SCRATCHING WHERE IT ITCHES Years ago I was ask by our Mission leaders to pastor a church inthe town of San Borja Bolivia. I was living among a group ofIndians but we didn’t have the work well established yet & thechurch in town was fragmented because the Missionaries whowere pastoring the church had gone to the USA on furlough. AMissionary was designated to teach the believers but he also workedamong the Indians and was building a house boat to travelthe river with and had pieces of the boat scattered on the bankof the river where he was assembling it. He was trying to tendto the church in town but the attendance had gone way down andthe morale was low. I hated to leave my place along the river becausewe had worked to make it somewhat self-supporting by raisinghogs, & chickens and planting crops of rice and corn. We hadeto leave the place with a caretaker while we gave a year’s time tothe ministry in town until the Missionaries returned from furlough. Thebelievers met in a small bamboo shack with a grass roof and whenwe arrived to serve them there were only a hand full of believers attendingthe meetings. I ask the Lord for wisdom to know how to carrythe work forward. The idea came to me to have a special meal forthe men and ask them for ideas. I bought a hind quarter of beef andwe prepared a meal and invited the men to come to the feed. Themembers all showed up and we had a good feast. After the meal Iasked them how I could best serve them. What did they feel was thebiggest need. In unison they said that they wanted a decent building tomeet in. That appeared to be the place that itched for them. How toscratch that itch was the problem. It was apparent that the answer wouldbe to build a chapel that they could be proud of. I asked the men ifthey had any funds to build a church building with. They said that theyhad around $400 dollars. Labor and materials were cheap there in those daysbut I told them that that amount would hardly be enough to make thefoundation. They had been collecting money for six years and that’s allthey could come up with. Most of them were dirt poor and sadly enough inthird world countries when Missionaries arrive with all of their baggage theyoften make the mistake of financing projects that the people themselves shouldbe responsible for. My wife & I were poor as church mice ourselves so wecouldn’t promise any monetary support for the project. My faith in Godwas strong and I ask them if they wanted, by faith, to start the foundationand go as far as we could. To my surprise they said yes! and thefollowing afternoon we hosted a tea party for the women with cake.I proposed the same question to them and got the same answer. Theywanted a church building to worship in. They, along with the menpromised to help out what they could once we got the work underway. Wenow knew where they itched and they signified that they were ready toscratch so we hired a bricklayer to make the foundation. Some of them boughtoxcart loads of sand and others bricks and cement and the found- ationwas finished. We knew about a hand machine made in Columbia thatsold for $200 and we purchased one. It compressed the sand and cementand made a hard block, using only 10% cement and the rest sand. Atour mission school these blocks had been made to build a number of buildings.However, being amateurs we hadn’t calculated the price of flyingin the bags of cement. Since there were yet no roads into the area everythinghad to come in by air. Bricks were made by the local people andbaked in ovens fired with wood. We found a way to leave a hollow spaceinside of the big bricks we made with the machine and were able totake them to a brickyard where the owner offered to burn them for us if wewould furnish the firewood required to do it. This was a real provision fromthe Lord. The brick kiln owner didn’t lose by it because he burned his smallerbricks on the lower half of the oven and ours were fired on the top part.So, we dug the clay, formed the bricks had them burned in the brick kilnsand were ready to start raising the walls of the church. We continued tosee a few funds trickle in but not enough to hire a brick layer even thoughthey only made around $8 a day. God sent us a young man from Wheatenbible college that wanted to spend the summer helping Missionaries. I asked himif he had ever laid bricks and he said, “I was abrick layer’s helper.” He and I worked alone on the walls until we had thema little over three feet high which was the height to start leaving spacesfor the windows. By that time this young man had to leave. Ididn’t feel capable of trying to proceed on my own. Funds came in and wewere able to get the walls all the way up. As I mentioned, most all of themembers were very poor but two families who were ranchers were quitewell off. One of the rancher’s wives came to me and asked “Dino, whenare your churches in America going to send down the dollars to finishbuilding the church?” My answer was, they aren’t going to send anydollars, if you people want a church building you will have to pay for it.Soon after that Her husband and the other rancher decided to donate therest of the money needed to roof the church and put in lights and benches.It wasn’t finished for another year or two but it was finished enough to moveinto and begin worshipping in. Shortlyafter we moved into the building the Missionaries who had beenon furlough returned and we could turn the work over to them. atthat time we were averaging