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August 1982 Newsletter
COLOMBIAN CHRISTIAN MISSION
Dale and Jeanie Meade
In the jungle and prairie of Southeastern Colombia.
Volume 10, Issue 8 August, 1982
A COW PASTURE PILOT
I had taken off a scant twenty minutes before. I had three people in the plane with their luggage. The plane was loaded near gross maximum weight. The clump of trees that appeared near the river began to be speckled with silver colored dots. I felt a sense of contentment. There were no radios to guide me. There were no roads to follow. I had only a compass and my eyes. Even maps in this area proclaim "no reliable data." I banked to the south to head for the cow pasture that we would be using for a landing strip. There is not regular landing strip at this town so the Colombian Christians had paced out a 600 feet stretch of pasture. This was a slight difference from the 3,000 foot paved and lighted strips that I had learned on in the States. I turned around and told the passengers that I would not be landing on the first pass. I wanted to buzz the strip ad take a close look at it before I set the one ton airplane down on it's little wheels.
I made a normal approach but held the plane off during final flair. The little Cessna hummed along at about two feet off the ground as I leaned against the window looking for grounding holes and ant hills. The pasture seemed to be clear so I pulled up for the go around.
On my second approach I came in slow with full flaps. We touched down on a short stretch of low grass. The ground was hard and smooth except for what appeared to be mud on the ground. Mud would not have been unusual for this time of year, the consistency told me that it was something else. The wheels seemed to be picking it up and throwing it everywhere. By the time that the airplane had stopped, it was covered. The wings, tail, fuselage, even the windshield was covered. Nearby stood a large herd of cattle that we had chased out of the stretch of pasture before landing. As we climbed out all of my passengers began to laugh. The smell confirmed my suspicion as to the strange consistency of the "mud." The cows had left the pasture field peppered with "piles". The plane was literally bathed in fresh manure. The good-natured joking was soon over and we headed into town. The hundreds of people who had come out to see the plane helped us carry the luggage. After talking to the local Christians for a while I headed back to the plane. I had no choice but to take off on the same stretch of prairie as it would have taken considerable time to scout for another clear stretch.
I returned to the beginning of the cow pasture airport and went through the pre-takeoff checklist. I cringed as I advanced the throttle and began hearing the plop plop as the wheels again picked up the sticky cow dung. I had only 600 feet to get the plane in the air so I could not dwell on the inconvenience of the "soft" runway. Soon I was in the air and it was but a short flight to Villavicencio. It was hard to believe that the same trip would have taken 6 hours in the bus. When I landed in Villavicencio I was again greeted by laughter. "Where have you been?" they all chortled. Oh well, there are many hazards for the cow-pasture pilot. With a good washing the plane would be ready to make another trip in a couple days. And we didn't but the plane for a plaything. We bought it to take us where the cars and buses couldn't to or take too long. That includes many cow pastures.
REFLECTIONS OF WORK CREW 82
Visiting a foreign mission for the first time certainly can be an eye-opening experience and educational experience, as well as an uplifting one. After seeing the work of the Meades in Villavicencio and the Stringers in Bogota, I've come to see several aspects of missions in a new light. I found that I needed to redefine such things as philosophies, means and ends, and responsibilities of missions.
What is a mission? If we look to the New Testament for guidance, we find that the first missionaries and their sponsoring churches were primarily concerned with spreading the gospel, establishing churches, and building leaders in those congregations so they could become independent. Each church should be sure it has an understood philosophy of what a mission should be. Perhaps some of the organizations we treat as missions - and there are many who serve a Christian purpose and are deserving of church support - might be more accurately placed in some other category, such as "Christian Services," "Christian Stewardship," etc. Each church should seriously consider what its definition of a mission is to be, and then be consistent with that.
Another aspect I received new insight on is the struggle that many a missionary must face in being sure he is treating the cause of the problem not just the symptoms. For example, mission hospitals, orphanages and other services have been a tremendous help in spreading the gospel - they are a means to the more important end of winning souls to Christ. However, I'm sure many a missionary has fought the temptation to allow the service to overshadow or become more important than evangelism. Often it seems much easier to treat symptoms and neglect the root of the problem - a Christ-less, sin-sick society. Our work crew saw a painful example of this. In Bogota we were confronted by an apparently crippled, ragged boy who begged passersby for money. This is a common sight in Colombia, but his pitiful situation was a jolt to us. However, Dale advised us not to give him anything. He told us that parents often force their children to beg, that sometimes they purposefully maim their own children so that they can get more sympathy - and money - from strangers. Unfortunately this money often goes toward alcohol, drugs, and immoral activities. To give the child money would be to encourage him in this lifestyle, as well as his parents and other parents. Rather, the gospel should be taken to them. Christ in the lives of these parents could turn around so many of the problems they face. The root of the problem was a Christ-less family, and all the money in the world could not change it.
A third area I was forced to think about was responsibilities of sponsoring churches to missions, and of missions to their sponsoring churches. First, a church should not be careless about whom they give support. Just because the person has charisma does not mean he is a dedicated missionary. The mission he represents should be checked for validity and necessity. The applicant should be thoroughly examined. And once a mission has been accepted, the church should support it heartily, not just financially, but with prayers and encouragement. Close contact should be maintained - blind trust is irresponsible. In this way the church can be involved and aware of needs of the mission and missionary and can give correction if necessary. In turn, the missionary is responsible for reporting the progress - or problems - of the mission and giving account of what has been entrusted to him. The result should be a close partnership in spreading the gospel in which all parties have an opportunity to reach out, build up one another, and grow spiritually as well. JoEllen Vance
RAIN
Rain is a vital element in the existence of everything and everyone. Yet rain is not the same everywhere and it is not always welcome. For example recent floods in many parts of the world have brought tragic results. Here in Colombia a river flooded and many people lost their homes. The town of Cabuyaro, where we have a church, is under more than six feet of water as I write this short article. People there are praying that it doesn't rain for a while. In many parts of the United States and Europe, the rain is poisoned by air pollution. Many lakes have died; murdered by highly acid rains that kill everything. You see, the very rain that is so important can become a curse. Rain was created by God to serve several very important purposes.
Perhaps one of the most important is that of cleaning all of his creation. As the rains fall they wash dirt out of the air and make it better for us to breathe. As the rain hits the ground it washed the dust off of the plants, roads, and houses. It packs down loose soil that can cause dust. It help eliminate the damage that man has done to his own environment.
There are many things in our life that are like that. Just about everything created by God was made for us to have a nice world in which to live. Yet we tend to spoil that by careless use of what He has given to us. We eat the wrong kinds of food and so get sick. We use our eyes to see where we are going and to read God's Word. But instead of being grateful for them we often allow them to be sources of contamination for our mind. Just as the rain intended to wash the air becomes so loaded with dirt and acid that it turns to poison; we often hurt ourselves with the very things that God had given us to enjoy in life.
Here in the tropics, rain is very different from what it is in the States. O sure, it is wet, just like rain up there. But it comes in a different way. Up there your rain comes a little at a time. It is spread out over the whole year. It is liquid in the summer and snow in the winter. Down here we have the rainy season. During the months of May through November, it rains just about every day. Sometimes it rains for a whole week and never stops. Then, all of a sudden, there is not more rain. Things begin to dry up and the ground becomes parched. No rain falls for several months. But God has adapted the living things here for the cycle and most things survive rather well. Due to the extreme dryness, there are often range fires and the air is soon full of smoke and dust. It gets very hot and people begin to long for the rains to return. Their refreshing arrival is as eagerly anticipated as the coming of Spring in the States.