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September 1978 Newsletter
COLOMBIAN CHRISTIAN MISSION
Dale and Jeanie Meade
In the jungle and prairie of Southeastern Colombia
Volume 6, Issue 9 September, 1978
(PHOTO)
One of the Colombian brothers preaching for radio program.
A NICE PLACE TO LIVE, BUT I WOULDN'T WANT TO VISIT THERE!
That was a comment made by a recent intern that we had helping us for the summer. No he didn't make a mistake or misquote that famous proverb. He was making a realistic appraisal of life in Colombia. While visiting an oil company executive a newly arrived missionary was awed by the splendid house and abundance of servants. "Foreign Service" obviously paid well. "You must be thrilled with life here in Colombia!" "No," replied the wife, "It isn't worth it. It is too much hassle. I would never do it again." What is it about Colombia that makes a $200 a day plus expenses executive quit and go home?
The main problem is that life is complicated here. To get milk my wife must stand in line for one to three hours and then can rarely buy more than a couple of quarts. It took me a full three days of waiting in line and running around just to renew a driver’s license. Even then I had to wait an additional four months for the new license to come in. Nor for a tourist are things made easy. Anyone in Colombia loses at least twelve percent of the value of their money just by exchanging it immediately. The alternative is buying an exchange certificate and then waiting about four months for permission to cash the money. Not, there is no interest paid while the government has the money. On top of this just about everything from housing to food is more costly than in the U.S.A.
Considering all of this, why is it that a missionary making only 1/10 of the oil executive's salary, can say that it is a nice place to live? It's easy. We as Christians are not concerned only with convenience and wealth in this world. Besides, others have suffered because of their desire to spread the gospel. We have had minor inconveniences, but somehow being stuck in the mud for a day and a night hardly seem comparable to being shipwrecked and adrift in the ocean. Then on top of this we have the joy of seeing lives changed by the power of the Gospel. We have the privilege of helping plant churches in towns that had no kind of Christian witness whatsoever. We are thrilled as we watch new Christians develop and mature into leaders of growing congregations. Finally, we have the privilege and joy of having the best "team ministry" in the whole world. The real sacrificial giving on your part, adds a real depth to our satisfaction.
So, as you can see, with the proper outlook on life it is easy to say. "Colombia is a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there."
THE CORRESPONDENCE COURSE TAKES OFF!
A couple of months ago we sent off for several copies of the "El Encuentro" course as used by the Missionaries in Chile. Their reply came in the form of 50 copies of the first lesson and 10 copies of the following lessons, all sent to us via air mail. These first lessons were sent out on a trial basis to everyone who wrote in to the radio program. We waited. With so many courses available, we had our doubts as to the response. Of the 50 copies that we sent out, 41 sent the first lesson back completed. We soon exhausted our supply and wrote off for more copies. Ed Holt sent us an additional 60 copies via air mail and an additional 300 by surface mail. By the time that the air mail order arrived we had already had more requests than the lessons. The day that they arrived we sent out all of the first lesson and all but five of the second lesson. We now have a waiting list of about 35 people for starting the course. If things keep up as they are we will have a waiting list of 300 people before the lessons sent by boat mail arrive. All of this has been accomplished without any special advertising or promotion. It has proved so popular in these tests that we have a better supply on hand.
We have been getting so many letters for the radio program that it has been impossible to visit even a small portion of them. We desperately needed a way to sort out the people writing in. We feel that the correspondence course will do just that. This way we can visit only those who show a definite interest in becoming Christians. We are thankful to the missionaries in Chile for sharing with us so freely. And we ask for your prayers as we launch out on this new aspect of our multiple ministries here in Colombia.