Rolling out the red carpet

I had a learning point at the beginning of my trip to the islands. When we arrived to the island we landed on one side and had to walk on a dirt road to the other side. About halfway through the trip there was a stretch of the road that was covered in this stale, stinky, green stuff that smelled like death. I thought to myself, "Maybe they put this hear to keep dust from flying up? Maybe they put it here to scare away these dreadful horse flies?" I'm still recuperating from a bite from one of those horse flies, by the way.

A few minutes later I was conversing with one of the leaders on the trip when a painful rebuke was brought to my attention. They said, "Did you see that green stuff back there on the road? Do you know what it was?" I replied, "I think it was seaweed, it smelled unbearable." That person then explained to me that the island basically had two items that the people could live off of and trade: fish and seaweed. They said that the seaweed was sold for making cosmetic type products and then when the fishing season was bad it was even used for sustenance. He then proceeded to tell me, "The people of the island laid out the seaweed on the road as a sign of welcome to us."

It made me think of our English phrase, "roll out the red carpet". These folks had rolled out the red carpet for us; they had given us the royal treatment! I felt terrible for what I had thought and was so thankful that I didn't commit the grave error of saying something offensive in front of one of the islanders. Let this be a lesson not to despise things that you don't perceive as important and to vigilantly expect unfamiliar forms of hospitality. For example, if you are invited to somebody's home and they offer you mate, as an American you may think that if you aren't thirsty you can simply say, "No thanks". However, it is very offensive to turn it down. It is an extension of their friendship and hospitality and turning it down is like rejecting them. I am constantly watching for moments of growth and this was definitely an opportunity.

Isaiah 42:4 "...the isles shall wait for his law."

The trip to the islands was amazing! I want to take some time to talk about how the trip was.

On Sunday afternoon we got in to Puerto Montt and were welcomed by our friends, and Micah’s adopted grandparents Louis and Kathy Long. That evening I preached in the church they started and we sang a couple of songs too. It was special to meet the folks in the church because this is the church where our beloved Eduardo comes from. Annie and Micah stayed with our friends all week.

Early Monday morning I met up with a group of about 50 folks who were going to be going on this medical mission. The group was composed of the following: 7 Drs (two dentists, an optometrist, an ER Dr, and 3 Physicians), a Physician’s Assistant, 17 nurses, 10 translators, 10 Chileans for evangelism, and more. The team was extremely qualified and organized. I was very impressed. One of the highlights of the trip was getting to spend a lot of time with one of my best friends, Dustin Reinhardt.

  

Our group drove down to the dock to get onto a Chilean naval vessel. I was impressed with how professional the sailors were. Many of them knew English, and the captain was very hospitable. I expressed to him my gratitude for his service to our country (yes, that possessive pronoun was applied to Chile). The trip to the island was about 4 hours. The ship couldn’t get too close to the island so we boarded a small zodiac to get to the island (I’m such a nerd, I felt like a navy seal…I just needed a little camouflage on my face 2 Timothy 2:3). Once landing on one side of the island we had to walk to the other side. The folks on the island eat a lot of seafood, as can be imagined. Check out my next post about seaweed if you would like to read a good learning point for a missionary.

The island we landed on, that would end up being our home base for the trip, was called Isla Butachauques. We woke up early the next morning on Tuesday to organize, set up, and execute their mobile medical clinic. It was impressive to see the thousands of pills, hundreds of eye glasses, dental equipment, etc. That day we saw over 100 people from that island. Before we started seeing patients they had a meeting with the translators and said, “Is anybody squeamish?” The folks who were we assigned to places where they wouldn’t see anything difficult for a light stomach to handle. Then they said, “The Dentists are generally the ones who see the most blood, are there any translators who would like to volunteer to work with them?” I raised my hand along with another guy about my age. They weren’t joking when they said that we would see a lot of blood!

We closed up our clinic and completely packed for day two. We had to pack because early in the morning we would be loading up to take a speed boat to Isla Tac for our second clinic. On Wednesday we saw about 100 more patients on that island. One of the strangest things that happened was there was a large group of Chilean boy scouts from Santiago who had gone to the island for camp. We ended up seeing about a dozen of them in the dental room and they all had beautiful teeth and had obvious signs of expensive dental work. Some people think of Chile as a third world country, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Much of Chile has top of the line medical care, capable universities, they own laptops, tablets, touch screens, and iphones. There was a point where under communism Chile almost became a third world country, but in the last few decades the country has flourished under a free market. Last week I heard from a missionary who has been in Chile for about 30 years that, “Chile is one of the most expensive places to live in the world.”

 

It was Thursday when we did our third clinic on Isla Mechuque. This island was special for me because I had the opportunity to lead two people to Christ. One man was named Lorenzo Chacón. Lorenzo was probably about 60 years old and he told me had never left that island before.

