Goodbye, Hello, Goodbye, Hello, Goodbye, Hello, Goodbye, Hello

After supper with Bill and his sons, Ben and Nick, we learned they'd be flying to Vancouver in the morning. It hardly seemed possible that their 12-day visit to Ecuador had already ended. It seemed they had only just arrived.

Earlier in the week (and at a much earlier hour) I made a quick airport run. After a few months in Ecuador, Paul and Karen (pictured) headed back to Florida. They have been our faithful friends for 15 years or so.

Paul's experience as a medical corpsman on a submarine intrigues me. He told me "the living space was the forward torpedo room, the after torpedo room . . . and in these spaces there were people who were in their beds right on top of a torpedo.

There were times when there was a procedure called hot bunking. If there were too many peole on the submarine for the bunks, then you would have to wait until someone got out of their bunk and then you would climb into that same bunk."

If you'd like to hear more conversation about life under the sea, please click here for a five-minute interview segment.

Appreciation to Our Host Country

I wrote several years back, When I sing Ecuador's national anthem, the lump comes to my throat just as it does when I sing "The Star Spangled Banner." I love Ecuador. I love our kitchen window view of the Andes here in Quito, nestled in "The Avenue of the Volcanoes." I love to chat with taxi drivers and many times have given a thumbnail sketch of God's plan of salvation. I love the Ecuadorian music, from the haunting Andean melodies to the lively coastal salsa dance beat to the calm ballads and love songs.

We hope that love is pressed into our kids´hearts as well. Recently Levi was asked to participate in the flag ceremony at his school. He did a nice job and various nationalities were represented among the students.

A 15-second movie clip is available below. It wasn´t Ecuador´s anthem that was playing at the time.

Response to Flooding in Ecuador

Strip away politics (rewriting the constitution, a neighbor's border incursion) and what summarizes Ecuador comes from a James Taylor song:

Oh I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain.

First the Tungurahua volcano increased activity again. Now Ecuador’s coastal plain is flooded due to heavy rains. President Rafael Correa has declared a state of emergency for the whole country.

La Niña is a climatic phenomenon which periodically affects the weather patterns of the world. In Ecuador, La Niña has been causing persistent and heavy rains for the last two months and may continue to do so until late April.

Floods are now affecting many areas of the country. The coastal plains are the worst affected. More than 13,000 people have been displaced from their homes, and it is estimated that over 3,000,000 people have been affected in some way by the flooding and heavy rains.

Here in Quito, we could complain about our house’s temperature remaining at about 60 degrees, but no, we won’t. We only need go and pack supplies for the flood victims to remind ourselves we have it very good.

At the former auto shop, the engine hoist chain-and-pulley assembly dangles overhead, but it is all manual labor that packs bags of supplies for people at the coast. A volunteer force has sent truckloads of bagged foodstuffs to flood victims. I have watched Ecuadorian youth work together with volunteers from Zeeland, Michigan to prepare the bags that provide for a family for one week. Then there are the regulars - our friends and neighbors, teachers from our kids' school, and several US college students studying in Ecuador.

New supplies arrive and are sorted each day as HCJB continues to make the need known on the radio. Small towers of tuna cans stand on a table amid bags of oatmeal, salt, and flour.

As volunteers pass the tables with heavy plastic bags, they grab cans of tuna (two large or three small) toss them in, grab two bags of oatmeal, move on . . . And on it goes. A New Testament and a tract are tossed in and then the bags are double sealed and loaded on trucks for the long trip down to Babahoyo, in Los Rios province.

There, we are involved in an intra-organization, multi-pronged effort to bring people hope amid the despair of their flooded homes. Evangelism is one of four thrusts, along with food distribution, medical help and water purification. Our friend, Hermann, says each time he’s delivered bags of supplies into the hands of desperate people, he’s had the opportunity to present the gospel to them.

The Ministry of Health undersecretary has now invited the same group to help to provide flood relieve in Guayas province and in Santa Elena, near the coastal city of Guayaquil.

“I understand that the Ministry of Health will supply medicines and possibly help facilitate the importing of medicines,” Hermann says.

I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end . . .

I only wish it were so for the people of Ecuador these days. And for the consecutive days of
sunshine that we have had, I'm thankful. Very thankful.

Flood photo and Flood Response video at Youtube (below) by Martin Harrison.

Youtube (Spanish-language version) here.

And the Youtube video in German is here.

Enslaved, Saved and Then He Forgave

I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, and the least of all the faithful.

--from St. Patrick´s autobiography, The Confessio

Hear our Belfast born friend, Rachel, tell the story of St. Patrick by clicking
here.

Enslaved, Saved and Then He Forgave

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

These words could be written because centuries earlier, Patrick returned to Ireland to bring the people Christianity.

I say return, because he had spent time there already, against his will.

Return as a free man. As a teenager he’d been brought to Ireland as a slave. After years of tending sheep he was told in a dream to escape, and so he fled to his native England.

A number of obstacles could have blocked his vision to evangelize Ireland - fear being among them. Once enslaved once by pagans, he could fall captive again.

Were there also resentments and powerful prejudices to overcome? It was only the power of salvation in his own life helping him find it in his heart to love his captors.

Truly, he must have considered his captivity a blessing because by it, he found Christ.

