Natalia's Birthday

On December 16th, Natalia turned eleven years old. She wanted a small sleepover/party with three of her close friends-- Bailey, Jordan and Haley. I did an alphabet scavenger hunt for them that took them around the ranch in the snow looking for clues and getting some "treasure" along the way. There was one clue for each letter in the alphabet. My favorites were E--which I hid in the egg carton in the fridge--and the clue for G which was taped to the dog Ginger's collar. They had some fun chasing that one down!

Rachelle and I are so blessed to have such a great kid. I know I'm a biased parent, but I think she is amazingly considerate, caring and selfless, and her heart reflects her savior, Jesus.

Great video

I found this song video while I read fellow missionaries Ron and Barb Cline's blog about their trip in South Africa. It is a good read so far and is just starting. You can read it here.

The song on this video touches on something that I've been thinking about a lot. Namely, the way that my trip to Africa has changed me and become a part of me. It has been impossible for me to see the faces of black children in Africa now without trying to recognize some of the kids I met while I was there.

I no longer read news from West Africa without a context and a heart for the suffering there.

I have realized that by being born an American I have a historical debt that we collectively owe to black Africans and the slave trade. I can still hear the conversation I had with a black man who told me, "Your prosperity was built on the backs of black African slaves." What was just a sordid historical occurrence studied in school became personal to me that day. I still carry a bit of that weight in my heart.

I can still close my eyes and hear the enchanting music from the hearts of the women as they composed songs in church.

I can still feel the little black hand enfolded in mine as I walked across the orphanage.

I find myself asking God what I should do with these experiences that echo in my memories. How can they shape me and make me more like Jesus? How should I then live? Not easy questions.

A Quick Trip to Ecuador

In a rather sudden way, I got the opportunity to join HCJB Global's new webmaster, Danny Montes, for a quick trip to Ecuador. While I was there I gave some workshops on missionary communications that I entitled "Communications and the Missionary Spiderman" in order to convince folks to come and listen. I was happy that I ended up with four well-attended sessions in Quito and a large session in Shell. Even though I am a rookie blogger, I was encouraging missionaries to give it a try because I’ve been amazed at how easy it really is—even for a non-techy guy like me.

On the way to Shell (driving with fellow HCJB Global missionary and writer Ralph Kurtenbach) we had a little extra time before my evening session in Shell. We first stopped and rode the cable car across the Pastaza river canyon and over top of a large waterfall. It is a fun bargain at only a buck apiece. Here is a photo of Ralph on the cable car.

When we exited, a friendly Ecuadorian family who were on a holiday visit recommended we hike down to another waterfall a bit further downstream where someone constructed a nice trail and a cement overlook perched beside another impressive waterfall called El Pailon del Diablo. I took some video on my digital camera there and it was so loud we had to shout to hear each other. I had never taken the time to make this short hike (and pay the $2 to go the last little bit) –but it also was worth the time and money.

My secret motive for agreeing to the trip was to visit my Waorani friend Pegonga who recently had hip replacement surgery. Apparently he injured his hip when he was young and was in such pain before the surgery that he wasn’t able to be very active. He has such a great attitude and listens to the Waorani Bible on tape as long as he has batteries. I bought him two more sets while I was there.

I snuck in a quick 3 or 4 hour visit via a Mission Aviation Fellowship plane flight with Ecuadorian pilot Fred Velasco. We spent the most time in Tiweno and did a quick hop to our old home village of Tzapino. There was only about 8 folks home at Tzapino and all but one were young kids. Everyone else was visiting Tiguino. Bummer.

The sawmill that we took out to the Waorani in 1999 was in Tiweno and the main drive belt broke. I was a bit bummed to see it sitting in an unusable state for the time being and am already dreaming about another visit in the near future where I would have time to get it all tuned up and running well again. Anyone want to join me?

Africa Post 2: Pumping Water for Widows

Pumping water for Widows

For the two weeks our work team from HCJB Global was in Burkina Faso working at the ACTS center for orphans and widows, one constant was the water well. There was hardly a time that I looked to the center of the compound when women and children were not pumping the handle up and down for water. As a “rich” American who simply turns the tap to get as much clean drinking water as I want, I was amazed to think about how much effort this took.

When our family lived in the rainforest we spent countless hours boiling water over the campfire to purify it for drinking, and we didn’t take that water for granted. But water in the rainforest was plentiful and relatively nearby. There we could easily just use water from the creek or river to wash clothes, dishes and our bodies. In Burkina Faso, the only water available most times, for everything, was what they took home in those containers. Plus, for me the memory of those hot hours fanning the fire to boil water are clouded by six years back at the faucet handle. Gathering precious water in Burkina Faso was different somehow.

