Archive for July, 2008

We wrapped up boot camp early this morning (Saturday), and Pastor Quisbert came to get us with a mini-bus equipped to deal with all of the luggage, including a helper that works with the driver on such things. Our plan is to visit the Valley of the Moon, since it’s pretty close to the seminary here. It’s the best opportunity to see a truly unique geographic wonder. The park is really a desolate place, with little pockets of green tucked among the grotesque shapes formed by erosion on the mixed clay soil. The scenery is fantastic and contorted, and the path snakes its way up and down and around and over through two different loops. One takes about 15 minutes, and the other 45. It only costs 15 Bolivianos (about $2) for us to go through, and it’s worth every penny. There are views of the Andes foothills all around, too. They usually have a traditional musician somewhere around the park, playing Andean music on traditional instruments. Sure enough, as we finished up the first short loop, we ran into the guy for the day getting set up. This started a chain of events that is absolutely awesome.

When I saw the man lay out his instruments and get ready, I thought it would be interesting to see what he would do if I started to sing in Aymara. When I kicked in with an Aymara hymn, his head snapped around and his face lit up and he literally ran back to me and started jabbering away at me in Aymara, and then Spanish. Turns out that he is a Christian, knows those hymns well, and we sang one or two together for a few minutes. The man, whose name is Valerio, talked with us for a little and then asked us to stop by where he would be on the path before we left, and we would sing more as a witness to anyone who might be around! Well, we continued on our walk through with that plan in mind then. It so happened that the young man who helped our driver had decided to come with us on our walk, which is kind of an unusual thing. Usually, people that you hire to drive you around just stay with the car. In this case, the driver did, but Ronald wanted to come with us. The singing we had done at the beginning of our 45 minute loop (if we hadn’t done the shorter one first, we would have missed Valerio) had made an impression upon him. He began to ask some questions, and Pastor David evangelized him all along the way. He was very thoughtful. There was a place along the path where someone had offered an offering to Pachamama, the ancient Incan goddess, and PQ and I stood there and prayed by the path for the Lord’s victory in that place. At the end of our walk, we found Valerio and sang some more songs with him as a bunch of tourists stood around and watched and listened. As we prepared to head back to the car, Ronald suddenly stopped us on the path, and with tears in his eyes said that he wanted to receive Jesus right then and there!  David and I prayed with him there on the path, Valerio joining in, and Ronald prayed to receive Christ as his savior. It was awesome. Our prayer for the Lord’s victory in that place had been answered!

The rest of the day I think we were all pretty much walking about a foot off the ground. We were so in awe of what the Lord had brought about in the morning. We arrived back at the church in time for some lunch and some settling in. The people here have been very busy preparing the church to receive us, including doing some extensive remodeling of the living and ministry spaces that will serve them well in the growing ministry here. The new building is coming along very nicely, and a new kitchen and upstairs room has been added, as well as the old sanctuary being turned into two rooms (being used while we are here for sleeping quarters for the girls). We’re going to help do some painting and other work while we are here at some point.

In the afternoon, we were treated to a wonderful presentation by the children who participate in the OANSA (Spanish AWANA) program. They sang for us, recited verses, and showed the work that they had been doing all year. It was great to see them doing so well. Our Grand Island Bible Presbyterian Church sponsors their program, and they are doing their best to get the most out of the curriculum and resources to reach their neighborhood kids and families for Christ.

After the OANSA program, we had some down time before the evening Welcome service that was planned. The folks were very secretive about it all, they had something special up their sleeves for us. It really was a wonderful service, with maybe 100 people in attendance. The singing was a blessing, greetings were exchanged, brief testimonies from us given, and then the big surprise was unveiled, which was the presentation of floral garlands to each of us by pairs of children dressed in the traditional dress of each of the departments (states) of Bolivia. It was really beautiful, and very touching to see how much they poured out their love and welcome on us. What an unforgettable and blessed day. Thanks for your prayers!

Our accommodations are  super for our purposes, with plenty of rooms for everyone and two bathrooms, too! The only thing we would like to have is some firewood for the fireplace! It’s pretty cold at night and in the mornings at 8000 feet. The seminary is situated in a valley surrounded by high craggy mountains etched with deep erosion and displaying incredible colors of gold, red, brown, yellow, all highlighted by dark shadows. Very dramatic.

