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April 1983 Newsletter
COLOMBIAN CHRISTIAN MISSION
Dale and Jeanie Meade
In the jungle and prairie of Southeastern Colombia
Volume 11, Issue 4 April, 1983
VBS IN JANUARY
We are not south of the Equator, but our seasons are still the reverse of what they are in the States. Down here we have our hot dry season from December to April. During that time it is too hot for having school. No one could sit through a sweltering class in the later part of November and do not begin again until the early part of February. We take advantage of the long and boring school vacation to offer the Vacation Bible Schools to the kids and their parents. January is the normal time. This year was no exception.
During December we had our classes to prepare teachers. Anyone who wanted to help was required to take the classes. This was especially important this year since we were not able to get any literature in Spanish for use with the VBS's. We used a mixture of odds and ends that had been left over from previous year. The teachers had to be prepared to improvise. Even using an assortment of books we still could not scrape together enough for everyone. As a result, we rationed student books. In most VBS's there would be only one book for every two students. We organized the teams of teachers and set up the schedule. By the end of December, everything was ready. There would be two teams in the field every week. During the month of January we would have eight schools. Each team would be transported to and from town in which the VBS would be held in the airplane. That made it possible to use the same team more than one week in a row.
The busy time at Christmas and New Year passed and we were ready to begin the work of teaching the children about Jesus. The first week teams went to San Jose and San Carlos de Guaroa. Things went like clockwork and we were off to a good start. By the end of that week, the first problem came up. One of the teams came down with a bad case of the parasites and had to be shipped off to the hospital in Bogota. That left us with only one team to work the second week. As a result we were able to have only one VBS in the town of La Palmera. The next week we were back up to par, replacing the sick team with another that was pressed into service at the last minute. That week we had teams in AltaMira and Cabuyaro. I continued to fly the air taxi service that enabled us to get the teams in and out of the small jungle and prairie towns with a minimum of travel time and wear and tear on the workers. The following week everyone was in town for the large VBS that we have here in town. It also served as a week in which the workers could rest a little. It was also the first week in the month that the airplane was on the ground more than two days in a row. The following week we picked up the town that had been missed because of the illness. That way every church that wanted a VBS was able to have one. The week in Dinamarca was carried out by only one person. The others had either worn themselves out or had other commitments as school drew near.
All in all the VBS's were a great success this year, as they are nearly every year. The number of students was down this year, mainly due to the lack of adequate material. After all, receiving a free book to take home is a great drawing card in a poor country. Many students attended the first day and then dropped out when they found out that they would only be able to share a book. Also we offered the VBS's in seven different churches. All of the teaching, as well as the organizing was done by the Colombian Christians. This speaks well of their organizational ability and determination as they strive to serve the Lord and develop the Lord's church here in Colombia. Now that VBS's are all over, we will begin our Christian Day School. As usual there is much work and few workers. "Pray that the Lord of the harvest send forth workers into the harvest."
GROWING PAINS
Villavicencio, like any other city of 250,000 inhabitants, often suffers from growing pains. For us, living here in Villavicencio is far better than our house out in the jungle. But is far from the organized urban, or even the rural areas of the USA. Let me give you a few examples.
First of all, there is no safe drinking water here in town. Water is just pumped from a river or a creek. In the rainy season it comes in pure mud. It is often so thick it plugs up the underground water lines. Then in the dry season there is little or no water. The creeks and rivers nearly dry up. Many sections of town will get water only one day a week. Pressure is so low that it will not even come out of a faucet. You must dig a hole in the ground and catch water in buckets at the depth of the water lines. A couple years ago they decided that we needed safe drinking water. They invested millions of dollars in some huge tanks and the equipment for providing safe drinking water. Once the plant was finished, they found out there were no water mains anywhere near. As a result, they could neither provide water to the plant, nor get it out once it was treated. Since then they have never had the money to put in the new underground mains. So we keep getting our muddy river water one or two days a week. They currently have no plans for installing the new mains and so the water treatment plant just sits there, rusting away, while the state capital carries water in buckets.
Here in Villavicencio, there are very few phone lines available. All have been taken many years ago. A person who has one can sell the line to another for $3,000 U.S. Even at that price it is virtually impossible to get one. As a result we have no phone, nor do we have plans on getting one in the near future. About five years ago, the government phone company announced that it was going to install new lines and that anyone interested should come and sign up. We did and came up number 53,631 on the waiting list. Eventually they got nearly 200,000 requests for new phone installations. They began to study the situation and order equipment. For five years they kept saying that any day now, Villavicencio would have more telephones. December rolled around and the city government decided that the downtown needed spruced up. They ordered all of the merchants to break up their cement sidewalks and install tile ones. So all during the Christmas rush, the sidewalks were all blocked off as they put in the new tile ones. They finished about mid-January. Low and behold, at the end of January the new phone equipment arrived. Switching equipment for two thousand new telephones had come in to take care of over two hundred thousand applications. Once the equipment arrived, they realized that there were no lines to hook up the telephones. So they frantically began working to put in new lines. There was only one problem; the new lines had to be put underground. That's right the new lines had to be put underneath those pretty new tile sidewalks that everybody had finished putting down only days before. So in came the crew with sledgehammers and began busting up all of the sidewalks and streets in town to put in the new lines. As they finish they fill in the ditches with dirt and leave the store owners to figure out how to repair a broken tile sidewalk.
At the rate they are going, the new telephones should be in service within a matter a matter of months, if they don't run our of money before they finish. We sit here anxiously waiting for them to start passing them out. After all, we are on the first quarter of the waiting list. We applied more than five years ago as soon as they announced that they would be bringing in more lines. It will be interesting to see how far those few lines go towards fulfilling the needs of the city. After that we will probably have to rush in a put our name of the list again as they announce another study of future needs. Then will come the wait and the growing pains.