sure what her English title for the book is.  She introduces the study by saying that no other book in the Bible deals with the theme of captivity and release from captivity like the book of Isaiah. She defines captivity as anything that is an obstacle to living the abundant and effective life, full of the Holy Spirit, which God has planed for them. We’re still only in week 2 of the study, but it has been enjoyable. Although, this is my first Beth Moore study since Craig’s year at Cornhill and there is now this voice at the back of my head whispering, “This isn’t very expositional” and “That verse isn’t being used in its context”. The voice just won’t go away.

However, despite its more thematic approach to the book of Isaiah I have found what we’ve done so far to be very challenging. Week 1 was looking at the lives of the kings that ruled during Isaiah’s time, and God kept bringing the issue of pride back to me over and over again. I really struggle with pride… on various levels. I struggle with knowing where the line between taking healthy pride in our accomplishments and sinful pride is. I know I do struggle with sinful pride. I struggle with sincere humility as my attempts at humility usually come out looking something like, “Wow, like at my awesome display of humility” = pride. Beth Moore explains how she has asked the Holy Spirit to reveal to her any time she falls into the trap of pride without even realising it. She mentions a time when she has finally replaced her old Bible with a new one and then had to do a speaking engagement. She dug up her old Bible as she didn’t want to use her new one. We all know how it takes time to break in a new Bible and I completely sympathized with her desire to use something she was familiar with, but she said that Holy Spirit prompted her to recognise the pride in the action. She deep down didn’t want people think she couldn’t handle her Bible expertly or find passages quickly. She was worried about what people thought about her.

I live that situation out every Saturday night, albeit internally, but it still happens. I got a new Spanish/English Bible this past year, as I don’t do my personal study with my dual language Bible, and only use it while in a Spanish setting, it is very far from being broken in.  At the youth meeting whenever the youth are asked to look up passages and stand up and read it when they find it, I mentally freak out if I can’t find the passage first. I’m not worried that I myself am losing my sword drill edge, but I am worried about what people around me are thinking, “The missionary can’t find the book of Zechariah.” Come on people, the minor prophets are short and my pages are sticking together! That’s pride.

I’m also struggling with pride at work as well. I have written about how sometimes I feel very inadequate because I do not really know what I am doing. But my pride/work issues go deeper than that… I need to reassess my motivations behind wanting to do well at work a lot. Sometimes I want to do well, not because I want to help people or do what the Lord has planned for me, fulfil a purpose, sometimes I want to do well so that people can say, “She’s really good at that”, “We couldn’t do this without Amanda” and  “She’s really making things better”.

The truth of the matter is that deep down I know that my role here is supposed to be a background, helping role. I am supposed to quietly pick up the excess work from other people, quietly get to know people and build relationships, but sometimes my work is so background and so quiet that I worry about what people think… “She’s not doing all that much”, “Haven’t really seen much of a difference since she came back”, etc. And that’s pride. And I am struggling with this in a way that I’ve never really had to before. So maybe I don’t really have inadequacy issues from some childhood trauma, but I really just have sinful pride uses. How does one even go about addressing that?

On a very exciting, less dour, note Asalia just came by to visit. For people who have read the blog going years back they will remember that Asalia was a nurse who started working at the Foundation at about the same time as our initial arrival in Trinidad. Her and I worked alongside each other a lot as I was first learning Spanish. We spent a lot of time in silence folding gauze or filling in reports. Then she asked me to be the witness at her wedding and I realised that maybe our friendship was even deeper than I thought, the language barrier being surmounted by time and physical presence. Some might remember that Asalia lost a baby and developed severe health issues due to eclampsia in 2011 and the doctors told her that her and her husband had to wait three years before trying again. While we were in Scotland last year they moved through to Santa Cruz, but they have come to Trinidad for Easter weekend and she came looking for me. And she’s pregnant again! They lost little Emily, but Asalia is 8 months along with Ana Cristina and she is being monitored carefully for pre-eclampsia this time. I am so happy for her and praise God for this wonderful gift to them. We spent an hour and half just there catching up and it was refreshing.

I am going to go eat a hamburger now. Bye for now!

Prayer:

• Amanda as she gets slowly back into work this coming week.
• Three people from Interlink are arriving in Trinidad on Tuesday for two and a half days to visit the Foundation and see the ministries here. Please pray for their travel and for their visit.
• Ruth Young, a volunteer who has been with us in the past, is returning this week as well for two months. Please pray for her as she settles in, gets used to being back and as she seeks the Lord's leading in her life.

Praise:

• Amanda's recovery - God's hand of healing on her and His sustaining energy to Craig as he did absolutely everything.
• A good time at the men's meeting last night. They finished watching "Courageous" and will be moving on to look at how to be godly men in their homes, with their families and in their jobs.
• Asalia's pregnancy! 