Everybody is pretty blitzed from the trip, and so after finding our beds we all crashed for awhile. We discovered that we don’t have any food, nor any way to prepare any – so we’ve made plans to go out for lunch. We’re meeting up with some friends that I met before on my last couple of trips here, a missionary couple from the States named John and Starr Powell. Very nice people:  they have become good friends. They are independents, and he is now pastoring an English-speaking congregation in La Paz.  In fact, he has invited us to come over on Friday night to hold an informal service at their church, and we’re looking forward to it.

Lunch was great (in the restaurant of a 5-star hotel), and we went over to see the church, too, which is not far away. It’s been here a long time, and they have a really beautiful building and grounds. It’s located in the richer part of the city, where many government and business people live, here in the lower elevations of the city (it’s warmer down here!). Afterwards, we went shopping for some food for our next few meals, and everyone enjoyed going through the grocery store, which was different in many ways, but similar in others, with many of the same brands of things that we are used to here. We’ve made plans to come back over to the church early on Friday evening for dinner, which our team member Carol will prepare, which will really help, since we don’t even have a pan to cook in at the seminary.

The training times are going very well, and the team is really gelling in spirit and purpose. The Lord has put together a great group. Our team members are Ed, Carol, and Ashlynn Feeney, Rachel MacMillan, Susan Blizzard, Liz Wann, and myself. Everyone has a good sense of humor and servant’s heart, and it’s going to be a super time.

This evening a bus load of Bolivia young people rolled in and moved into some of the other accommodations here. Things got a lot livelier! Very friendly, though, and all is going great.

Well, it’s Friday morning, and many of us have by now learned how to be better prayer warriors after trying to get a hot shower. Some need more practice! It can be a challenge getting the showerhead-mounted water heaters to work, and then if anyone uses any water at all in the system, everything goes ice cold again. There have been many shouts, cries, whoops, and other horrible sounds coming out of the bathrooms as showers are attempted! I’m thankful though, that I got up early before anyone else in the place started using water, and I had a hot one all the way through. Praise God! I tried unsuccessfully not to gloat. OK, I didn’t try at all. Hehehe.

We had a great morning of orientation, and then caught taxis out for lunch to a great fast good place here called Pollo Copacabana. Think of it as a Bolivian KFC, only more upscale with the chicken prepared sort of half-roasted, half-fried sort of way. It’s really good. We returned to the seminary very eager to continue only to discover that the lock to our apartments wouldn’t work, and we couldn’t get in. This was wild. I had to go find our host, who speaks no English, and explain the problem. Well, we tried a lot of things, and they finally settled on going up on the roof, prying up some of the roofing, and lowering a young guy down through the hole so he could go through and open the door! It was great. An hour or so later, we were in, and finished up our prep before our service tonight at the Powell’s church (La Paz Community Church).

We had a great service tonight. The Lord blessed our work there, I believe, and also used the time to help the team work as a team for the first time in a very low-key environment. We returned about 10 pm to our place (the lock worked this time!), and we hit the sack (after a few more attempts at showers, with mixed results!).

After an uneventful flight, we landed in La Paz about 12:30 in the morning on Thursday (today). I had no problem getting my Bolivian visa, though was irritated to see that they raised the fee from the $100 we would have spent in the States to $135. No doubt because they know they can. We had sent all of our docs to the Bolivian Embassy in Washington, where all was in order and approved – only they had run out of the little stickers they put in your passport, and weren’t going to get anymore for three weeks! Incredible. You’d think they could have ordered a few extra thousand of them, since they’re planning on making this a permanent arrangement. Anyway, all was accomplished, bags retrieved, and good friends met. I was feeling pretty bad by that time, but still was delighted at being back in a country that has come to feel like a second home. We took a quick trip back to the church, caught a few hours of sleep, and then headed back up the hill to get the team, scheduled to arrive at 5:30 am.

Well, they were delayed in Miami for an hour or so, and their flight didn’t get in until almost 7. Then, it took a long time for them to get their visas, too, and they were pretty much the last ones out. It was sure good to see them, even if they were a little blurry-eyed. They had enough adrenaline going that they did pretty well with the altitude for awhile. The sight of La Paz spread out below you as you head down the hill into the city from El Alto is spectacular, and I never get tired of it. We stopped for a photo op on the way down, and the team was just blown away.

After a brief stop at the church, we headed on further down to our boot camp site, a Nazarene seminary which is down around only 8000 feet. It’s a great place, quiet and peaceful, with good accommodations for us. We’ll spend the next two days here before heading back up into the city to begin our ministry proper. I’m praying that the days at the lower elevation will help everyone get acclimated better and be ready to hit the ground running. The schedule is pretty huge, and it tough enough to work through without feeling dizzy and weak.