around 100 in attendance. Laterthey started a Christian school there and today, years later the churchis thriving. In fact they are now in a new, larger building because theyfar outgrew the one we built some thirty years back. Evenmore important than finding out what the people want is to discover whatGod wants taught. As we read the old testament there were times whenGod burdened His people to rebuild the wall that was broken down orrebuild the city or make the tabernacle and also the temple. In Noah’s timethe most important work for him was to construct an ark. In my own life thesedays the Lord is burdening me to disciple faithful men who will teachothers also. I often think of my mother who has gone to be with the Lordfifty years ago and yet the things she taught me & her prayers continueto influence my life for good. I can still envision her tears and hercrying out to the Lord for me. I can remember one time as a teenager whenI started out the door & mom asked me where I was going. I’m going to thepool hall and shoot some pool I told her. She asked me if I thought that was agood thing. I said mom, I don’t see anything wrong with a game of pool. Shesaid, son I don’t either, if you had a table here at home I think it wouldbe fine but some of the people who go to the pool hall might not be goodcompanions, they might do things like drinking or using bad language thatwouldn’t be a good influence on you, but use your own judgmentson. I went on and started playing pool and was miserable. I leftand never returned. She was so gentle & sweet about it and yet I’ll betshe was praying for me after I left. Dear God, please keep my son fromall wrong. Her love for us caused all seven of us kids who rebelled asteen agers to turn around as if God had placed a hook in our mouths. Whatis your passion? What is your goal in life? Where do you itch, and is itworth scratching? One man confessed on his death bed that he had neverconsidered the claim of Christ on his life. He had sat through sermons inchurch for over 30 years but he was always thinking about his business andhow to better himself and never listened to what the preacher said. Whenwe seek out where people itch we must also keep in mind what Theapostle Paul wrote Timothy in 2 Timothy 4: 2-4 about those in the churchwho will have itching ears who won’t endure sound doctrine & willturn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. Thesensation of an itching heart is quite different from that of an itching ear.Where’s the itch? I’ve rambled on some here but had fun sharing my thoughtswith you. I think the main thrust of the article is if God wants us to dosomething and if we put our hands to it the Holy Spirit will supply themeans to do it. Years ago in Centralia Wa. The Presbyterians had a badproblem because an earthquake had damaged the building and they alsofelt that they should build an annex on to the church building because theyneeded more room. The members met and had long discussions abouthow they were going to finance the project. At that time when things werea lot cheaper I seem to remember that the amount was around $500,000 whichwouldn’t touch it today. Finally one of the members spoke us and said” whyshould we go into debt, why don’t we just believe God to supply thefull amount and pay cash for it? What a bomb shell, but you know what, theyvoted on it and decided to do it. I think they put six months time for the moneyto come in so that they could begin the work. I have been a faith missionaryand seen God do miracles but when I read about it in the daily newspaper Ithought O no! those Presbyterians have gone too far now! It will really beembarrassing if the money doesn’t come in. They put the date itwas to come in on and called it “Miracle Sunday.” When Miracle Sunday camethey had all the money for the proposed project. It had come from all over.I guess you know those people’s faith was greatly strengthened. I think thatthe key is to seek the Lord first and if He gives the faith to move forward,go for it. My own personal experience is that when God sends in adown payment and you know that it’s from the Lord you can expect the rest. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He’s an awesome God. GOD’STIMING Weare told in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 that there is atime for every purpose under heaven. I would like to share a testimonyabout God’s timing that effected certain events in my wifeElaine’s and my life. Wewere accepted in 1952 to go into preparation for pioneer Missionarywork but I was drafted into the army and was sent overto Korea during the war there. Our plans were put on hold. TheMission we planned to go under was only a few years old. Theyset up what they called a “boot camp” in the Mendocino Nationalforest in California. While I was near the front lines in KoreaElaine went into the training program. The missionary candidateswho were in training( the men) were ask to help fight aforest fire and a changing wind caught them in a place where theycould not escape and 14 of them were burned up in the fire. If Ihad been there in the training it is quite possible that I would havealso perished in the fire. Outside of an incident where a bomb thatexploded threw me violently from my bed I enjoyed a safe term duringthe conflict. I could see God’s timing in the delay. Afterwe arrived as missionaries and moved among the Chimane Indianswe could readily see a huge problem in reaching the people withthe