¡Que Dios les bendiga! And have a Happy Easter!

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 -- 31/01/15

After our enforced hibernation in the days following our arrival, this was the week when we made our first tentative steps into our ministry contexts, with participation varying between the passive and the active.

The weekend saw us toddle along to the church for our first services there, and we were encouraged by what we saw and heard. During what is normally the teaching slot, a group of four young people, who had just returned from a national youth evangelism conference in Santa Cruz, were given the floor and asked to share with their cohorts some of their experiences. So excited were they by what they had seen God do that the other youth leaders practically had to wrench the microphone from their hands just so the meeting could finish on time.

The church had paid for these young people to attend the conference because they will be joining the youth leadership team this year. The more senior youth leaders, however, had stipulated that they must seek discipleship opportunities if they wish to serve on the team. Three of this group have approached Amanda and I about this possibility, and we’re really excited to be able to meet with them on a weekly basis, hopefully beginning in the next couple of weeks.

The aftermath of the Sunday services the following morning was a chance to briefly catch up with the last few people we hadn’t yet seen, including Carlos & Carla, whom readers may recall from previous entries (Carlos is a recovering alcoholic whose life has been miraculously turned around in the last couple of years). The church was full and there was a good number of young people around; encouraging, as one of our struggles in the past has been to challenge the youth to participate in the church throughout the week, not just on Saturday nights (the adults, meanwhile, can be a little too removed from the youth work, if we’re honest).

That evening had a first-day-back-at-school feel to it, as we prepared ourselves as best we could for going back to work at the Foundation (Amanda), or going back to the Foundation to work (Craig). First thing on Monday morning, we met with the other members of the FT board to outline what we saw ourselves doing. Amanda re-stated her desire (shared here in early January) to take charge of human resources and use this as an opportunity to minister to FT’s staff, several of whom are not yet believers. I, meanwhile, explained that I would be stepping back from FT activities, for the moment at least, to concentrate on church matters. However, I would be happy to help in taking care of communications with FT’s supporters, a role I had in the past.

And so, while Amanda spent the week getting to grips with the nuances of HR, I spent most of my time writing the 2014 sponsors’ report, something that requires a little more research when written by someone who wasn’t even in the country that year.

Nevertheless, the church is definitely where I want to be working this year, and during the week I had some fruitful meetings with the pastor, Elías. After the year I have had at Cornhill, with all this time to think carefully about what we’re doing at El Jireh Church I’m inevitably brimming with new ideas and methodologies; over the past couple of months, I’ve had to continually remind myself not to land all of these on the leadership at once, so as not to frighten anyone! I also need to be accepting of those times when it will only be possible for us to meet halfway on certain issues. All that said, however, I was able to share a few thoughts with Elías over the course of the week, and he was generally receptive to what I had to say. 

We’ve endeavoured also to spend meaningful time with others. Amanda spent Friday afternoon catching up with Grecia, with whom she is hoping to resume a weekly discipleship session. Grecia comes from a challenging family background; her father’s alcoholism and the family’s impoverished circumstances have not given her the easiest start in life. However, she and her siblings (including Elizabeth, who took over my work in Education last year) are regular attenders at El Jireh. Grecia is just out of high school and was one of the young people in attendance at the Santa Cruz conference. Amanda, naturally, is thrilled to see how she’s progressing.

I, meanwhile, had the opportunity to sit down with a male FT worker who himself used to be a mainstay at the church, but who has had some problems over the last couple of years and has a lot of faith-related questions he struggles to find answers for. I offered him the chance to meet regularly outside of work hours and he seemed open to that; please pray for him. At the prayer meeting on Tuesday evening, I spent some time praying with, and getting to know, Daniel, who is Romina’s husband. (Romina, you may remember, had studied medicine in Cuba for many years before returning to FT to work in 2013. She has also been a great help in the music ministry at El Jireh. Daniel, a Cuban native, with whom she began a relationship when studying there, was finally able to move down to Bolivia in 2014, and they were married late last year.) This was the first meaningful interaction I had enjoyed with him, and it was heartening to get alongside such a spiritually mature guy. We’re keen to encourage young couples like Daniel & Romina, whose desire to glorify the Lord in their marriage is a tremendous example to young and old in the church.

Prayer

• The young women’s Bible study group (which Amanda launched in 2011) is meeting again tomorrow evening. We’ve been delighted to see this group go from strength to strength over the past year, with the participants taking turns to lead the twice-monthly Bible study. Pray for God’s continued blessing on this group.
• Craig has several activities he’d like to develop this year, including a new men’s ministry and regular training for anyone in the church who is involved in Bible teaching. He’s also looking into the possibility of launching a training course for pastors in the Trinidad area. Pray for wisdom to know how to go about all of this, and patience while he waits for the Lord’s ‘green light’.