Every once in a while I would take a break from whatever else I was doing and pump the well handle for whoever happened to be there. I counted around 130 repetitions to fill the common size of water container which I guessed to be about five and a half or six gallons—I’m sure it was the metric equivalent—probably 20 liters. It might be more difficult in the dry season.

Most of the time the women would arrive with multiple containers to fill on a donkey cart they pushed by hand or via bicycles with racks or trailers. Good setups, but a ton of manual labor, nonetheless--especially on the rough, potholed roads. After pumping water for two or three containers I would begin to feel the burn in my shoulders and triceps. The sweat would trickle down my face and drip off my nose and chin (It was most of the time anyway in the high humidity, but pumping water in the sun was always enough to drench me afresh). I counted nine containers on one women’s cart. That is about 1170 pumps on that handle by a woman a third my size or a teen who was even smaller.

The well was a valued asset at the ACTS center there in the village and women from miles around seemed to come there for water. What is really exciting is to think about the metaphor that Jesus used with the woman at the well.—living water.

Jesus says in John 4: 13-14, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

I’ve always loved the mix of practical and spiritual that works together so well with community development projects like water wells. You meet a physical need for the people and it gives you a connection to the spiritual life.

I’m not so naïve to think that someone would find salvation because of a few measly pumps on a well handle. But it sure was fun watching the puzzled looks and the sideways smiles that always came when this big, sweaty American man walked over and stole the pumping duties from a bewildered woman or a giggling teen.

Let us all drink living water.

Africa Post 1: Abadou

This is my first blog about my 2 week trip to Burkina Faso, Africa Aug. 2-16, where I joined an HCJB Global work team who worked at a center for orphans and widows there.

Abadou

By day two or three, the little orphan named Abadou would come running to greet the cars and vans that we arrived at the orphan center in each day. He would stand in front of the nearest warm body with his arms stretched upward in the universal kid pose requesting you pick him up.

Our team of 17 included a Canadian, a Texan who was living in Germany, three Coloradoans (including me), and 12 from Southern California. By the end of our two weeks there, I think every one of us spent some time holding Abadou. He was so willing and ready to be loved and held and cuddled. Of course there were many others who got some lap time and lots of hugs; the orphanage, run by ACTS ministry in Burkina Faso (http://www.acts-burkina.org/) feeds around 190 kids and houses as many as they can every night. One of our purposes in being there was to help build a new cement block dormitory so that more kids can have a roof over their heads at the orphan center. I was also there to help train the older kids in carpentry as part of their job skills training.

My first chance to hold Abadou came when I was right in the middle of something. I was trying to work with the local carpenter who is hired part-time as instructor for the job skills training. He and I were working with some of the orphans to make a shelf unit. I had just stepped out of the workshop for a moment or two to grab a drink of water when someone handed Abadou to me. My American mindset wanted to get back to work, be productive and hurry up about it. My mind was on the next steps in the shelf project. But Abadou settled in and nestled his head against my chest, content to stay as long as I’d have him. My heart melted right there as I took a deep breath and realized there was no hurry in God’s Kingdom. Why was I there anyway?

“Religion that God our Father accepts and pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

Rachelle's Journal

In my journey, I seem to constantly try to find the way of escaping these circumstances. So much of my energy is spent on, “Maybe if I do this or don’t do that, or eat this or that my pain/energy will be better tomorrow.” As John Bevere says in his book, The Bait of Satan, God has seen all of my circumstances, even the adverse ones, and has the way planned for escaping it. And “…often the thing that looks like an abortion of God’s plan actually ends up being the road to its fulfillment…” (p29). I’ve heard that said in so many different ways so many times, but it is time for me to remember it again and lay hold of it (again) and be content. So, I have a disability and an illness. I’m limited in what I can do, but that doesn’t mean that God is limited by my disability. I often feel trapped in these four walls, but lack the ability to walk out the door and interact with the rest of the world, but that doesn’t mean that God is trapped by this illness. God must have a plan. He didn’t sit up in heaven and say, “Oh no, she is sick and can’t stay on the mission field. Guess she’s out of the picture. Cross her off the list and find someone else.” I like how Bevere says it, “No mortal man or devil can supersede the plan of God for my life!” At this point my mind returns to realizing (once again) that this was God’s plan all along and my first thought is, “Well, that stinks! If I’d known that before I was born, I would have signed up for a different course.” But accepting the place where I am doesn’t mean I stop fighting or seeking help.

All of that is just another way of saying the same thing I’ve been saying for a while, but I have to keep returning to it and remembering that God’s promises are meant for me, too. Hanging on to those promises and exercising my faith muscles is just part of walking down the road of life. In the end I think I (and Nate...and even Tali) will realize that we've looked into the face of God through different lenses than we ever would have chosen to on our own.

