Our time here with the pastors and families in this state came to an official close yesterday. The closing ceremony came at 12:15, after which they all had lunch before heading for home. They had Sunday ministries for which to prepare.
We’ve often wondered what it was like “out in the weeds,” so to speak. We have always seen our brothers and sisters and their offspring in a rather artificial environment in their Sunday-go-to-meeting attire. Oh, we’re in their country, and in a city in their state; but we’ve never seen what it’s like where they actually live and work.
Today we were able to observe a few of them in their own environs, and believe me that what we saw was a far cry from “the good life” most of us enjoy back in the States.
We had to make the airport by 3:30 pm, and the first stop in our provincial tour was 90K away – about 56 miles. Doesn’t seem like a lot, does it? But it took 2 hours. Our vehicle was comfortable enough – for maybe 6 people. But we had 8 jammed in there. Fortunately enough we had AC, or it would have been very nasty for all concerned.
Why should I complain about the ride? The pastors we visited possessed, at best, a small motorcycle on which to balance four or five family members. At worst, they had only a bicycle, or “Shank’s mare” – a reference to one’s legs and feet, for your information.
The four-lane highway yielded to a wide paved road that became narrower and bumpier as we proceeded. This ultimately degenerated into a single width, pothole-filled, muddy lane. We didn’t go far enough to experience the inevitable footpath, but we did disembark from our taxi to walk through a portion of a village to see a church building under construction.
Wide-eyed and mischievous kids watched us from a distance. A woman flogged her wet clothing on a large rock. Houses (we might call them huts) with coconut leaf thatched roofs crowded close to each other on either side of our primitive, muddy sidewalk. And, leading us along, was Pastor A…..m. He has planted three churches and leads several life groups.
The new church building is totally unlike any similar structure under construction in our country. In my first pastorate, a church-planting operation, we laid a basement foundation for an edifice 24 feet by 48 feet. The one I saw here had no basement – only 5” by 5” steel reinforced posts on each corner and in the middle of each wall as well as in the center of the room.
That’s actually what this was going to be, a room with a roof, and not a very big room at that. I’d guess it to be about 12, maybe 14, feet by perhaps 20 feet. Smaller, I am sure, than the wood shop I plan to build on my own property back home. The property itself could only have consisted of maybe 6 to 700 square feet.
They are building this structure as the money comes in, and total cost for land and building will amount to approximately $5,000. That’s not much, you might say. Truly it isn’t – not for those of us that live in a country where building projects run into the hundreds of thousands, even millions. Much, however, when one considers that these pastors are living on $250 or less each month, and that many of their people are existing at a level below even that. But again, not much to a God whose resources are limitless, as is the case with our Heavenly Daddy.
And, this is where some, maybe many of you come into the picture. Needs like the one this pastor faces can be multiplied many times over in Global South. They include health issues and health care, transportation, education for their families, and ministry equipment and expenses. In some cases, to earn extra income, wives are considering taking up sewing, if, that is, a machine can be purchased.
Why don’t you take some time to pray right now about how you might be involved in the lives of these folks. I will share more later, perhaps in person, about how this can become a reality as the Berean Fellowships in this land become more and more independent.
But, back to our excursion into the country. 
As we pried ourselves out of the vehicle at our second stop, we heard a Christian call to prayer over a loudspeaker. At least, the voice of a young boy singing might be construed that way. Children in the village were being notified that Sunday school was about to begin. His daddy, Pastor V, was preaching at another location (he has planted 3 churches also, along with 5 cell groups), but rode up on his motorcycle in a few minutes. We examined the church building and the two room family residence with outdoor toilet, after which a man who is an elder in the church cut the top off of green coconuts to give us all a refreshing drink.
After prayer with the family we crammed ourselves back into the vehicle, reversing our direction to the next stop where Pastor A…..m again awaited us. It was one of his other congregations that met here in a rented house, and a little more than 2 dozen folks greeted us. We ducked under a rustic awning to a sort of covered plaza (use this term loosely). I appreciated our diminutive guide’s protective hand as I narrowly missed a protruding piece of pipe with my hairless dome. (All I need is another blow to the head, another cut, another scab. But God is good.) Several folks were brought forward for prayer concerning physical needs: a thyroid problem or two (this ailment seems to be common in Global South, along with “sugar disease,” or diabetes) and severe headaches, possibly related to a tumor.
For some reason, the prayers of a righteous and pale man from America seem to avail more than those of the average run of the mill indigenous pastor over here. At least it seems that way. But I know differently.
After leaving these needy folks behind, we traversed an even muddier lane to another village and the site of the church building in which meets the church family led by Pastor A…s. Worship was in progress, and that progress was blaring through the village from a large outdoor speaker on a pole. (Even though the church buildings are almost what we might term miniscule, a sound system seems to be a necessity, if nothing else to let the community hear the Gospel. If the village won’t come to them, then they will go to the village.)
At this stop Tom was asked to dedicate a baby boy, which he did; but we had to leave before offering any prayers for suffering souls because our time was rapidly slipping away. In fact, we had to call and cancel our last stop in order to make our flight south.
I’ve thought a lot about what we saw. No large and luxurious kitchens here. No granite countertops in a land that exports huge amounts of that commodity to our country. No flush toilets. No living rooms that don’t double as bedrooms. Certainly no family rooms. And, where we talk of an abode of 1,000 square feet as being small, theirs can’t exceed 400. At least the ones we saw. In addition, in most cases only a bicycle for transportation.
That’s what it’s like “out in the weeds,” where the rubber of commitment meets the road of reality in Global South.
