Wounded

“In Love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve”  Brennan Manning

Somewhere along the way I came to the belief that to be a good Christian worker you need to have all the right answers.  Not only the right answers but with strong conviction and true faith to back it up.   Lately I’ve been backing away from teaching opportunities.  Mostly but I don’t have the right answers anymore.   God hasn’t changed.  But the way I thought God worked , the way I thought my faith worked…. Humanly speaking ,  it appears my right answers and strong conviction have fallen on their faces.     So obviously I have to figure it all out again… right?

 Wounded soldiers in His service:  I know I would much rather talk to someone who is struggling and doesn’t have it all together.     Do I need to have the answers?  Or is raw honestly of a life that is in pieces… is that what is used?      I know Dennis’ grandpa said he was able to speak to more people about the Lord in the dialysis waiting room than he ever had in his whole life.  An elderly man on dialysis- a wounded soldier.   

  My wounds are not healing.  I grieve, I cry , I want to be normal,  I worry that I will become normal,  I dream of something bigger than this world, and at the same time I’m afraid to dream because my last dream died a painful death. 

  But is this OK?  Can I be in this place of uncertainty and tears and no answers and afraid to dream and still be right where God wants me?    Can I accept the unknown manna , the ‘what is it?’,    and stop trying to fix it, change it,  shake my fist at it, or deny it?    

 I didn’t know God would choose to use a such a messy life.  I thought a warrior stood strong at every adversity.   Sacrificed at every turn.  Laid down my life for everyone else.  Strong. 

     

 But I’m not strong and it seems that does not disappoint God.    

We are heading back to Mexico November 1^st.   Lydia will still be at Rosedale but she will fly down to join us when her semester is over in December.    A new couple would like to move into the tribe and have our house.   (They are pictured below)  We plan to make the switch in February.  

So this will be a hard time for us to say some goodbyes to the Indians as well as pack up our house there.    Vicente and Erendira will be with us in Chiltepin and they will be moving into Reed’s house in October.   We are looking forward to working with them these next few months.    

Our goal for our time this winter include:  continued teaching on Sunday mornings, discipleship one on one with the believers,  teaching the children Bible lessons, a possible dental clinic, writing more Bible lessons for future use, and helping Erendira adjust to a new culture and language (she is a Cora Indian).  I know the girls have already volunteered to watch the little baby so Erendira can study language.      Thank you for your prayers. 

Don and Chrissy Chubbs have now joined the Guarijio team.   This means for us this will be our last year returning to the Guarijio work.    We will go around Nov 1st and stay about 3 to 4 months.  We will be saying goodbye to the Indians there and moving everything out of our house.    We are glad that Vicente and Erendira will have full time partners.  It's bittersweet and we are greiving.  But we know it's for the good as well.

Transition

What would you think if I told you my house had burned down.... and with it all my pictures and sentimental items.      What if I told you at the same time I’d lost my job and no one is hiring.   And that my closest friends had all moved away.   

It’s hard to explain what is going on in my heart during this transition time.    People see me in church chatting with others.  I look normal.  I nod and smile at the appropriate places.  I look like I’m adjusted and fit right in.    Maybe if my skin was a different color or I spoke with an accent people might wonder if I felt comfortable in this place.  But because I look like everyone else....it’s assumed that I’m fine.

16 years of my life have ended.   It feels like the memories are destroyed like pictures in a fire.    The little stool that my chubby toddlers stood on to lick the spoon is gone.....  but for some reason the memory feels dead too.    Since there is no one here who walked with me in those years in the tribe there is no one to rehash the memory with.   (And face it, one sided rehashed memories really aren’t fun for the other person.)     

My job as I knew it is over.  I’ve been fired.  And not by choice.   The skills I acquired to live and function and minister in a foreign country are not required nor desired here.   No one cares that I can make refried beans in a pressure cooker,  can calm down a scared national because their baby has epilepsy,  that I can converse in foreign languages and understand foreign culture, or that I can make our family survive on 2 gallons of water a day.  The years of learning the nuances of Guarijio culture don’t matter because I’ve not learned the intricacies of Garrett County culture in the process.  And that is what matters now.  I feel lost.  

