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Saturday, January 19th
In the middle of the night, I woke up and heard it raining, so I was pretty sure that our towels would be wet today when we got up. Jorge was leaving to go back home to Medellín, so we woke up early to see him off. The one open door in this house was leaving. After he headed out, I went to check the towels. They were DRY even though everything else was damp! One last open door...breakfast with Hno Rodrigo and Hna Edilma. If nothing else opened up while we were with them, the doors would be closed and we would have confirmation that it was time to walk.
Breakfast was another awesome time of sharing, but no doors were open for later. We stopped by to tell Pastor Santander bye, but he wasn't even there! As we shared what had happened and how we saw that God was telling us to move on, Hna Edilma agreed that we were making the right decision. She packed us a lunch and they gave us directions to get to the next town--Titumate.
We packed up and started to walk...we had to cross a river, so we had to take our boots off and roll up our pants. Then we kept walking, but as we walked by this house were some men were working, they called out to us. "Where are you going?" They asked. When we told them Titumate, they smiled. Apparently we had just missed the small path that leads to Titumate. One of the guys walked us back to the gate, and we continued on. It's the end of the rainy season...so there was tons of mud and huge puddles that we had to get around. Although there was a path, we were walking through the middle of the jungle...which means we also saw some interesting creatures as we walked. Check out Mr. Iguana who didn't want to stop sunbathing to move out of our path!
We crossed another river...this time it was shallow enough to walk through without taking off our boots. Then we entered the first of 2-3 ranches where they raise cows. These huge green pastures stretched out before us with the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. It was a beautiful day for a walk!! Several times we didn't know which path to take, but each time we were at that point, we saw an open fence and we knew to go that way. It happened 3 different times...I had to smile at God's sense of humor because we always pray for an open door and today that's literally what He gave us!! The last ranch we had to cross had 2 Rottweilers, a German Shepherd, and another big dog guarding the entrance. We prayed and prayed a little more and all of the sudden the female Rottweiler calmed down and let us pass through.
We crossed the last river before coming into Titumate. (we had to take our boots off again.) After not walking for such a long time with our packs, I was pretty much spent after the 4-5 hours that it took for us to get to Titumate. We were just praying for God to open the door as we came into town.
At the edge of town we saw, Lucia and Francisco sitting out in front of Lucia's house. We decided to ask them how much further it was to Tanela. They told us that it wasn't possible to get there at this time of day. We started talking to them, and we learned that Lucia is a Christian. She was excited to talk to us, and she called her pastor's wife, Odilia, over to hear our story as well. They were sooo sweet. Then Francisco piped up and said that he would take us to Tanela tomorrow. He could carry our packs on his donkey and we could just walk with him. We knew it was an open door because Francisco doesn't even live at that house...he was just there visiting!
We were also soooo excited to learn that they were going to have a vigil tonight at the church just down the street. God knows what we need. The music was awesome...with a very Caribbean beat!! Several people shared from God's Word. I'm telling you...food for a hungry soul! It was awesome! The most comical thing happed at this service...they asked Chris and I to sing. We sing, but not in front of the church. Well, tonight we sang our first (and hopefully last) duet--"Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" in English and in Spanish. When they wanted another, we had to revert to the only thing we are good at...kid's songs!
When we got back to Hna Lucia's house, they put up a little tent inside her house to protect us from the mosquitoes. EVERYONE sleeps with mosquito netting in these parts because they bite all night long. We've been experiencing the joy of mosquitoes from quite some days now without a mosquito net! It was such a blessing to have that little tent to sleep in!
Sunday, January 20th
This morning, while we were waiting on Francisco, the kids started arriving for Sunday School. They heard "The Train Song" last night, and they wanted to learn it. So we taught them several new songs and wrote the words down for them to keep practicing! By the time Francisco was ready for us, we had been able to go to Sunday School as well. We were so happy because we really didn't want to miss church!!
Today is Francisco's day off, so his wife, Lizbeth, and her son, Jesu, went with us as well. Lizbeth and Jesu went on horse, Francisco went on mule carrying both of our packs, and Chris and I followed behind on foot. Again today it was an amazing walk...it's beautiful here. Again it was partially through jungle and partially through huge ranches. After walking about 12 miles, we finally came to the plantain plantation of Tanela. I've never in all of my life seen anything like it! As far as the eye can see and further, there is row after row of plantains!!
