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On December 16, 2001 I received a most wonderful gift…  He was sparkling clean…  SMOOTH… and just so beautiful that it seemed hard to believe that it was true.   No, it wasn’t my knight in shining armor coming to sweep me off my feet…  It was a new vehicle…

My Uncle Norman got married that year and for his and Nancy’s wedding gift, all of their friends got together to give ME something… (so even if I never get married, I can’t really complain too much… I already got a wedding gift!!!)  Well…  the gift was a 7 passenger Suzuki Grand Vitara…  Comparing him to poor Fred, he was like a limo beside an old ox cart…

All the kids know that I name my cars so they all gave me suggestions of what to name him…  I remember one – Jordy…  but he just wasn’t a Jordy…  In the end I just did the dictator thing, and named him what I wanted…  I named him Royce…  That seemed to have more class than Jordy.

I worried a bit about what people might think… like why should someone working with street kids have such a nice vehicle???  Aren’t missionaries supposed to drive rough, old beaters???  Wouldn’t it separate me from the same people that I was trying to reach???  Couldn’t that money be used in a “better” way???

In the end I treated him the same way as I treated Fred…  He was God’s… God just chose to lend him to me for a while to help me in my work…  Therefore, if I had to haul a bunch of little kids with sticky fingers that would leave their marks on the windows, seats and floor… it was okay…  that is what he was for…  If I had to haul firewood or something that horrors!!!  might leave a scratch on the interior… it was okay…  that is what he was for…  I think Royce was the only Grand Vitara that was used for so many different things… and has gone through so many experiences…

…when he was only 8 days old I used him to pick up 30 cow stomachs, 30 cow hearts and 30 cow livers that were donated for our Christmas on the Streets…  It was a hot day… we didn’t have space in any fridge or freezer so I left Royce running with the air conditioning to be our “fridge” while we cleaned the stomachs and prepared them for the ladies in my church who had promised to prepare them for us…

…those same days, I traveled out of the city to pick up a butchered cow and pig that had been donated for Christmas…

…that same Christmas, I went to pick up the stomach, liver and hearts from the church (on the other side of the city)…  The ladies were supposed to fry them up… but instead made a type of a soupy stew out of it all..  Well… I had action packers filled with the food… I tried to drive as smoothly and slowly so it wouldn’t spill... but as I slowly came to a stop at the first corner I could hear the liquid slosh in slow motion before it made a wave that landed ALL over the back of Royce…  By the time I got back to El Jordán I had stomach smelling slop all the way to the front seats…  (I think I am safe to say that I KNOW that Royce is the only Grand Vitara used in the way I used him!!!)

…later that day, still smelling like stomach, we went to deliver “Christmas on the Streets”…  One of the kids got mad that day because we wouldn’t give him extra food and gifts for his kids that weren’t even there…  Our rule is that we only serve the people who are present…  Well… he grabbed bricks, and smashed Fred’s windshield.  He tried to break Royce’s windshield but the brick just bounced off and left a scratch…  …so he grabbed the brick and left some dents in my hood…

…on December 27th I was held up at gun point by car thieves right outside my gate when I got home at night…  That’s a whole other amazing story of God’s grace and protection…  The thieves obviously already had me staked out… even though Royce was only 11 days old!!!  I kind of had to laugh when I imagined the car thieves… if they had actually been able to steal Royce…  they could have painted him and disguised him in other ways… but boy, I would have been able to identify him… because he still smelled like cow stomach!!!!

…I thought surely the “breaking in” Royce into the working life must surely be over… when a couple days later I came out of my friends’ house after being there for just half an hour to find poor Royce propped up on bricks…  They had stolen his front rims and tires…  He had an alarm… but the thieves were smarter than the alarm because it didn’t go off…  Poor Royce… 

…after that, we kind of settled into a “regular” schedule…  Royce helped in so many different ways… Royce has been used to haul firewood many times… sometimes completely filled… from roof to floor… side to side… making the most of the space so that different kids would have their firewood to cook… or to start a little business of making and selling pastries…  The kids would have to cut and collect the firewood… and Royce and I would go to haul it home…

…Royce hauled so many people…  Yes, he was a seven passenger vehicle… but that doesn’t mean much down here… we had up to 20 in Royce..  Sometimes we would take people home after an activity at El Jordán when it was too late for them to get a bus home… or sometimes after church, all the “El Jordán” people would pile in and we’d all go out for lunch… 

…inside Royce there have been echoes of laughter… as a bunch of El Jordán volunteers squished in on our way to a picnic… or maybe just a bunch of kids piled in to thoroughly enjoy a ride around the block in a truck…