No internet here, so all of this will have to wait until we get back to the church on Saturday to be posted. Thanks for your prayers! Looking forward to being in more immediate contact for the rest of the trip.

Well, we were able to catch an earlier flight, and so left Iquitos on Tuesday evening instead of Wednesday morning. Good thing, since we heard that the roads in Iquitos were closed as of midnight last night in an attempt to prevent violence from occurring in the area, and we would have had a very difficult time getting to or into the airport this morning. As our airplane descended into Lima, we could see the orange street lights stretching out in front of us like a huge carpet. Lima is a city of about 10 million people packed between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes. Stepping out into the evening air from the airplane was a terrific feeling – the coolness of the ocean breezes refreshed us after the heat of the jungle, though Roldan was cold and put on a jacket! Our taxi driver had to stop to ask for directions a few times to get us to our destination, but we finally arrived at the home of our host for the next 24 hours, Rev. Daniel Cueva. He is the pastor of the Bible Presbyterian Church here, in the Callao province, La Perla district of the city. He and his family live in apartments above church.  

In the providence of God, the Cuevas had another visitor last night as well, a police officer who is a friend of Daniel’s. This man is spiritually tender and searching for peace with God. It happened that he was here from an outlying area, staying with the Cueva’s, as he took part in the police efforts to control the strike situation! Roldan spoke at length with him about faith, the Word, the gospel, and he took it all in very thoughtfully. No accidents with God – if we had come to Lima this morning as originally planned, we would have missed this man.

We also talked with him about the strike, and we now understand that the leftists plan to target only certain areas with their activities, and that the general flow of life here will be uninterrupted (unlike in Iquitos, which is much smaller, of course). It was as if the Lord sent us this man to assure us that we need not fear what men can do, and that the Lord’s work will not be hindered by the rage of men however misdirected. We’re even going to take a bus over to Roldan’s house here later today, so that I can meet his wife and other family members, and see a bit more of the city.

I’ll also be talking at length with Daniel today about his ministry here, and together explore how the Lord will lead in any future work or relationship together. In the little time that I have known him, he strikes me as a fervent and warm-hearted man. He and his young family are a delight. If nothing else, my own life and ministry are blessed for their entrance into my circle of friends and co-laborers. I trust that I shall be the same to them.

It’s official – I have a cold. Not a great way to start off a Team Timothy ministry, but I trust the Lord’s timing to accomplish his purposes. I’d sure appreciate your prayers that it wouldn’t last long, or keep me down. So far it hasn’t wiped me out too badly – just the typical head and chest kind of cold. I really will be working hard not to lose my voice! I’ve got a lot of singing and preaching to do over the next two weeks!

I wasn’t much company at Roldan’s house – slept most of the time, and ate! Still, his wife and daughter and grandkids are terrific, and very understanding. A very pleasant, light and open house. They rent the upper story out to another family, and so the place is like a very homey and welcoming Grand Central Station. It was a long, long bus ride to the other side of the city to get there, and we took a taxi back to save time. The only evidence we saw of the strike, by the way, was one parade over on Roldan’s side of town, very peaceful and orderly, and not very long. Praise the Lord for his protection and ordering of all things.

Hoped to have a chance to get online at the airport tonight, but it didn’t happen. Just not enough time. We’re all squared away for our flight tonight, though, and all is ticking right along.

Well, the service last night at El Semblador was a blessed one. All of the other churches in the city (six in all) came to together on my last night of formal ministry with them, even from Picuro Yacu village. These are very dear people, and I’ve formed some wonderful friendships here.

The internet was not functioning this morning at the house, so I’m still stuck offline. It gave me a chance this morning to rest and write, and to rehearse for the concerts on the radio stations today. One of the pastors here, Juan Luis Guerra, is a young man with an excellent baritone singing voice, and I roped him into coming over and preparing some songs to sing together on the radio. I didn’t have to work too hard to convince him! We ended up putting together about five duets, and a trio, too, with another brother, and we had a great time. The broadcast at noon was a blessing to do, and we’re doing another one tonight on another station from 9-10 pm. That’s after a home “thanksgiving” service that we’ll do about 7 pm in one of the homes of a member from the El Semblador church.

Big rainstorm today, drenched everything and left that wonderful after rain smell around and cooled everything off considerably. The humidity still gets to me, though, and I end up after every activity drenched with sweat. I’d love to say that I’m losing some pounds down here, but they are feeding me so well that I really doubt I’ve lost anything. Fried bananas (platas fritas), lots of chicken prepared different ways, rice and beans and yucca, great bread, fruit, and usually polished off with coffee. Nope, not starving here at all.