 My missionary friends who understand me are far away.  (Although thank God for Facebook)   Even though I never felt close relationship with the Guarijio I now realize that I did feel ‘community’ with them.   Community there means depending on each other, needing each other, using each other, being in each other’s lives daily even if it’s annoying and messy.    I haven’t learned what community is here yet.... but so far what I’ve seen is independent people not really wanting to need others or use others and are very afraid of bothering others.    And I don’t know how to fit in with that.    No one is hiring.      My whole world is upside down.  I do not have it all together- I do not even have a little bit of it together.  

 I am grieving many invisible deaths. 

Maybe in 5 years I’ll fit in. 

Prayer Requests- May update

Prayer requests:      

Transition and finding our purpose here in these 8 months that we have in Maryland.  Dennis will be farming to make a living.  But we want to be willing servants to the Lord here too.

The Guarijio believers are alone without a teacher once again.

Pray for all the folks who came to the teachings and heard the truth of the book of Revelation these past 5 months.   Pray that the Holy Spirit would be reminding them that this earthly life doesn't last forever.

Please pray for Vicente and Erendira who are graduating from New Tribes Missionary training this month and hope to move into the tribe as missionaries in October.

For the two 'elderly' Guarjio who got their cataracts removed and now are no longer blind.  That their spirits would open up to the truth and no longer be spiritually blind.   It is evident this surgery really impacted their lives and they are both verbally giving glory to God for their eyesight. 

Praise for a successful Dental clinic.  

Ministry Change for the Benders …A Time of transition

                 

After 16 years with New Tribes Mission we feel God is leading us into a new chapter of our lives.  This chapter will hopefully be for the good of the Guarijio as well as to our family. 

What is happening now?  We are now going to only be in Mexico four months out of the year.    Dennis will be working on the farm from May through December.     January through April will give us 4 months to work with the Guarijio believers, encouraging them,  preparing any lessons or materials that they will need, encouraging our Guarijio partners, and filling in any gaps that are needed.     

This fulfills a dual purpose:  giving the believers a chance to stand on their own and not rely on the ‘white’ missionary and also so our teens can be in a stable place that they can interact with their own culture for part of the year.

We thank you for your many years of interest in us and the Guarijio ministry.  When we look back through the past 16 years we can see God’s hand in our lives and work.  The birth of the Guarijio church, Bible translation 75 % complete, baptized believers, the many relationships we’ve developed that can’t be measured in numbers, and the many lessons God has taught our hearts.     We are humbled by all the prayer support, emotional support, and financial support we have received from so many over the years.

Here are some of the details, as some of you have already been asking about how this transition time will work and when does all this start. 

·     * May through Dec in  the US we will be living in Maryland in the house that Dennis has built for us.   Here we are part of a good church, close to family, Dennis has a job he loves, and the girls are a part of a great youth group.  The girls are also helping with chores on the family farm. 

·      *January through April when we are in the tribe we will be living in the same house as before.   We will be interacting with the same group of people.  We are excited that Vicente and Edendira will be full time missionaries there starting in October.  (Our national partners)   It’s a lot of work for one family so hopefully we can be a help to them the 4 months we’ll be with them. 

·      *How long will we be doing this 4 month/ 8 month thing?  We don’t know!  As long as the Guarijio want us to keep coming and as long as God keeps the door open.  If Vicente and Edendira get full time partners we will back out.  Or if the Guarijio church feels like they have no more need of us we will also back out.  But for now there is need so we’ll return. 

·       *New Tribes Mission only has full time members.  So since we are going part time we have to leave the mission. The members of New Tribes have been our surrogate family and wonderful friends for years and they assure us this will not change.  

At the dental clinic in February we were able to pull or fill the teeth of 116 people in 4 days

These cute kids are part of children’s church on Sundays.   Our Maryland church made backpacks and provided school supplies to fill them. The kids were so excited. 

Thank you for your prayers and support in our lives!   We appreciate you all so much that words cannot describe.

