05/31/2020
Please read the Seng’s prayer letter below. Please be in prayer for Wes and Trudy’s safety and health. The Coronavirus has hit hard in Brazil and has spread to Brazil’s rainforest areas, infecting Amazonian native communities. They minister to many of these communities. Thank you.
Seng’s prayer letter:
Hello from Covid 19 lockdown in Iranduba:
It is a daunting task to produce an interesting prayer letter when you are cut off from everyone. It might go like this: “We are doing okay. Haven’t seen anybody for ages, but hear they are all doing okay. Hope you are also doing okay. Wes coughed yesterday, but he is fine today. I hope he doesn’t cough tomorrow. Our neighbors are coughing … but we think they are okay.” You get the picture. Not very stimulating. Yet so many people are genuinely sick or hurting in ways we cannot see. How do we balance this in our minds? So hopefully this is a “therapeutic” letter hoping to cheer us and know that God isn’t in quarantine. He gives a song in the night!
Wes has an ancient over fifty-year old bike that is indestructible but dog-ugly. Modern sophisticates want nothing to do with such a specimen. But Wes especially loves it because there’s no danger of it being “lifted” as my Grandma would say. Someone who observed his coming and going on this bike warned him he was going to come down with tetanus! Still, when he bikes down to the port to go out to Semiraita, he chains it to a post ... causing someone to wryly observe, “That’s not to keep it from being stolen … it’s to prevent it from being hauled away by the garbage truck!”
Anyway, he was riding up the hill from class on this trusty bike when someone hollered out to him to stop. Distracted, he lost his balance and fell into the world’s greatest living amoeba museum – a sloppy, slimy ditch. Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt because squishy mud wounds only pride but not the body. Any true missionary stops for a call like that, hoping the person has a question like, “Will you please tell me more about Jesus?” So when he crawled out of the ditch covered in mud, he asked, “How can I help you?” The man, totally oblivious to Wes’ appalling condition and acting like this was what happens to all normal people, asked, “Are you Korean?” After a grim silence, Wes answered “Uhm … NO.” End of dialogue and drama. Except that he had to ride several blocks back to our neighborhood looking like Shreck at his awful best. And I hope he doesn’t add amoebic dysentery to his health chart!
In early March, before the lockdown orders, we asked our director Alceris if it would be possible to teach our classes in our home. During the rainy season, I risk sliding down the slippery hill on my rump to the water, and that puts a damper on teaching with dignity. Alceris kindly agreed and both of us taught our classes in the morning on our porch. Unbeknownst to us, our neighbor’s nineteen year old grandson lay in a hammock on his porch and got in on the classes! On the last Saturday, he came over shyly and asked the question missionaries love to hear: “Will you please teach me the Bible? I have listened and realize I am far from the Lord. I wonder if you can give me some Bible classes!” YEAH!! When the bridge to Manaus closed down, we had a captive audience! Gustavo has been an avid student, full of keen questions and observations. We have carefully practiced social distancing, etc. and at the moment he is okay. And we are okay. And his grandparents are okay as well.
This daily emersion in the Bible with Gustavo has been a joy and helped considerably to branch out and avoid the corona virus ad nauseum conversation topic. Gustavo’s life questions are challenging, keeping us away from clichés and helping us focus on current Bible application.
This week a more sobering thing happened. We are still okay. We received a call from our daughter in Bolivia that set our hearts racing. She was seeing patients in an isolated Mennonite colony, and Placido was doing medical work in another area. After finishing up a surgery, he left for San Jose, promising to call her at nine that night. But no call came, and repeated calls to his phone went unanswered. Because of the horrible ordeal with prison and police in the past, Toni waited for a call all night in a panic, thinking he must surely have been picked up and taken to Palmasola Prison. When there was still no word the next day, José began calling police and authorities. We prayed and cried and prayed some more all of us thinking we were not strong enough to endure another emotional storm. When the Mennonite community learned of his disappearance, they came rapidly together with tractors and buggies, and before noon had found Placido, stuck in the mud out in a deserted area from which there was no signal to be able to call his wife. Tears of relief and gratitude to God gushed out. Obviously we must all be suffering from PTSD!