Will sign off for the present. Tomorrow is the strike I mentioned earlier, and we’re going to try to stay out of the way. May even try to catch an earlier flight if we can. We could end up stuck in Lima at the airport – I understand it’s not a good time to be out on the streets. Pray for the Lord’s protection and overriding of the purposes of men in getting us united with our team in Bolivia on time. Thanks!

The next morning (today, Saturday), Charles gave us a ride to the river to catch a boat on his motorcycle. Pretty wild over the dirt roads through the jungle on a 125cc street bike. He had to make two trips, of course. Saved us about an hour and a half walk, and we were grateful. We caught another boat and headed back to Iquitos.

The day was pretty busy today – the concert this morning went well, but I was sweating all over the harp, it was so humid and warm. People really like the autoharp here, and the Lord helped me not to butcher the Spanish too badly. We had a great time of worship together, even though we had to compete with the traffic just outside in the noise department. We enjoyed the hospitality of one of the Herman Mera family from Roldan’s church, True Peace Church, and once again I found a hammock and crashed for awhile. I’m really getting into this siesta thing. The 3 pm meeting with many of the local leadership was a time when they just wanted me to share my heart on missions churches and growing the work. They are doing such a wonderful job that I don’t know why they really wanted me to say anything, and I was humbled by the honor of it. These folks are passionate about reaching this area for Christ, that’s for sure.

Roldan took over the controls of the moto again, and has been driving me all over. It’s pretty entertaining  to see me with the autoharp on my back, a satchel in my hands, perched up on the back of this little motorcycle towering over Roldan in front. There are more motos here, and moto taxis, than cars – a very noisy swarm everywhere you go. It’s fun to be part of the noise.

The evening  service at the Jordan church closing the day went very well, the building filled and voices raised in song with full hearts behind them. It was great to be awash in the sound of praise, and to join in with them. I’ve been playing and singing my ‘harp every service, and am now running out of songs that I know in Spanish! But people are requesting some repeats, so that’s good. The one that they particularly like is Vision Pastoral, which is about the shepherd that searches for the one lost sheep. It’s a great song, and I’m going to have to come up with an English version. After the service was over, we headed out for dinner (about 9:30 – remember that night owl thing?) to, of all things, a Chinese restaurant here in town. Sure didn’t expect that, but they tell me that there are restaurants like it all over town. It’s wild ordering Chinese in Spanish. Good stuff, though.

Today, the Lord’s Day, has been pretty busy, starting out at Roldan’s church for Sunday school, and then going to El Semblador church for worship and to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. This time, I sang an Aymara song in Spanish to do something different, and it went pretty well. I’ll have to do more of them that way, since I already have the translations in my Aymara hymnal. It was a blessing to partake of communion with the brethren here. Resting up this afternoon, and then another service tonight at El Semblador.

I just found out that my hosts have installed high speed internet here in the house as of yesterday! So I hope to spend some time online Monday morning. It will be good to get this blog uploaded and get everyone caught up.

Well, when Roldan told me there were hills on the way to Picuro Yaco, he wasn’t kidding. I had no idea this region was so hilly. Lots of up and downs, with deep ravines that disappear into the darkness of the jungle. Then, you top out on a ridge and hit a clear cut where the land has been cleared for farming or logging. Still lots of jungle out there, though. We were joined in our trip on Saturday by two other pastors, and the four of us had a great time trekking through hills to Picuro Yaco. The village sits on top of a hill, and is famous for its fariña, reputed to be the best in the area. This fariña is made of  yucca, which is soaked, pressed, screened, and roasted. It looks like grits or cream of wheat, maybe a little coarser. It is good, filling, and neutral enough in taste that it gets thrown in everything to add texture and body to the food. Good stuff. We arrived in time to take a nice rest in the morning, enjoying the hospitality of the pastor and his family. They offered us fresh coconut milk, freshly roasted farina, and some good conversation as we sat around and cooled off under the shade of a tree. I then passed out in a nearby hammock for awhile, just sinking into the sounds of a farming community with almost no motorized anything. It was absolutely relaxing.

After rest and a light lunch, Roldan and I went visiting. With no phones in the village, the only way to let people know there’s a meeting is go visit them. We stopped by several homes, were fed wonderful fruits native to the area like bananas, some grape-like (in appearance) fruit that had insides like the leche fruit we had in Thailand – really good and sticky to eat, fresh sugar cane, and some great new fruits that Roldan had bought earlier in the day, too. Walking around in the heat of the day up and down the ridges pretty much wore us out, and we got back in time for prepping some for the service that evening. We gathered at the front of the church, sat on the porch and visited and sang, and drew a crowd of children and others. That helped to spread the word about the service, too.