I continue to get off of medications and do physical therapy. My movement is improving slowly. I can go maybe 20 steps further now than I could before when my muscles would just lock up and refuse to move. The other areas like pain and fatigue are slower to change, but I do feel like we are onto something with the physical therapy (it's a combination of manual therapy and some alternative types of therapy), so I'll keep going until I'm ready for a marathon or the Lord moves us on. It is often a case of three steps forward and two back, so I have to remember where I was a couple of years ago.

It's been six years now since we came back from Ecuador and I often picture Moses coming out of the desert after 30 years with gray straggly hair and leathery skin looking like death warmed over and wonder if I'll be 60 years old, looking similar before I get to move on to greener pastures. Or Job—I can't imagine he was exactly ready to embrace life for quite a while after his losses and suffering. I've found myself wondering what life was like for Job after he recovered. And how long was his journey through recovery? What were his conversations like with the Lord? What kind of a relationship did they have after it all? Was it deeper, truer, fuller? Or was it more like a casual acquaintance? I can't imagine it was, but then a part of me can.

I feel as if my relationship with the Lord has been stripped of all of its old garments. Everything has to be rebuilt again—from ground zero. I know I can't do the building, but sometimes I want to because the barrenness is often uncomfortable. It's cold, not empty because His spirit is still there, but everything I once knew is gone and we're starting from scratch. My life verse in Psalm 40:1-3 is my prayer. That He will give me a new song. Then eventually, many will see what He has done and be astounded. But that second part is not what He is doing right now. I feel like I am to BE and allow Him to soak down into the many layers of my sinful and wounded soul. That leaves me with the job of being. Ugh!

Excerpts from Our Newsletter

Nate's News

Nate had his second knee surgery and is doing very well. He is glad he had the surgeries and never really realized how much pain he had all this time.

Writing takes up more and more of his time. He enjoys most of the writing tasks most of the time, but often goes a little stir crazy sitting inside at a computer when the weather is so beautiful and so many ranch tasks beg for attention. He has taken on the irrigating responsibilities this summer as an excuse to go out and play in the mud.

Disaster Relief

On June 17-22 Nate attended a course on Disaster Assistance Relief Training in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He was able to drop Natalia and me at my sister’s house in Kansas for the week and then he traveled on to Oklahoma. The training centered on preparedness for relief trips related to disasters, wars and persecution around the world. HCJB Global has recently had the opportunity to step into this role following natural disasters in Indonesia, Pakistan and the Solomon Islands, often coupling in-country contacts from partner radio stations with medical expertise from their training hospital in Ecuador. While recovering from knee surgery Nate had to decline an invitation to join the team headed to Pakistan following the terrible earthquake there. He jokes that they just want him to go along because he knows how to boil water over a campfire. However, someone to help with various logistics for the team can enable medical workers to focus on treatment rather than various other necessities. On top of that, the training course was a big spiritual lift as Nate got to interact with a lot of great Christian folks who challenged his faith. He was especially challenged by the testimonies of several of the instructors who have entered incredibly difficult areas, literally risking their lives to share God’s love with desperate people.

Africa!

He’s also scheduled to go to Burkina Faso, Africa in August to help teach a carpentry course as part of a vocational training program at an orphanage there. He will be teamed up with a church group from California and some co-workers from HCJB Global who are organizing the trip. Nate was included late in the planning in response to a request from the orphanage for the carpentry training. We will report more on this when he gets back and we see what God actually ends up using the team for—regardless of the best laid plans. Please pray for safety and cooperation for the team and that the earthly goals wouldn’t mask God’s intentions.

Writing, disaster training, carpentry and irrigating—a combination that only God could weave together!

Natalia's Summer

Natalia is busy growing up.

Fourth Grade was a great experience with a wonderful teacher and a close friend in a classmate.

Right now she is enjoying summer at Latigo Ranch—swimming, horseback riding, hiking, fishing, and square dancing.

Nate, Natalia and our friends Kevin and Madeline Flack got to go to Lake Dillon on a Daddy/Daughter Canoe trip one Saturday.

Add a week of soccer camp and it makes for a full summer. Nate has teased her in the evenings when she is so tired she can hardly make it to bed that she is suffering from “fun poisoning.”

School starts again on August 20, making it seem like a short summer. She is much more upbeat, full of enthusiasm and joy these days. Thanks for your prayers for her!

New Name--New Tool

The Dells have entered the new era of blogging with this inaugural entry to our new "Trees on the Riverbank" blog. The name is based on one of my favorite verses and might soon be the title of our snail mail newsletters as well.

"But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. their leaves stay green and they never stop producing fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8 New Living Translation.

Thanks for joining us on this journey.