I was still a raw emotionally the next day when Wes came in the room looking very serious. My heart raced. More bad news? I was working myself up to scream when he said, “Wait, Honey! This is GOOD! You won’t believe it but someone has sent us a gift!” Normally two old seventy four year olds might expect a gift like new reading glasses, or comfy rabbit slippers and flannel pajamas. But this was not in that category. The brother of a very dear Brazilian friend had sent the money for a BRAND NEW, AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION SILVER RENAULT WITH GREAT CLEARANCE FOR BAD ROADS! The scream still came – but along with a dance of joy as the tears poured out like ocean waves … in disbelief, in humble gratitude and even a little guilt.
Because looking back, we had paced the floor more like a Nebuchadnezzar than a Daniel through Toni’s ordeal. We had not sung hymns like the apostles in jail. Yet God had been busy looking at our rather dire and embarrassing vehicle situation and sent us a brand new car from someone we didn’t even know. (Perhaps it’s good he didn’t know us!)
Here I need to back up and clarify a few things. Our twenty year old car was serving well. But several months ago, when Wes was in Manaus on business, a turkey (Christianese for less gentle expressions that come to mind) suddenly flipped an illegal u turn in busy traffic. Wes slammed on the brakes, barely avoiding crashing into him. The lady in the car behind, and the driver behind her also slammed on their brakes but ended up smashing into Wes. Miraculously, the police were quickly on the scene. The u turn had been a dangerous success for the turkey. But three cars were damaged. The police declared the lady in the car behind at fault for following too closely, so she was held responsible for paying for the damage to our car. In dismay, she reluctantly gave Wes her phone number. He prayed with her then limped home in a damaged car. But she changed her number and we never heard from her again. Several people encouraged Wes to go to the police. However, the reality was that she had also been a victim of the illegal maneuver, and as Christians we did not feel we should pursue the issue. The pandemic arrived before we could get the car repaired.
I missed my car. I teach utterly broken women in my Bible studies. They need special attention and encouragement in a personal way. A favorite lady is a rough old ex-prostitute who walks with a limp because her partner broke her leg. She is intelligent and has asked keen questions. Nothing can top the thrill of seeing her blossom and thrive in her new life with God. There are many like her. One single mom said, “I lived like I did because I just did not know what God said!”
Even before the accident, Wes was very concerned about my driving the car. It is very low, so the horrendous ruts and terrible holes in our city streets made it a challenge to drive. Shifting gears constantly for this old lady with imperfect eye sight made passengers like Wes somewhat nervous. But I managed, crawling down the street like the governor’s wife in a parade. Due to a change in the county’s administration the ruts and holes are much worse rather than better. I think God did this for “my” ladies who so much need a touch of kindness and assurance of God’s love.
This is a huge burden lifted off of Wes. His lungs and heart have truly placed him in the “at risk” group, humanly speaking. But God has blessed the garlic and lemon and bicarbonate treatments, and we seem to have developed the immune system of a donkey. So Wes continues to doggedly work on a Bible curriculum for use in indigenous communities. He is passionate about bridging the disconnect between Bible knowledge and applied Christianity. With a new vehicle in the car port, he can relax and concentrate on this task without worrying about his mechanically challenged wife caught in some vulnerable place.
So hey. There is more to talk about in our house than the pandemic! Semiraita students are isolated but safe under the care of a very capable couple who had moved out to the school just before the crisis. They have been kept busy in informal Bible studies and work on the property.
Here is where a little bit of guilt sneaks in again. Where do we get off getting a new car when so many people are facing tough financial troubles? We can only give it back to Him and ask that it will be used for His glory. We are deeply grateful to God and to the one who gave us this incredible gift. We are also grateful to all of you who have supported these missionary turkeys with so much love and prayer. Thank you. We are all longing for life to return to “normal”, but we are also longing for the day when Jesus will burst through the clouds and we will leave both the old bike and the new car for whoever is left. God bless you.
Because of Him, Trudy for both of us