Lizbeth is from Tanela, so she waved at some people along the way. All of a sudden she said, "I know this family, and they are Christians." She promptly turned off the path, and went up to their house. We heard her say, "I've brought a surprise for you." When the family saw us, they didn't really say anything. Then Nicolas invited us to sit down. It was extremely awkward. (We figured out later it was just because they had never had any contact with white people, and they were in shock at our being at their house!) Eventually the conversation started flowing, and Francisco, Lizbeth, and Jesu left to head back to Titumate.
Felicia, Nicolas's wife, prepared lunch for us. From the homemade cheese and cream, the fresh picked papaya, the chunks of sugar cane, to the orange juice that she squeezed for us, every bite was delicious. Everything was fresh! The only thing that they bought was the rice...everything else was straight from the field to the plate. We really enjoyed talking to them! My heart hurt from Sandra their 2nd daughter because she had an infection that had exploded on her chest. It looked sooo incredibly painful. Chris and I prayed for her, and I gave her some Triple Antibiotic ointment and some band-aids. We talked for a long time to Nicolas's brother, Neder. He's a really intelligent man, but he can't figure out God. So we shared from the Bible with him and tried to answer his questions. We thought we were going to be staying with this family, but as it was getting dark, Nicolas said, "We are going to take you to Pastor Leo's house." Again we were concerned about how we would be received, but we were trusting that the Lord was going before us. Nicolas, Neder, and Hernan (the 3rd brother) walked with us to Pastor Leo and Pastora Dionisia's house.
Pastor Leo wasn't there, but Pastora Dionisia and several of her family members were there. We could tell again that they weren't really sure what to do with us. Their small house was packed. I almost felt like crying...things have been so hard spiritually and emotionally lately...I'm just exhausted.
While Pastora Dionisia was fixing supper (This is the beginning of the abundance of food...we definitely gained weight in Tanela), her dad, Hno Lorenzo began to tell us testimony of God's healing on his body. He had prostrate cancer, and God healed him without surgery. He told us that God performed the surgery to remove it and he could tell us exactly when it was! He also had a stroke and was paralyzed on one entire side of his body, and God healed him of that. In addition to these issues, 12 snakes have bitten him on different occasions through his life. Some of them were extremely venomous and should have killed him...but NO, he's still alive and kicking...giving God all the glory!!! I began to know we were in the right place. I think it's just part of the culture in El Chocó...a little stand-offish at first, and then they welcome you with open arms once they know you are okay. We'll see if that's true with Pastor Leo and Pastora Dionisia.
By the time supper was ready, Pastor Leo was back at the house, and he shared with us a challenge that he had given the church this morning. God laid it on his heart to call a 20-day fast followed by 3 days of 24 hour per day of prayer. The purpose--to seek God's guidance for the church and for direction in the lives of the individual members of the church. It looks like it's time for us to be in school again...first, we know very little about fasting...we have learned that it's important, but that's about all we know...we need to have a better understanding of the Biblical purposes for fasting. Second, check out the passage that God gave Pastor Leo to share with the congregation in relation to this fast....Zechariah 8:18-23 "Again the word of the Lord Almighty came to me. This is what the Lord Almighty says: "The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace." This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, 'Let us go at once to entreat the Lord and seek the Lord Almighty. I myself and going.' And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him." This is what the Lord Almighty says: "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, 'Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.' " Okay...speak on God!!! We are excited to see what He has in store for this time here in Tanela.
Before going to bed tonight, Pastor Leo and Pastora Dionisia lead devotion for the people who came to fellowship with them and for their family members who were staying with them. Pretty awesome! It's a daily discipline...plus at 5 every morning we'll be having devotion as well.
I don't know how they found space for the two of us, but they gave us our own room with a bed and a mosquito net! It's a straw mattress...the first time we've ever slept on one!! They also have an outhouse...Praise God! We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we know Who holds tomorrow in His hands. We’ll be in touch again soon! God bless you! We love you!
Note: I can tell you this...from 1/9 to 1/19 we experienced some of the strongest spiritual warfare that we've ever experienced in our lives. The physical conditions were rough, but the spiritual conditions were much worse. If you are interested in knowing more details, we'll be glad to share, but we can't share about it here. We do just want to thank you once again for your prayers during this part of the journey. God definitely strengthened us to be able to endure these days. So we arrived in Tanela exhausted--physically, mentally, and spiritually. God knew though...the next journal entry explains how He refreshed us!