…Royce saw his share of tears as well…  He was used as a hearse countless times…  I long ago lost count of how many times Royce had to pick up people from the morgue or take them to the cemetery… mostly young people and children… …their lives snatched away… mostly the sad consequences of  life on the streets… evidence of the “thief’ that comes to steal, destroy and kill…

…sometimes Royce would be the only one to see my tears… in those times when sadness just seemed to well up in me, I would get into Royce… take a drive and let my tears and frustrations out until I could my perspective right… and I could once again smile and keep going…

…he carried Uncle Norman and Nancy… and mountains of delicious food for the different homes and centers…

…he was used to pick up donations for El Jordán… whether cows (two times), pigs (several times), chickens… or cardboard, newspapers and plastic bottles… …or beds and tables (Liliana was just given a table and bed the other day!!!)…

…for different projects Royce carted construction materials… this and that… and everything…

…there were different kids who would pretend that Royce was theirs… and they would say, “How is my truck?  Are you looking after him well?” or “I’ll keep lending him to you… just look after him well…”  or… “My truck is a bit dirty…” …so I’d tell them they should wash “their” truck! 

I always said about both Fred and Royce… they were like a mobile office…  People would climb into the seat beside me and feel free to talk about what was going on in their hearts and lives…  It was as if in the privacy of vehicle with no one else around to listen and look at them, they were free to be “free”…

…Over a year ago a friend of mine phoned me up to say that he had been listening to the radio…  They were advertising a new car alarm to guard against car thieves…  They were offering it for $100 off…  So… I got it put in…  It was a bit of a pain… but a couple months later I was very happy for it when again I was held up at gun point…  we just got out of Royce and let the thieves go… knowing that the whole electrical system would block within 45 seconds…

…For a third time Royce was almost stolen…  I was apparently being followed and watched…  so I actually parked him for several months until the danger passed a bit… but I’ve always tried to be more aware of people around and behind me after my scares…

The other night I had a scare of a different kind when I ran into the horse and cart… I thank God that no one was hurt… and it served as a reminder that when I drive… I need to concentrate on driving rather than thinking about so many other things…  

The following day, Sunday, I drove down to Camiri with Uncle Norman, Nancy, Paul (the architect) and Heidi…  We went to a Guarani community where Mike and Carolyn work… Uncle Norman and bunch cooked for the whole community… It was a great day…

On Monday we were on our way back to the city… we were on the look out for cows because they are known to be on the road… so I wasn’t going my usual speed (although I wasn’t going slow)…  It was kind of at dusk… and all of a sudden a cow appeared right in front of us… He was standing smack in the middle of my lane (crosswise… but with his big head turned and staring at us…)… There wasn’t enough space to brake and stop…

I braked and swerved… and still hit him on the drivers side… and ended up losing control of Royce… we hit the curb on the other side of the road… and starting rolling…

Everything all happened so fast… none of us screamed… we were all very quiet… I was just praying, asking God to please help no one to die…  When we came to a stop (a fence stopped us from rolling further) we were our roof… there was silence for a couple seconds before we all started taking inventory… we were all fine…  I was hanging upside down… I was the only one wearing a seatbelt (its law here for the driver to wear a seatbelt)… and it took a bit to figure out what was up and what was down… but we were all out of the truck in probably less than a minute, out of one of the passenger windows…

I felt absolutely terrible… and as if it was all my fault… although everyone in the car says there is nothing that I could have done… I am just so, so thankful for God’s mercy and grace…  He protected us…  everyone who saw Royce afterwards was surprised that we all got out fine… with really NO injuries at all… I have a little seat belt burn on my neck and a couple little scratches from the broken glass that are about ½ a centimeter long… (and most of those I got when I climbed back in to look for my cell phone, glasses and coins…etc)…  The others have little scratches too…  Nancy sprained the end of one of her fingers… Heidi scratched her ear… and Uncle Norman got some bruises… and Paul had some scratches too… but really nothing more…  I do much more damage when I’m cooking!!!