Just imagine the multitude of circumstances surrounding that man’s conversion. It took a punk kid in southern California getting saved by God’s glorious grace and then being sent and supported by the Lord’s churches to the mission field. Countless brushstrokes of God’s sovereignty worked together to paint a beautiful picture involving that surrendered vessel arriving to an island of the uttermost just so that someone God loves could hear of Christ’s work of redemption. Writing about it brings tears to my eyes. This is what life is about. Praying, giving, and going to the uttermost in order to obey God and see people saved. That is why I pray for missionaries and give so that others can go to other places in the world; I get to have a part in people being saved on other continents apart from South America all the while being faithful to do the great commission here. God’s plan for world evangelism works. My greatest desire in the world is to see Chileans saved, discipled, and both reaching folks here in this region and being sent to the regions beyond us.

Our final morning to wake on Butachaques was Friday morning. Once again we boarded the zodiacs to board another Navy ship. This one was considerably larger and so the trip back to Puerto Montt was more like 6 hours. On the trip back folks began saying their goodbyes to me as they knew that I wouldn’t be joining them back to the United States. It’s incredible how your heart can connect with people that you only spend 5 days with! It was a great group of believers. I remember on our way home Pastor Dave Reinhardt, veteran missionary in Chile, rubbed my shoulder and said, “I want you to know, I am very proud of you.” That was a special moment for me because I truly admire that man. Something else noteworthy that happened on the boat ride home was that the wife of one of the dentists got to lead one of the translators to Christ! I couldn’t believe it, but I was so happy to hear! He was the brother to one of the gals from Santiago who came on the trip. He was invited, not because he was a member of the church in Santiago, but because he was an English teacher and would definitely be a good translator. Who would have thought that a man who came on a medical mission to translate would be translated himself?! (Colossians 1:13)

On the trip we saw about 330 patients and 97 people made professions of faith in Jesus Christ. The trip was a wonderful opportunity, and it was a great introduction to the islands of this region.

38?!

Yesterday was my birthday. My wife had baked some very delicious cookies so she wanted to drop off a few to a gal named Vanessa who she has been trying to reach for the Lord Jesus Christ. It totally made Vanessa's day and she was so happy to see us. Annie told her that it was my birthday and so asked me how old I was turning. I made her guess and to my shock she said 38! She laughed so hard and said that she felt funny that she's been calling me "don" which translates as like "sir". It's a good thing I'm not 38 yet, I'm not ready for my mid-life crisis!

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

This afternoon I took a break from doorknocking to get a drink and a completo (I'd skipped lunch). A completo is a hot dog, in more of a roll than a bun, and it generally has tomatoes, avocado, and mayonaise. To my surprise the couple sitting next to me were speaking German. So I asked them in Spanish where they were from. They told me Germany, and once they found out I was from the U.S. they switched to English because they are more familiar with it. We had a nice conversation and I was able to go out of my way to help them on their journey. They are on a one year vacation in South America, and they are about 9 months through it. Crazy! They have been all over Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. The man's name was Stephen. When I mentioned to him that he was named after the first Christian martyr in the Bible he said that he'd never heard of him and that he'd never read the Bible.

When I was in Los Angeles, a region with well over 100 spoken languages, I kept over 100 different languages of gospel tracts in my car at all times. I gave out tracts in some of the weirdest languages! Chinese, Farsi, Urdu, Kannada, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Indonesian, Telugu, Italian, French, Thai, Malayalam, Burmese, Sinhalese, Amharic, Romanian, Khmer, Greek, Ilokano, Tagalog, Cebuano, Hmong, and, well, others that don't come to mind. Praise the Lord for Chick Publications (http://www.chick.com/catalog/TractLookUp.asp) who made most of those languages available to me, and a shout out for Lifegate's God's Simple Plan tract that was always my backup (http://www.godssimpleplan.org/info/languages.html).

When I was coming to Chile I brought a lot of languages that I knew were spoken in Chile, among those were Chinese, French, Portuguese, English, and German! I was so blessed to walk out to my car and find a pack of Chick tracts in German. I gave two to the couple and they were also pleasantly surprised! I hope God will use those tracts greatly.

A citrus twist on Mate

Today we were at the house of a man I am discipling named Luis. He is a great guy who has a lot of zeal for the Lord. One thing about him that encourages me to be a better Christian is his desire to see the fruit of the Holy Spirit produced in his life: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

After we had lunch they offered us mate. To my surprise they served it inside of a grapefruit. Yes, I just said grapefruit. They carved out a little bit in the core to make like a cup, put in the yerba (herbs), poured the water, and served us mate! It was very delicious.

I like this picture, but I must confess that I stole it from some random website on the internet.

21 de mayo

This is one of the streets that we drive on here in Coyhaique. I have often said that one great way to learn Chilean history is to just study the names of their main streets. This morning I did a little research about some of the streets that I've personally seen in Chile: Arturo Prat, 21 de Mayo, and the Guerra del Pacífico.

21 de mayo/May 21st, was the day that the Navy Officer Arturo Prat died. His death took place during the battle of Iquique. He died courageously by jumping from his sinking naval ship, the Esmeralda, onto the Peruvian ship which had collided with it. This battle occurred during the War of the Pacific which was a war with Chile against Bolivia and Peru. Arturo Prat is a celebrated war hero in Chile and he is commemorated by streets, town squares, schools, and navy vessels being named after him. You also find his face on the $10,000 peso bill.