Saturday, January 19th
In the middle of the night, I woke up and heard it raining, so I was pretty sure that our towels would be wet today when we got up. Jorge was leaving to go back home to Medellín, so we woke up early to see him off. The one open door in this house was leaving. After he headed out, I went to check the towels. They were DRY even though everything else was damp! One last open door...breakfast with Hno Rodrigo and Hna Edilma. If nothing else opened up while we were with them, the doors would be closed and we would have confirmation that it was time to walk.
Breakfast was another awesome time of sharing, but no doors were open for later. We stopped by to tell Pastor Santander bye, but he wasn't even there! As we shared what had happened and how we saw that God was telling us to move on, Hna Edilma agreed that we were making the right decision. She packed us a lunch and they gave us directions to get to the next town--Titumate.
We packed up and started to walk...we had to cross a river, so we had to take our boots off and roll up our pants. Then we kept walking, but as we walked by this house were some men were working, they called out to us. "Where are you going?" They asked. When we told them Titumate, they smiled. Apparently we had just missed the small path that leads to Titumate. One of the guys walked us back to the gate, and we continued on. It's the end of the rainy season...so there was tons of mud and huge puddles that we had to get around. Although there was a path, we were walking through the middle of the jungle...which means we also saw some interesting creatures as we walked. Check out Mr. Iguana who didn't want to stop sunbathing to move out of our path!
We crossed another river...this time it was shallow enough to walk through without taking off our boots. Then we entered the first of 2-3 ranches where they raise cows. These huge green pastures stretched out before us with the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. It was a beautiful day for a walk!! Several times we didn't know which path to take, but each time we were at that point, we saw an open fence and we knew to go that way. It happened 3 different times...I had to smile at God's sense of humor because we always pray for an open door and today that's literally what He gave us!! The last ranch we had to cross had 2 Rottweilers, a German Shepherd, and another big dog guarding the entrance. We prayed and prayed a little more and all of the sudden the female Rottweiler calmed down and let us pass through.
We crossed the last river before coming into Titumate. (we had to take our boots off again.) After not walking for such a long time with our packs, I was pretty much spent after the 4-5 hours that it took for us to get to Titumate. We were just praying for God to open the door as we came into town.
At the edge of town we saw, Lucia and Francisco sitting out in front of Lucia's house. We decided to ask them how much further it was to Tanela. They told us that it wasn't possible to get there at this time of day. We started talking to them, and we learned that Lucia is a Christian. She was excited to talk to us, and she called her pastor's wife, Odilia, over to hear our story as well. They were sooo sweet. Then Francisco piped up and said that he would take us to Tanela tomorrow. He could carry our packs on his donkey and we could just walk with him. We knew it was an open door because Francisco doesn't even live at that house...he was just there visiting!
We were also soooo excited to learn that they were going to have a vigil tonight at the church just down the street. God knows what we need. The music was awesome...with a very Caribbean beat!! Several people shared from God's Word. I'm telling you...food for a hungry soul! It was awesome! The most comical thing happed at this service...they asked Chris and I to sing. We sing, but not in front of the church. Well, tonight we sang our first (and hopefully last) duet--"Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" in English and in Spanish. When they wanted another, we had to revert to the only thing we are good at...kid's songs!
When we got back to Hna Lucia's house, they put up a little tent inside her house to protect us from the mosquitoes. EVERYONE sleeps with mosquito netting in these parts because they bite all night long. We've been experiencing the joy of mosquitoes from quite some days now without a mosquito net! It was such a blessing to have that little tent to sleep in!
Sunday, January 20th
This morning, while we were waiting on Francisco, the kids started arriving for Sunday School. They heard "The Train Song" last night, and they wanted to learn it. So we taught them several new songs and wrote the words down for them to keep practicing! By the time Francisco was ready for us, we had been able to go to Sunday School as well. We were so happy because we really didn't want to miss church!!
Today is Francisco's day off, so his wife, Lizbeth, and her son, Jesu, went with us as well. Lizbeth and Jesu went on horse, Francisco went on mule carrying both of our packs, and Chris and I followed behind on foot. Again today it was an amazing walk...it's beautiful here. Again it was partially through jungle and partially through huge ranches. After walking about 12 miles, we finally came to the plantain plantation of Tanela. I've never in all of my life seen anything like it! As far as the eye can see and further, there is row after row of plantains!!
