Roadblocks and Toothy Cows

The nice dry weather the Lord provided for the Awa conference lasted a few more days and then the rains came in earnest! In April it rained just under 18 inches, with most of that falling in the last two weeks.  This deluge, of course, has taken its toll on the road in landslides and mud. Yesterday I helped our neighbor take some of his fruit a couple of kilometers to a big landslide blocking our road. He needed to cross over two landslides to a truck waiting on the other side. We are confident that the town tractor will be up before too long to clear them out, but it does make our travel plans a bit unpredictable these days, and is definitely another area to trust in our Sovereign Lord!

Ximena helping Kathy clean up after a Sunday in Palmira

Sometimes the Lord allows things to happen in the ministry, too, that we might consider ‘roadblocks’. Just this week Paulino came down and canceled our trip to Palmira to teach. He mentioned various reasons, but perhaps the biggest was an issue with the building where we’ve been meeting. Originally the community’s ‘common’ building, it has slowly been taken over as classrooms for the school. The head school teacher has been complaining about the problems of having other meetings held in the building, and the dirty mess they leave behind.  Paulino’s wife Manuela recently attended a parent-teacher meeting where the teacher again complained about this problem, which made her feel uncomfortable about continuing to use the building for our church gatherings. While most folks certainly do leave the meeting room a mess, we are always careful to leave it cleaner than when we arrived.

We tend to see this situation through our ‘individualistic’ cultural glasses, and consequently think, ‘We are not the problem, so what is the big deal – we’ll be an exception. We just need to talk to the director and then be able to keep meeting there.’ Recently Kathy was reading in the book When Helping Hurts by Corbett & Fikkert, and was reminded of the need to see the situation through the Awa ‘collectivist’ cultural glasses. Here is a quote from the book on the contrast of the two viewpoints: “…Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, minimize individual identity and focus on the well-being of the group. Loyalty to and self-sacrifice for the sake of the other group members are seen as virtuous. People in collectivist cultures have extremely deep bonds with the various groups of which they are a part…” (pg 164) We realize that it is supremely important to Paulino and Manuela to be a blessing to their community, and not to cause problems with the school teachers.

How is the Lord going to use this situation? How are we going to move ahead with the outreach to that community? What will bring the Lord the most glory in this situation? These are just some of the questions we are wrestling with in partnership with our Awa brothers and sisters. Actually, Kathy and I are a bit excited as we face this dilemma, as Paulino and several other believers have been mentioning for some time that we ought to have our own church building. Maybe this current problem will be the impetus needed to move from this being just an idea to a reality. Please pray for these ‘roadblocks’ and ‘landslides’ in the path of the ministry here.  We are confident that together as His local body we will be able to soon ‘clear out’ a way, but it does make our plans a bit unpredictable at times, and is just another area to trust in our Sovereign Lord!

On the adventure side of news here at the Outpost, Kathy and I had a scary experience on a dark and foggy night… (drum roll, please…) …the attack of the toothy cow!* Two weeks ago, on a dark and rainy night, Kathy went out to empty some garbage onto our compost pile in the garden. It is only about 10 or 12 steps off our porch to the garden gate, and Kathy only made it half-way when, something big came charging out of the fog, hit her and sent her flying, and then ran off. Startled (to say the least), she screamed and hollered (quite loudly, actually!), so I came dashing out to find her lying in the mud puzzling over what had just happened. After helping her up and making sure she was alright, I went back for a flashlight to go find out what it was. I had just begun to search for tracks to see if it was a cow or a horse or what, when Kimberly yelled out, ‘There it is!’ As I looked up, a big cow (bull?) came crashing through a blue hydrangea bush just a few feet away straight towards me!

Showing off the aftermath of the toothy cow attack

The unfriendly animal, obviously holding some large grudge against humans, shoved me into the side of the house, where I slipped and fell. I scrambled to roll under the low edge of the house to avoid being trampled (evidently I was mostly successful---only one big bruise in the shape of a hoof-mark appeared the next day!) All the while Kathy was screaming (again)...in the dark she was quite sure it was killing me. :-) It finally ran out behind our garden where I was able to scare it away with a blast from a shotgun.  Although we’ve all been a bit skittish about going to the outhouse at night, we are thankful that we suffered no more than a few bruises and sore muscles, and that the ‘toothy cow’ didn’t have horns! The story made for a lot of laughs among the Awa, and we could even laugh about it after it happened, so we thought you would enjoy the re-telling. :-)

In HIS grip,
Kevin & Kathy

*Illustration & name from one of our favorite children’s books by Andrew Peterson: wingfeathersaga.com

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