Last week I took our IBEM (Bible Institute of Missionary Training) students on their first river trip. Several of the students were quite nervous as to what might be in store for them but in the end everyone survived :) After a five hour journey down the Huallaga river we arrived at our first village where we were greeted with much excitement and a fine meal of armadillo soup. From there we went on to have a great children's meeting with lots of singing, coloring, a message and bible-verse memorization. While the students worked with the kids, brother Whily Cacho and I had a tremendous time going from hut to hut doing personal evangelism and inviting the people to the evening meeting. Alligator meat was on the menu for dinner and it was actually quite tasty..... Or maybe we were just really hungry :) At any rate, it was a good learning experience for the students. That night the evangelistic service went really well as nearly the whole village came out to hear the greatest story in the universe. After the meeting was over it was awesome to speak personally with many interested souls late into the night.
We visited 5 villages in 7 days and each day our schedule roughly went like this:
5 a.m (Bible-reading and prayer)
7-8 a.m (Breakfast)
8-12 (I taught Bibliology/Theology proper)
12-1 p.m (Lunch)
1-2 p.m (Packed up and said goodbyes to the brethren)
2-4 p.m (Boat-ride to the next village)
4-6 p.m (Children's meeting)
6-7 p.m (Dinner)
7-9 p.m (Evangelistic meeting for the whole village)
9-10 p.m (Jump in the river and get cleaned up)
10-11 (Bible reading and prayer)
11 p.m (Sleep)
Our class time each day was great! Of course we did not have even close to ideal studying conditions as there was no electricity, no internet, no air-conditioning, no nice bathrooms and no running water. We battled mosquitos, gnats, smoke, intense heat, sweat and rain..... this is jungle-missions! We want our students to learn all they can but we want them to do it in the hands-on context of ministry. Experience is a great maestro! Everyone was attentive and very interactive during our 4 hour class each day. They had team projects and tests and work-book material and research to focus on, so there wasn't a spare moment to lose. We dealt with a lot of huge doctrines like the inspiration and inerrancy of the scriptures, the preservation and interpretation of the Bible, the attributes and names of God, the Trinity and the cognosibility of God. These are the greatest subjects that man can study and we tried to take full advantage of our time! In every village some of the believers sat in on the classes which piqued the interest of many to enroll in IBEM Selva next year (or some time in the future). Please pray that God would continue to grow and prosper this work!
There is not enough time to tell about all the exciting details but if I were to give a quick run-down of the highlights of the week it would include a boat-motor breakdown, a muddy hike (at night) through the jungle forest, a double murder in one of the villages, hundreds of kids participating in the children events, hundreds of adults hearing the gospel preached, helping to work through church problems, showering in a thermal hot-spring, a pink river-dolphin sighting, and surviving a torrential rain/thunder storm while traveling in the boat. We were blessed the entire week with a scrumptious menu of yuca spit juice, chicha, wild boar meat, smoked jungle rat and turtle..... did I mention alligator and armadillo? It was an awesome time with the IBEM students along the river trying to make Christ's name great in this part of the world.
Quote of the day by C.H Spurgeon about John Bunyan: "If you cut him he'd bleed scripture"
Micah for the Tuttle's
