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June 1983 Newsletter
COLOMBIAN CHRISTIAN MISSION
Dale and Jeanie Meade
In the jungle and prairie of Southeastern Colombia.
Volume 11, Issue 6 June, 1983
(PHOTO)
A remote house in the Andes Mountains becomes a church for a weekend.
THE EASTER HOLIDAYS
There are two times each year when we get extremely busy. One is during the Christmas-New Year week. The other comes during the Holy Week, the Easter time. This year was no different. At this time of the year, each church expects to have a visit from the brethren in Villavicencio. My work began a couple weeks before the actual holiday. I began to line up people who would be willing to leave families for the weekend. Once the list was long enough to cover all of the churches, I started organizing the places that each would visit. That involved trying to set things up so that each person could visit his favorite spot while avoiding sending two or three people to the same churches while another church went without a visit. Things began to fall together and every one would be visited. Then came the next step: organizing the flights so that each person would bet to his church on time. Here again problems often cropped up as everyone wanted to leave at the same time on the same day. Some times I began to think that we need a DC-3. Anyhow compromises were worked out and the flight schedule also fell into place. With all of that out of the way, I turned to the airplane. Due to the large amount of flying that we had done during the dry season, the faithful little Cessna needed another one hundred hour inspection. That takes about a week to do and I like to be around to watch the mechanics.
I made arrangements with the shop and took the plane bright and early on Tuesday morning, a week before Easter. They tore right into it and I stayed right by their side. Things went well and no real problems turned up. Everything checked out normal. There was some normal maintenance to be dome, like greasing the wheel bearings and changing the oil and air filter. I tried to make sure that every screw and bolt that they took out was put back in. After all, it is not their neck that is riding in the plane. While the plane was down I took advantage of the time to change the carpet. Due to the high humidity and heavy rains, it had become mildewed and rotten. Besides that it was a constant problem with the muddy shoes and slimy fish that everyone seemed to have when they climbed aboard. After all, we are not running a leer jet service for some fancy executives. Ours is a utility plane that is carrying evangelists into and out of muddy cow pastures. I put in a plastic mat. It does not look as fancy and it makes the plane a whole lot noisier, but it is much more practical. By Friday things were pretty well done and we tied up loose ends. I took the plane for its test flight. Everything seemed to be working fine so after about an hour I returned to Villavicencio and landed. Things would be ready for the first flight on the Monday following Palm Sunday. On that day, the first couple would head out to San Jose del Guaviare.
The week was then taken up as each day I ferried people into the little towns spread out through the prairie and jungle. People went to San Jose, Palmeras, San Carlos de Guaroa, Altamira, Dinamarca, and Cabuyaro. My place to visit was Dinamarca. I made that my last stop and left the plane parked in the pasture field that we use for a landing strip. Each person received his own special blessing and brought back his own tales from His service. My time was very rewarding. It was a time when we try to encourage the brethren and deal with any problems that might be brewing. One area that did not get visited this year was the Jobo area of San Jose. Most of you will remember that as the place where we began our work here in Colombia. It is now under Guerilla control and I have not been out there since we returned from out last furlough. We have sent Colombian workers who do not face the same risks that I would. We had planned on visiting them this time. But during the early part of the week there was a major encounter between the soldiers and the guerillas. Several soldiers and many others died in the ambush. As a result the area was sealed off and to go in would have meant great danger, even for a Colombia. We could only remember the brethren there in our prayers. We could also ponder the foreboding message that these skirmishes mean to the work here in Colombia.
As the week drew to a close, I began the reverse process of picking everyone up. That had been complicated by the fact that it had rained. The rough landing strips had turned into a slippery sticky mass of mud. That makes landing and takeoffs more hazardous. Each landing and take-off roll was preceded by a word of prayer. The Lord cared for all of us and the week turned out to be a real blessing for everyone. The people who had helped with visitation often come back more enthused that the people that they had visited. It had been a great week and we were all pleased. Things were capped off by over two hundred people that we had in attendance for the final service here in Villavicencio. It had been a lot of work, but the Lord's work is worth it. And in a very real way, each one of you was riding along with the evangelists that took God's word out into the highways and byways of Colombia's south eastern third of the country. May God share with you the many blessing that he gave us.