Praise

• For the various little signs of encouragement we’ve seen in the church over the past week.
• For further confirmation this week of God’s will for us.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 30/11/13

Church band night out (see below).
Wilson in Roman-emperor-at-Collisseum mode. The tease.

Crazy, crazy day ahead. Amanda and I are both tasked with overseeing 'clausuras' (closing ceremonies -- Bolivians love to pomp it up) in FT and the church, and I also have a sermon to polish off for tomorrow. To that end, Amanda had kindly volunteered to write this morning, but last night she received an invitation to a kindergarten graduation from a family whose children attend the church, and then this morning we get word that one of the young women in Amanda's Bible study group has had an emergency C-section, four weeks ahead of her due date -- good job Amanda had the baby-shower last weekend!

It never rains but it pours, as they say. If only that were really the case -- it's been hotter than a Shanghai sauna over the past week.

So, you'll permit me to head straight to the prayer points this morning. Well, OK, maybe you won't, but tough cheese. 

Prayer

• You know the familiar saying: "It ain't over till your plane's left Santa Cruz". As well as tomorrow's sermon (on Christmas-themed prophecies in the Old Testament) Craig has had plenty more to keep him busy in the church. Last weekend, one of our leaders resigned from his post, very much out of the blue. And over the past couple of days our pastor, Elías, has come down with dengue fever and has been ordered by the doctors to go on bedrest for two weeks. Tomorrow was technically going to be Craig's last day of work in the church, and we know fine well after four years here that things rarely go to plan in Bolivia, but the timing of these twin blows is certainly hard to stomach, when we both have so much still to do to get ready to go home. So please pray for perseverance and that Elías's recovery would be swift.
• Pray for new mother Maye and her baby, who is currently in an incubator.
• Pray for a course which is taking place in the church tomorrow afternoon, called 'The Culture of Blessing'. It's being run by two of our members and the material, which focuses particularly on encouragement, looks like it could be of real benefit to us as a church. Pray for good attendance and a positive response from the church.
• With FT now more-or-less done and dusted (see below), we now move into leaving preparation mode. Lots of stuff to do still: some minor repairs in the house, car maintenance, packing (not only for Scotland but also clearing space in the house for Rachel, who will be looking after it in 2014). Oh, and we still have to put together our presentation for churches, which we'd really like to polish off before travelling so we don't have it hanging over us over Christmas. Pray for energy and patience.

Praise

• Yesterday was our last day at Fundación Totaí. We are so thankful to the Lord for what he has done through us, and very much in spite of us, over the last four years. Given the financial difficulties of the last couple of years, we're especially thankful that FT is still standing and continues to provide such high quality services to our community and beyond.
• Craig took the church band members out for dinner on Wednesday night as a thank-you for all their hard work over the last three years, and they had a special time together. Give thanks for the amazing growth of these guys and girls as musicians -- most couldn't play a note before coming to the church -- and for the unity the Lord has forged between us as a music ministry, both technically and spirtually.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 02/11/13

FT staff and assorted family members, last Saturday.

Another Saturday, another early exit from the house, this time a breakfast date with a friend, before the usual slew of church commitments this afternoon and evening. I commented to Amanda the other day that I don’t feel we’re taking things one day at a time so much as one weekend at a time, so busy are we now on Saturdays and Sundays. In any case, I will do my best to recount some of the major points of the past week in the short time available.

I posted last week’s update as we were leaving for Fundación Totaí’s anniversary celebration out at the lake. As it happens, the steak was not quite up to the standards we usually expect around here. Nevertheless, we enjoyed a relaxing day as a staff, playing games, paddling in the lake, and reflecting on the Lord’s goodness to us. Amanda spoke for fifteen minutes about what God has done in her own life through FT, as well as the tremendous growth she’d witnessed in the institution and the staff during the time we’ve been here.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday were taken up with our usual church commitments, including a church leaders’ meeting for me on Sunday afternoon. But a two-day ‘weekend’ lay in store, which served as a motivator; in addition to our usual Monday day off, with the anniversary falling on the Tuesday we enjoyed a whole 48 hours outside the FT building (which is also where our church meets, so it’s somewhat difficult to avoid): pancakes, reading marathons and extended Wii sessions ensued.

However, we did set aside a little of our time on the Tuesday to meet with our fellow youth leaders to discuss camp, now just two weeks away. There were a whole range of key points we still hadn’t finalised (the timetable, the transportation, the makeup of the teams) so it was worth sacrificing a couple of hours of everyone’s day off to emerge with a better idea of what we want to do. The week before camp, we will meet with those from the church who have volunteered to provide assistance. If nothing else, the whole endeavour should do wonders for church unity.