The slave uprisings of history are recorded, such as Spartacus in ancient Rome and Toussaint Louverture of the Haitian Revolution. We give less attention given to slaves’ influence on their masters, but the stories are there nonetheless.

The book of Genesis records the story of Joseph, sold to slavers by members of his own family. In Egypt, he rises to prominence in the government and helps to stave off starvation because God gives him the interpretation of Pharoah’s dream about seven fat cows and seven skinny cows. Moses came to a position of influence in a much different way, later discovering his roots, falling out of Pharoah’s favor and leading the exodus of slaves from Egypt.

Much lesser known is the servant girl whose master, a leprous military commander named Naaman, had been instructed by a prophet to wash in the Jordan River seven times. It was the servant girl who'd encouraged him to see the prophet, and when Naaman did as instructed, his leprosy was cured.

Today, estimates are that half a million people are affected by trafficking every year. (Click here.)
That is only in Europe. There is also the sex tourism industry in Asia and the child armies of Africa.

In the horror and dehumanization of slavery, the human spirit can survive and has survived. And as Patick’s life illustrates, God’s redemptive power is not weakened in a slave’s life. He can bring beauty even from slavery.

Not Wrong, Just Different

The pastor’s message is on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but God is talking to me privately as I watch two of our kids fill in the blanks on their bulletin inserts.

Lately I’ve been chafing under edits to my writing, and quite frankly I’ve gotten bent out of shape. But as blobs, shadings and various graffiti appear on Liza’s sermon sheet beside me, I hear calming words in my mind “Not wrong or right, just different.”

You see, her brother Levi’s approach is different – completely different. The penmanship is perfect, almost as if it had been typewritten. He earnestly suggests he might talk to Pastor Len after the service to fill in words he has missed while listening to the sermon. And be sure that Levi would never claim the reward – a candy bar – unless he’d filled in every blank.

I had lost perspective somehow, obviously forgetting how subjective is the matter of writing. Editors do not communicate in mathematical, algebraic, and calculus formulas; but instead subjectively. Then just as an artist casts light on his subject, the writer brings out different shadows and hues for the reader to feel, see and experience.

I watch Liza scrawl a quick answer into the blank, then hurry back to her shading. She also chooses to decorate her sermon sheet with a couple of Christmas messages, “Christ is born” and “Happy Christmas.”



Enter my thoughts, Alexander Meiklejohn, a philosopher and educator. A free speech champion.

I think of my reading of the evening before. Meiklejohn described how in 1919, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that speech normally protected by the First Amendment could be regulated by authorities if such speech poses a “clear and present danger” to the government.

The Court unanimously upheld a lower court’s conviction of men who’d been accused of obstructing the draft. In subsequent rulings, Holmes further refined the definition of a threat, or as he wrote, “opinions that we loathe and think to be fraught with death” may still be voiced “unless “an immediate check is required to save the country.” Meiklejohn summarizes by saying Holmes’ newer language means the threat must “be clear and present, but, also, terrific.”

A brilliant legal mind, recoginized in any discussion of the First Amendment. Also, a man in process. Could I admit that I am likewise a work in process, a writer in process? I think of Holmes’ incisive mind but flawed worldview and muse how Meiklejohn can at once hold the late Justice in high regard and also dissect and discount some of his views.

Why would I need to be right when a different opinion is very valuable? Sometimes another’s opinion; sometimes my own views after more study, more thought, more prayer.

And Lazarus by now? With a little expository license, Pastor Len has us chuckling as he imagines Lazarus charged in court before the Sanhedrin on a repeat offense: “he was dead and he came back to life.”

Wonder enters. Two kids from the same mom and dad who do things entirely differently.


And hopefully for the coming week, patience with others. I need to carry something with me. And patience with myself. I am a work in progress.

Thoughts from a Demolition Site Near the Rain Forest

Walking last autumn amid the wall studding with ceiling joists overhead, I found nostalgia edging into my conscious thoughts. Afterwards I wrote:

These are hallowed halls. Inaugurated as the TheodoreEpp Memorial Hospital in Shell, Ecuador, this facility had served people of the rain forest. The building later was converted to a guesthouse, and this was where our family liked to stay.

On our last visit, we’d had the long hallways and spacious rooms to ourselves. My mind plays the sound of footsteps of our kids running the halls as they do battle with plastic pellet guns. (With this, I wave good-bye to any future bookings at guesthouses.)

Actually, we only thought we had it to ourselves; there were other guests. “The termites holding hands,” the saying goes, and it fits the scene around my feet. I thought sawdust was littered about; it was termite droppings.

(A 3:45 minute audio interview from the demolition site is available. Please click here.)

I’ve seen a black and white photo of Roger Youderian nailing roofing to the structure. That was late 1955. The photo doesn’t reveal his discouragement but he’d journaled, “We might pass Christmas here, finish the hospital in Shell, and head home.”

Not long after, he and four other young men were speared to death while attempting to evangelize a yet unreached tribe, the Aucas, with the gospel. Now known as the Waorani, they count many Christians among themselves. Many follow and teach God’s carvings.

Christmas. A finished work. And heading home.

A final Christmas for one . . . introduces the celebration of Christmas to many.

(hospital photo: D. Birkey)