Lizbeth is from Tanela, so she waved at some people along the way. All of a sudden she said, "I know this family, and they are Christians." She promptly turned off the path, and went up to their house. We heard her say, "I've brought a surprise for you." When the family saw us, they didn't really say anything. Then Nicolas invited us to sit down. It was extremely awkward. (We figured out later it was just because they had never had any contact with white people, and they were in shock at our being at their house!) Eventually the conversation started flowing, and Francisco, Lizbeth, and Jesu left to head back to Titumate.
Felicia, Nicolas's wife, prepared lunch for us. From the homemade cheese and cream, the fresh picked papaya, the chunks of sugar cane, to the orange juice that she squeezed for us, every bite was delicious. Everything was fresh! The only thing that they bought was the rice...everything else was straight from the field to the plate. We really enjoyed talking to them! My heart hurt from Sandra their 2nd daughter because she had an infection that had exploded on her chest. It looked sooo incredibly painful. Chris and I prayed for her, and I gave her some Triple Antibiotic ointment and some band-aids. We talked for a long time to Nicolas's brother, Neder. He's a really intelligent man, but he can't figure out God. So we shared from the Bible with him and tried to answer his questions. We thought we were going to be staying with this family, but as it was getting dark, Nicolas said, "We are going to take you to Pastor Leo's house." Again we were concerned about how we would be received, but we were trusting that the Lord was going before us. Nicolas, Neder, and Hernan (the 3rd brother) walked with us to Pastor Leo and Pastora Dionisia's house.
Pastor Leo wasn't there, but Pastora Dionisia and several of her family members were there. We could tell again that they weren't really sure what to do with us. Their small house was packed. I almost felt like crying...things have been so hard spiritually and emotionally lately...I'm just exhausted.
While Pastora Dionisia was fixing supper (This is the beginning of the abundance of food...we definitely gained weight in Tanela), her dad, Hno Lorenzo began to tell us testimony of God's healing on his body. He had prostrate cancer, and God healed him without surgery. He told us that God performed the surgery to remove it and he could tell us exactly when it was! He also had a stroke and was paralyzed on one entire side of his body, and God healed him of that. In addition to these issues, 12 snakes have bitten him on different occasions through his life. Some of them were extremely venomous and should have killed him...but NO, he's still alive and kicking...giving God all the glory!!! I began to know we were in the right place. I think it's just part of the culture in El Chocó...a little stand-offish at first, and then they welcome you with open arms once they know you are okay. We'll see if that's true with Pastor Leo and Pastora Dionisia.
By the time supper was ready, Pastor Leo was back at the house, and he shared with us a challenge that he had given the church this morning. God laid it on his heart to call a 20-day fast followed by 3 days of 24 hour per day of prayer. The purpose--to seek God's guidance for the church and for direction in the lives of the individual members of the church. It looks like it's time for us to be in school again...first, we know very little about fasting...we have learned that it's important, but that's about all we know...we need to have a better understanding of the Biblical purposes for fasting. Second, check out the passage that God gave Pastor Leo to share with the congregation in relation to this fast....Zechariah 8:18-23 "Again the word of the Lord Almighty came to me. This is what the Lord Almighty says: "The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace." This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, 'Let us go at once to entreat the Lord and seek the Lord Almighty. I myself and going.' And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him." This is what the Lord Almighty says: "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, 'Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.' " Okay...speak on God!!! We are excited to see what He has in store for this time here in Tanela.
Before going to bed tonight, Pastor Leo and Pastora Dionisia lead devotion for the people who came to fellowship with them and for their family members who were staying with them. Pretty awesome! It's a daily discipline...plus at 5 every morning we'll be having devotion as well.
I don't know how they found space for the two of us, but they gave us our own room with a bed and a mosquito net! It's a straw mattress...the first time we've ever slept on one!! They also have an outhouse...Praise God! We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we know Who holds tomorrow in His hands. We’ll be in touch again soon! God bless you! We love you!
Note: I can tell you this...from 1/9 to 1/19 we experienced some of the strongest spiritual warfare that we've ever experienced in our lives. The physical conditions were rough, but the spiritual conditions were much worse. If you are interested in knowing more details, we'll be glad to share, but we can't share about it here. We do just want to thank you once again for your prayers during this part of the journey. God definitely strengthened us to be able to endure these days. So we arrived in Tanela exhausted--physically, mentally, and spiritually. God knew though...the next journal entry explains how He refreshed us!
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