gospel. They were so scattered. They lived in small family groupsover a 200 square mile area and lived in very isolated places thatcould only be reached by boat and often on foot. The Lord gave us avision of setting up a center where we could bring in key people totrain as school teachers and church leaders. We tried to set up a whenflood season came, which happened every rainy season we would loseour house. We couldn’t build real far into the jungles because the land waslow and swampy. Finally we realized that any place along the river wouldbe in jeopardy so we decided to look for land out on the grass lands farenough from the river that we wouldn’t need to fear that the river would changecourse and sweep it away. The town of San Borja was central for theIndians and we could also buy supplies there. I went to all of the ranchers inthe area and inquired if they would sell me a piece of land toplant the center. No one wanted to sell to us. We were foreigners with adifferent religion than the official one of Bolivia and they didn’t want thescorn of the church fathers to come upon them. Someone told me thatthere was a piece of land that was open for making a claim on and itwas just three miles from town. I checked at the court house and was assuredthat it was open land. It was too good to be true. I had surveyors measureit and fenced it and built a small lean-to onto the property. A fewnights later a woman knocked on my door. I opened it and she said “Mister,get your fence and lean-to off of my property”. My mouth flew open.I said “Lady are you really the owner, I was told the land was open forclaiming.” She said, “Come to my house and I will show you my title. Iwent to her home and she showed me her title to the property and I was soembarrassed but I said, “would you sell it to me? Take into account that thiswoman was a card carrying Communist. (She later became a believer) Shesaid, “I do need money and I will sell it to you. She quoted something inpesos that would be a close equivalent to around $4,500. We had a $1,000that we had laid aside for furlough and I had an outboard motor thatI could sell for $900 but we still lacked $2,600. I told her that when wearrived in the states I could borrow the money from the bank and send her.She said no! I need the money by next Friday or there will be no deal! Itold her I would pray about it and ask God to supply the money needed. Thatafternoon while in town I wandered into the store of one of our church members.Very casually I told her about the possibility of purchasing the land. To mysurprise she ask me how much I needed to complete the purchase. I told her andthat’s when the big surprise came. She reached underthe counter and pulled out a large stack of pesos that was the exact amountthat was needed to complete the transaction. This woman had no ideaabout the situation before this moment. I asked her how much interest shewas asking. 10% was customary there at that time. She said none. I ask her whenshe needed me to have the money returned to her. She answered, “when you getit”. I paid the owner in full and had the proper title made and whenwe returned from furlough I finished paying back the store owner. Wehad 270 acres of land upon which to build our center. Icould fill a book with all the wonderful details that followed and perhaps somedayI shall. However, for now I will just say that we were given my fathersplace by my brothers and sisters when he passed away and went to bewith the Lord. We sold that place and used the money to get the center startedthat we called “Horeb” after the mountain of God where Moses saw theburning bush. Today there is a Christian radio station there, a clinicand housing for the sick and at times they host Bible classes forchurch leaders, etc. Part of the land we donated to the Indians, partof it to a man named Gilberto who has faithfully worked with usfor many years. We gave a house and land to Maria, a Bolivian missionarywho also worked with us for years and housing and land forthe radio station. Some of the land we sold. We still have land there. Whenwe went there some thirty odd years ago the town was three Milesaway. Today the property is inside the city limits. We had to sign Theland over to Gilberto, our caretaker but he is a man of integrity. Wewill receive income from the sale of the remaining land as the Lord seesthat we need it. In God’s time He reached down and touched the heartsof these Chimane people just as civilization was encroaching uponthem. They were not searching for God, but He was reaching out tothem and moved on Elaine’s and my heart’s to go and tell them about hislove. Sometimes we must wait on the Lord. Our eternal God is not alwaysin a hurry as we sometimes are. I thought of Abraham who started outwith God when he was 75 years old and Moses after he had spent years onthe back side of the desert herding sheep. Jesus was thirty years old beforeHis ministry began. In due time we shall reap, if we faint not. Neithershould we be unprepared like the foolish virgins were who missed thewedding. His still, small voice will come to guide us, saying this is the way,walk ye in it. Don’t get out of the boat to walk on water until you hear themaster say “come”. Don’t keep walking around the mountain for years becauseyou have heard His voice but are afraid to obey. He will never forsake us orfail us. There is a time for every purpose and for every work. |
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