March 2016

Most time we don't see the fruit of our work.   That may be true of all of us.  Although sometimes since we have the official label of 'missionary' we do expect something to write home about.    Sometimes I think we have the focus all wrong and it's not about what we do but more about who we are:  deeply abiding in Christ, finding our joy and hope in Him, letting Him build Christ's character in us, and letting Him overflow into other's lives.  

Recently Dennis has been teaching on Revelation.  Is may seem a strange book to teach on but the Indians love a good story.  Especially a true story.  And a story about the future.   They are following right along and seeing the truth of God's word.  They are stoic people so we don't always get to hear how God is working in their hearts.  They do not open up to us.  But we know God can and does do His work in even the most stoic.    The other day Dennis was going over some of his terminology in Guarijio with one of the believers and another man was standing by.  They were talking of the end times.  The man listening in, piped up.  "Where is that in the Bible? Is that Matthew 24?"
 Dennis was floored! To have a Guarijio listen and understand is one thing,  To know chapter and verse is quite another.  So we know some must be studying out the scriptures on their own!   

Machelle teaches the Children's church every week.  They focus a lot on Bible memory.  Recently the group of about 15 children learned Psalms 23.  Imagine our surprise when a 5 year old girl said she remembered a Christmas verse from Children's church 2 years ago and began to quote it word for word!  She had been 3 years old!  God it faithful to fill their hearts with His truth!  

Jasmin (on right) knows her verse from 2 years ago.

Thank you for your prayers.   We are without partners in the tribe and we were a little nervous how it would go as it had been a real trial in the past.   It is still hard at times.  But we have seen God showing how we are complete in Him and we are finding victory in the battle. 

We will be returning to the states by May 1st.  We are gradually transitioning out of the tribe as our Guarijio partners will begin to take over once they finish New Tribes Mission Institute.   Our hope is to still be with the Guarijio 4 month of every year.  This way we can be a help to the Guarijio but they would gradually learn to depend on us less and more on each other - the local church.  

basic health care

Imagine your little 1 1/2 year old baby was having a seizure - but you didn't know what a seizure was. 
  She is unresponsive, her eyes are rolled back in her head and her lips are blue and it been at least 5 minutes but those minutes feel like hours.  You have no idea why.  She was fine and alive and vibrant yesterday.   But now you are holding her and you just know she is on the brink of death.   

Sunday morning we got a call to come quickly and check on a little sick girl.   We entered to find the parents and grandparents all crying.  I was afraid the child was already dead - they were so sad.  When they explained the symptoms I was actually relieved.   A seizure or possible epilepsy.   To those who didn't know what was happening they were in the grip of fear. I prayed over the little girl and the family members.   I was able to photocopy some pages for them from a medical book and assure them that their little girl would be her same old self in an hour or two.   Just being there with them and knowing what was happening seemed to calm them.   I am not a nurse or a doctor.  But I can give share some basic knowledge with them.

Saturday morning we had a similar situation with a little 4 year old who cracked her head pretty hard on a door.    Her mother was sure that the bang on her head had done damage to the cleft palate surgery she had had in the past.  She wanted us to drive her a several hour drive to a small clinic with a nurse.  But after seeing the child it appeared that the mother was over worried.   So I sat with the family and shared the little info I know about basic health care like putting triple antiboitic on a wound and giving some ibuprofen for the pain and swelling and that  seemed to calm everyone.  The next day she was just fine.  

It reminds me how giving just a glass of water in the name of God can be for his service.  In this case all I gave is a bit of knowledge that is actually common knowledge in our culture - but God can use it to cast out fear in these people's hearts.  

January

Things have been going well. We've started with Sunday morning church here in Chiltepin. Dennis is teaching on Revelation. Each week we get a better attendance as people are getting back from visiting their relatives over the holidays. 

We've also decided to met with just the believers that are getting the most persecution - those that have stopped growing cash crops. We will meet with them on Thursday nights and teach through Romans. They really need encouragement and a sense of belonging as a group and that is what we hope for. 

We as a family are adjusting better than we expected. We thank you for your prayers. 

We do have water even though it's only a little. With a lot of conserving - we have enough to live here. Praise God. Thank you for remembering us in your prayers.