Someone stopped to help us just a couple minutes later…  Uncle Norman and Heidi stayed with Royce… and Nancy, Paul and I went back to Camiri… to get flashlights… help… and figure out what to do next… It was really amazing to see how many people came together to help us out… Camiri is too small to have a tow-truck so another missionary came out with his truck and winch… to help turn Royce over… and haul him back…  Poor Royce…  When we were hauling Royce back in, I was in him to help steer and brake… I had to have my head out the window because the roof and windshield were basically down to the steering wheel…  We had just gone around a big curve… and the steering wheel locked…  The truck that was pulling me kept going straight, the rope broke and Royce and I curved off the road and went through a drainage canal and up the mountain…  I thought for sure this time I was going to crack my head open…  I thought I was going to roll again… but thank God it stopped…  I bumped my head… but not enough to even leave a goose egg…

Now we were half way home but we had already wrecked one tire in the first accident… and two more in this one…  The missionary called a friend in Camiri who has a Suzuki… and he just “happened” to have TWO spares that he brought out to us… so we could get into Camiri…  So many things happened that showed again and again God’s love and protection…

There is a song… I have no idea who sings it… but there is a phrase that kept going through my head all that night… when I went to bed that night and when I got up the next morning…  It says, “All I can do is fall down on my knees and say thank you.”…  I’m not even sure if those are all the right words but that is what repeated in my head over and over again.

Poor Royce definitely took the worst of it…  Unfortunately, here in Bolivia they don’t “total” vehicles quite so easily…  They think they can fix him… although I would prefer that he be “put to rest” (after a short but full life)…  We’ll see… the insurance is supposed to call me tomorrow with the verdict…

Anyhow… THANK YOU… once again… for your prayers…  Where would I be without people’s prayers?  I don’t know…  Thank you…

Why does all this happen?  I don’t have the answers… a bunch of ideas but I don’t know…  One thing I’ve been stressing at El Jordán is the value of soul… That the most important thing at El Jordán (and life in general) is our relationship with God…  Things and tasks stay behind… its people that we can share the gospel with to give them an eternal hope…  At El Jordán I want our volunteers to realize that papers, dirty windows, games or whatever stay behind…  and that sometimes we can miss opportunities so easily by being caught up in something that really isn’t important.  Anyhow…  This was the theme of many talks at El Jordán over the last two weeks… and all this what happened is a reminder of the same…  How are we using our time and our lives?  Tomorrow isn’t ours… we need to live today with meaning… and that meaning can only come through Christ…

A couple hours after the accident Paul asked me, “What does it mean to be born again?”  Maybe this all happened to bring Paul to the point of asking that question and having the opportunity of hearing the answer…

The topic of the ladies’ Bible Study in Camiri on the Wednesday after the accident was on the prayers of a mother for her children and their protection…  We (and my mom) were used as a living example of this…  Maybe the Christian ladies in Camiri will be more dedicated to prayer than before… having seen how God’s hand so obviously protected each one of us…

Sometimes I wonder if it is Satan trying to discourage and destroy…  At El Jordán we are working more with the boys now… we are concentrating on the spiritual needs of our kids… and we have plans and desires to expand…  Paul came to help us with plans for “the place next door” (Jericho)… and I know that must anger our enemy…

Today I was walking along the road, waiting for a taxi to go by (the buses are on strike)… when a little lady came up to me and gave me a huge bear hug.  I recognized her…  She and her husband live in a little shack and live by collecting plastic and cardboard to earn some money to survive.  I only met her once.  We had some food left over from Christmas on the Streets so we heated it up and went out to find people that might need it…  We couldn’t find the people we were originally looking for… but we came across this little shack…  Well… today I ran into the same little lady… (maybe that isn’t a good choice of words… to “run into”!!!)  We talked for a little while… and she asked me where my nice truck was…  …I told her what had happened… she asked whose truck it was…

I pointed to the sky… “It was God’s… He just lent it to me for a while…”

"Oh..."  She looked up at the sky... thought a little bit... (she is a bit simple minded) and then asked... "Are they going to fix it?"  I shrugged my shoulders and pointed to the sky...  Again she looked at the sky… and patted my shoulder and said... “He can heal him… yes… He is going to heal him…”

I told her that something good had come out of  the accident…  The little lady (Carola is her name) has to move this next week… the owner of the little shack is evicting them… If I hadn’t been in the accident, I’d be driving the truck… and I wouldn’t have been walking along the road… and I never would’ve met up with her…  She would’ve moved and I might have never seen her again…  She gave me another huge hug… and told me how much she cared about me…

So… whenever anything happens we must remember to say thanks to God… because there is always a purpose in it… Maybe it is Carola?  Was it a coincidence that I met up with her…?  I don’t think so…

God has His purpose… maybe we can’t see the whole picture… but its neat when you can see little pieces of the puzzle fitting together…

…so once again…  Thanks to God for life… for His protection… for His mercy on my life…  Like my mom says…  I guess I’m not done my work yet!  …so I’ll just keep on doing what God has called me to do!

…and thank you for your prayers…

lots of love,

Corina

(and sorry I got a bit long winded again… Its been a while since I’ve just sat down to write…)