We had a great service that was attended by 50 or 60 people. This is the only church in town except for the Catholic church down the road. It’s been there about 26 years, and has a wonderful testimony for Christ here. I was welcomed like I belonged there, and I made some lasting friendships there. They were already talking about the next time I came, so I hope the Lord lets me go again. We also met an American ex-patriot who married a Peruvian lady and has lived there for about 30 years now. They have an incredible farm on the outskirts of the village. Charles invited us to stay there overnight. It’s a rustic but first-rate two-story place they built themselves. The best part — No mosquitoes! And a terrific time of getting to know Charles, who made it clear that he’d like to have us come again anytime. Roldan will plan on staying with him again the next time he goes, for sure. Oh, I should say that the night sky was amazing, with no city lights to deal with. The Milky Way was close enough to touch almost, and we’re far enough south to see the Southern Cross, which I can never see from New York, of course. It was breathtaking.

The flight out of Miami was delayed. Surprised, anyone? But this was delayed even more than usual, due to unusually heavy rain that shut down the airport for a couple of hours. That meant that I didn’t arrive in Lima until after midnight. Great little airport, by the way, with a lot of upscale shops and western food outlets everywhere. I was surprised that all the shops were open, and that people were eating full meals and generally acting like we do around, say, 7 pm in the States. I had read recently that Peruvians are night owls, and it’s really true. My flight for Iquitos boarded on time and landed on time, about 6:30 in the morning. That meant my whole trip took just shy of 24 hours, without a lot of sleep. That’s just about as much time as it takes to get to Delhi! Oh well. Met some nice people on the way, including a group from a church in Pennsylvania who were going to Iquitos as well to help build a church in a remote village.

Iquitos is a city of about half a million, much bigger than I realized. I spent the first day either stretched out on my bed or on a motorcycle. All in all, just about the perfect day! My host, Roldan, has a cool little 125cc moto (he calls it “Blue Thunder”!) that he let me drive him around on. Traffic wasn’t too bad, with only a few moments when it reminded me of Phnom Penh. We got caught in a sprinkle, which actually felt good in the heat of the day. The weather is running about 34 C for a high (upper 80s), with fairly substantial humidity. The city itself is booming with population, but I didn’t see much in the way of construction in the city core. Didn’t see a lot of tall buildings, either, but may have just missed them as we criss-crossed our way back and forth to visit all the churches of the Evangelical Union Church of Peru, my hosts for my time here.

I’ve been put up in a very nice home owned by a member of one of the churches who is working out of town for awhile. Other church members are seeing to my care and maintenance, and in general I feel pretty spoiled. The Peruvians are a typically happy group, and all have been exceedingly friendly, even the ones I’ve run into (figuratively, not literally) on the street.

My hosts have prepared a nice full itinerary for me while I’m here. Tomorrow we get in a boat to go to a village about 20 minutes downriver. We get out and then take a one hour hike through the jungle, climbing a couple of hills on the way, to get to the village of Picuro Yacu, where I’m to preach in the evening. We’ll spend the night there, and then return on Saturday to do a concert at another church here in Iquitos, meet with some of the leadership for some fellowship, and then preach at yet another church that evening. Sunday I’ll be at two churches, Monday do two radio concert broadcasts, preach a communion meditation, and attend a fellowship at a home to finish off the day.

We’ve just learned that there is be a regional strike by the leftist camp here in the country on the 8^th, and a national strike on the 9^th, the day we’re supposed to head to La Paz. We’ll move to a place closer to the airport, and be out of the city on the 8^th to keep out of the way. That day we’ll take the 26’ dugout canoe and spend the day on the river, which should be awesome. All in all, the brethren here are marvelous hosts. My dear friend Roldan met me at the airport this morning, and then after arriving at the house a group of pastors came by to welcome me, including Rev. Juan Hoyos, who presides over the Evangelical Union Church of Peru (and hence, is Roldan’s boss). Marvelous men.

I don’t have internet access here at the house, and doubt that that I’ll be able to get to a café to send this out before I arrive in Bolivia. Maybe Monday. At least, this will give me a chance to get some good pictures together.

Well, it’s only about 8:30, but feels like midnight to my body. Signing out for now. Thanks for your prayers.