Another desired, if not essential, component to a good camp is good weather, and these are interesting times in that regard. Usually the winter winds die down by late August and September till November see temperatures and humidity soaring (40 Celsius is an achievable target) only for rainy season to come and ease the tension somewhat from late November onwards. Well, this year winter stretched out well into September, there were perhaps two weeks of heat and humidity in early October and since then, we’ve had nothing but heavy rain every day! As yet another storm broke during the night, I felt a strong urge to pray for this particular aspect of camp. We could really do with a couple of hot weeks to dry out the campsite in preparation for the invasion of El Jireh church.

Five paragraphs? I’ve had shorter posts on non-breakfast-date Saturdays. Here are our main prayer points.

Prayer

• For our latest overseas volunteer, Aline Sacher (Germany), who is currently enduring something of a travel nightmare – although unusually, Bolivia is this time in no way at fault! It seems her first flight (within or from the UK) was delayed, knocking everything back a few hours. She had been due to get the midday flight from Santa Cruz to Trinidad, but that won’t be happening seeing as she arrives in Santa Cruz at lunchtime. Worse still, no seats on internal flights are available until Sunday, so she has an overnight in Santa Cruz before arriving here at 11am tomorrow – or that’s the plan, at least! Pray for a safe arrival for Aline and for a good first week of settling in.
• Pray for the continued camp preparations.
• For another hectic weekend, particularly Sunday, in which Craig is preaching and Amanda has her Bible study group. Somewhere amongst all this, we also need to pick Aline up from the airport.
• …and then we some work to do on Monday! Amanda will (God-willing) be giving Aline her induction, while I have been asked to give a sermon on missions at the local offices of Samaritan’s Purse, who have a fellowship morning on the first Monday of the month. I took a missions angle in a sermon I gave on John 21 in the church last year, so it’ll just be a case of tweaking for my audience.
• These prayer points are getting almost as long as the post itself! We’re going through a somewhat nerve-shredding experience at FT right now. About a month ago, we registered Amanda’s audiology colleague Odalys for a training course in Guatemala next weekend, buying flights in the process. There were, however, two not insignificant obstacles. Odalys didn’t have a passport, and Bolivians require a visa to enter Guatemala. The passport came through early last week and on Thursday the 24^th, the visa application was sent to the nearest Guatemalan embassy in Lima, with the aid of a world-renowned courier company, to ensure that no time would be wasted
  
  
  . Well, let’s just say that the ability to track packages online is a mixed blessing. This has been the route of the application since leaving Bolivia for Peru (a neighbouring country, for the uninitiated):

o   Miami, USA

o   Montevideo, Uruguay

o   Buenos Aires, Argentina

We are, to say the least, lacking in confidence that the visa will be processed and sent back to Trinidad by next Friday, when Odalys is due to leave. Moreover, the embassy staff in Lima have thus far answered not a single phone call or email. Prayer is required for a mighty work of the Lord in this situation.

Praise

• Amanda is thankful that she managed to get through a pile of marking this week. She was correcting the ‘Kids Games’ exams, with this year’s session having wrapped up last week.
• For a good time together as a staff out at the lake last weekend. 

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 10/08/13

James May: Decreasingly uncool; increasingly 'right on'.

You know you’re getting old when...

1. You go upstairs only to forget what you went upstairs for. Only this being Bolivia, you sacrifice half a pint in sweat in the process.
2. This year’s graduating class at your alma mater began their degree the year after the graduating class who began their degree the year after you graduated. (to clarify: it’s eight years since I graduated)
3. Alan Partridge remains hilarious, but he’s also – occasionally, but increasingly – how can one put this…right.
4. This music brings tears to your eyes.
5. Your mother-tongue becomes increasingly infected by your ‘working language’. No further explication required. But I’m definitely not embarazado about it, put it that way.
6. >9.30pm = A Late Night.
7. Your inability to recognise a single ditty by that One Direction mob that everyone (especially one’s sister) prattles on about on Facebook fills your heart with untold gladness and a renewed sense of purpose in life.
8. The summer’s customary excesses diminish, rather than enhance, the appeal of the upcoming football season.
9. No Saturday evening in Bolivia is complete without a couple of hundred decibels’ worth of reggaeton blaring from some neighbour’s back garden – and you can sleep through it.
10. This is easily in the top-five of your ‘reasons to be excited about furlough’.                      See also number 3.

Prayer

• For wisdom as we deal with some difficult, complicated issues in the church right now -- for us both in our capacity as youth leaders, and for Craig on the church leadership team.
• For Amanda's young women's Bible study group. There are some members of the group going through some tough times -- pray that tomorrow evening's study would be a great encouragement for them.

Praise

• For the Lord's goodness to Craig over 31 years and his wonderful plan for the future.
• For some cooler weather this weekend, offering a welcome respite from the heat of tropical Bolivia.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda