I hope
life is treating each of you very well. God
has been blessing tremendously here, though
there have been challenges and roadblocks.
But they are expected when working for God.
The
last three weeks have been very full with
several trips to villages to do clinics, as
well as a tourist trip up Mt. Roraima this
last week. I have to admit that I have been
having a ton of fun, though there have been
frustrations along the way. I don’t like to
write about the negative, though, because
even the negative can be turned into
positive. But I also don’t want everyone to
get the idea that missionary life is nothing
but fun and ease. Every day presents new
challenges. Planning here is impossible,
because plans change instantly. Nothing
goes the way planned. The last month and a
half has proved that.
We got
here thinking that we would be able to
immediately get out to the villages to do
clinics. But our first meeting with the
Maurak village captain gave us a completely
different picture. We were told that we
needed to meet with many different people to
get permission. Also, before going to any
villages we would need to contact the
village captains as well as the captain over
the village captains. Meetings with doctors
and government officials in Santa Elena were
also needed. So we spent several weeks
meeting almost daily with different people
until finally we were given permission.
Then
the roller coaster began. First came the
trip to Caracol from the 13th to
the 17th of Feb. Then the next
week we left on the canoe trip that I wrote
about in the last email. I have been asked
to write a little about what the villages
are like here, so that is what I will do
here.
Every
village is different. They have different
resources and different work opportunities.
In Caracol, all the able bodied people went
out into the fields for the day. And to be
honest, I don’t know exactly what they do
out there. I do know that food is not easy
to come by there and water is a 30 minute
walk away. There are a lot of villages that
have problems, especially with their water
supply. Eventually we want to have well
drilling equipment so that we can remedy the
water problems.
The
villages we visited during the canoe trip
seem to be a bit better off. The water
supplies are closer and they have more
resources as far as food is concerned. Most
of the villages on the river are made up of
miners and their families, so they have more
money and more access to civilization. The
people are very friendly, which was a good
thing, because in order to do any cooking, I
had to borrow their ‘kitchen’. Cooking over
the open fire was actually quite fun, but
not very practical when it took two hours
just to make a pot of lentil soup.
But
now on to Mt. Roraima. What an experience!
I felt weird being a tourist and letting
everything be done for me, but our guide was
awesome. It took three days of hiking to
get to the top, though we could have made it
in two days. Originally, the four of us
that went were supposed to be a group of our
own with our own guide, but at the last
minute (like usual) plans changed and we
were added on to another group. You can
imagine the frustrations involved with a
group of 14, especially when 5 of them were
Germans ;)
Communication was the main issue, as usual.
Half the group wanted to get to the top in 2
days, while the rest wanted to just take the
3 days. There were some pretty heated
arguments before the guide finally made his
decision to keep the group together and take
the 3 days. Our guide’s name was Riley and
by the end of the first day we had
discovered that he is Adventist.
He
showed us the general area where Pastor
Davis is buried (he was the first missionary
in this area) and we were able to find the
actual grave site which was really special.
His story is actually pretty amazing.
Apparently, the Indians that he reached had
been trained by angels before he got there.
They were told that a white man with a black
book would come, so when Pastor Davis got
there, he found them ready and eager to
learn about God. Anyways, we spent only one
day on top of Roraima so we didn’t get to do
nearly as much exploring as we wanted to.
But Riley turned out to be an awesome
contact.
Daniel
and I want to train to be guides up the
mountain so that we can take the groups of
IRR students up and when Riley found that
out he was really excited. He wants to take
us up again in a couple of weeks free of
charge. We just need to provide food and we
have to carry our own stuff. But that is
fine. He wants to spend quite a few days up
on top so that he can explore with us areas
that he hasn’t even gotten to explore yet.
He is also a great resource for information
on camp cooking. I learned quite a bit and
got some very good menu ideas for when we go
out to villages.
It is
so exciting to see how God is working things
out for us. There are so many opportunities
opening up right now, there is not time
enough to take advantage of all of them. I
will go more into that later :) Right now,
time for writing is running out. I am
supposed to be making lunch right now, so I
had better hop to it.
Today
is actually a very good example of how plans
can change in a moment. The ladies were
planning on going into town to do some
shopping for food and such, but 5 minutes
before they left, we got word that a sick
person needed transportation to the hospital
and we were their only option, so Dr.
Michael, Buckley, and student Michael went
to pick up the sick person (a four hour
round trip). But anyways, I gotta run.
God
bless,
