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March 1978 Newsletter
COLOMBIAN CHRISTIAN MISSION
Dale and Jeanie Meade
In the jungle and prairie of Southeastern Colombia
Volume 6, Issue 3 March, 1978
WORK CREW: 1978
Preparations were over. It was January 22, the day that the work crew was to arrive. Carl Hines and I had gone to the airport to meet them. It was a tense wait as we knew that they were carrying several hundred pounds of equipment. We saw Don Miller first then other members began to make their way through the lines. They picked up their luggage and lined up at the customs tables. "Lord, please help them," I prayed. Then the customs official motioned everyone through without even checking their luggage. The work crew had gotten off to a good start.
For the next two weeks I was caught up in a whirlwind of activity. Trying to keep the 15 men in building material was quite a job. To be sure, minor difficulties popped up (such as broken rims on buses etc.) but all-in-all the work crew came off just great. Including this newsletter you will find their own impressions of Colombia and the work here.
One final advantage was that this years work crew included representatives of the five different supporting churches. That represents one third of the total. These churches now have a first-hand view of how their money is being used. They will benefit from this and we will too. We are very much in favor of this close personal relationship between a supporting church and it's foreign evangelists.
Now, sit back and enjoy your own fresh look at the mission work here in Colombia, through the eyes of the 1978 Work Crew!
WHAT I RECEIVED SPIRITUALLY FROM THE TRIP TO COLOMBIA WITH THE WORK CREW
My parents were converted to Christ in 1958. At that time I was two years of age. Ever since then they raised their children in a Christian home. For this, I thank God, because through this trip to Colombia, and what I had seen through my own eyes I could have been born in that country which those who are born there are less fortunate than we are. We actually saw children sleeping on the sidewalks because they had no homes in which to go in the bigger cities. I think this is what made me realize just how fortunate I am. Children whose parents do not care about their well being in living normally in this world, let alone raising them up in Christian homes. I pity them and thank God that I am not one of them. The children that live in the smaller cities, villages, or out in the prairies were poor or were better off than other, but at least to what we had seen they had parents who cared for their well-being. These are the people who are more willing to receive the Gospel than those in the bigger city because it is easier to convert those who are willing to help themselves. I think Dale and Mark have done a remarkable job working with these people in preaching and teaching the Gospel, and training their leaders how to carry on God's work according to the scriptures. The money that is sent to Colombia is spent well. Having seen this through their work and the changed in peoples lives. These Christian brothers and sisters of ours in Christ, shared their hospitality with us in such a way that you could just feel God's presence about. It was a really good feeling as we worshipped with them in singing and sharing testimonies. I can recall when we sang, "How Great Thou Art" in English, and then hearing it sung in Spanish, and other songs too, the feeling that I had, made me wonder just how Heaven is going to be.
I was also good for me spiritually to witness two baptisms at San Carlos here again, is the result of the Gospel being proclaimed. Whenever I witness such an event, I look back to my own baptism, and thank God what He had done for me, in sending His son to die for our sins. Praise God for that because it is really great to see those from other parts of the world accepting Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
It was a great privilege to have worked with the others on the work crew. The fellowship and hard work that we spent together in using our talents for God was truly an experience that I shall always remember. When you live with 16 other guys for two weeks, things can get kind of hectic but God was with us all. I indeed received much from this trip and some day look forward to returning to use my talent for God's Kingdom.
Gregg Piatt
Those of us who were members of the work crew two years ago were especially interested in looking for changes when we returned to Colombia this January. Changes were not hard to find and those made by the missionaries were exciting to see and hear about. They have definite goals, a plan to accomplish the goals, and are now working that plan.
Their goals are to reach as many people as possible with the Gospel, teach and convert these people to Christianity and then have them become active members of churches that are self governing, self supporting and self propagating.
The key to their success is education-education that takes several forms. First, the Bible must be taught - so the missionaries become Bible school teachers and preachers. To assume these responsibilities only for themselves would severely limit the number of people who can be reached so they also must take on the roll of seminary professors and train Colombian Christians to become preachers. These preachers then need churches that can hire them so our missionaries teach church men to become church leaders by seeing that they learn to manage the business as well as the personal part of an organized church.
This task is an ambitious one for a handful of missionaries some of whom have only just completed their first four years tour in the field. If any of the work crew had doubts about their chances and success these doubts certainly were corrected by the second week of our stay in Colombia.
Each change I had noted when I arrived I later found fit into our missionaries plan like a part into a puzzle. When Dale and Jeanie returned from furlough last fall they relocated in Villavicencio where they can work as a team with Mark and Barbara Stringer and can now share facilities some of which the work crew helped to build. From this city of some 200,000 people tucked in against the southern most slope of the Andes mountains, the Llanos or plains extend for hundreds of miles east of the ocean and south to the jungle. In addition to the predominantly non-Christian inhabitants of Villavicencio there are an estimated one hundred villages and towns and uncounted farms on the Llanos within a day's travel by jeep or motorcycle. There are 100 towns and villages available by small plane.
With these facts in mind Dale had learned to fly and has his instrument rating. Phil Banta, still on furlough, is taking lessons. The fund for a plane is slowly accumulating.
Mark and Barbara have moved out of the church compound where they were living two years ago and the congregation now governs and operates their own church. Another church in Villavicencio, where this year's crew worked on the building that is to be used for a recording studio is also self governing now. There after Saturday evening service we left the congregation in a business meeting vigorously discussing who had actually purchased and therefore owned the communion table. Except for Spanish replacing English. I could hardly tell we had left home. Our missionaries smiled at each other, explained to us, and wisely left their Colombian brethren to solve their own problems.
On Wednesday and again on Sunday we traveled to two villages on the llanos many kilometers away from Villavicencio where we visited churches nursed by our missionaries. Now they are self governing and presumably self supporting.
The class distinctions between the wealthy, the not so wealthy, and the poor we were told, are more pronounced in Colombia than in the U.S.
Mark is now beginning to direct some of his efforts to the more affluent classes who are also in need of his work and who can form churches that in addition to being self-supporting can support their own mission churches (the self-propagating churches).
Carl Hines in the capitol of Bogota to the north provides printed materials and training courses for the others including Warren Sanders in Fontibon nearby. To Carl also has fallen the responsibility for handling finances. The exchange of monies had become much more difficult than it was two years ago.
Local radio stations are now used to broadcast Christian messages using tapes made by local preachers. Self taught courses are available for preachers, students and church leaders. There are plans to purchase land in the country near Villavicencio for a camp where church leaders can meet for several days at a time and receive more formal training. And there is much more.
I left Colombia with the feeling that I had been working with some of the most ambitious and effective people I have known who just may some day work their way out of a job where they now live. We hope they will. Jim Ranz