Dark Night in the Jungle

I’ve had a brief hiatus from this location, due to some traveling.   Anyhow, am back again for all those millions (maybe 2 or 3) waiting with brated beath (that is, bated breath) for more wisdom (or rantings and ravings) from this source.  I just hope I don’t get my tang all tungled up trying to articulate some reasonably sensible thoughts  (incidentally, the preceding sentence includes a Spoonerism–this is a name given to amusing flubs uttered by radio and TV announcers; I once had a list of them which could double me up with laughter (well, there’s no explaining some people’s weird sense of humor!)

Now, back to that dark night.   Picture standing in the back of an open truck with 15 other people, and all our luggage, stopped on a narrow dirt road in the middle of the Amazon jungle of northeast Bolivia, South America.   There is a huge tree which has been purposely cut down to block the road.  There are flashlights coming towards the truck through the darkness, from a nearby jungle village! 

Would you be just a little bit nervous?   Actually, we were.  However, this odd assortment of people aboard the truck had one thing in common.   All were believers in Jesus Christ and were trusting in God (imperfectly) for His protection.

While our Bolivian pastor friend who was with us, got off the truck to talk to the village leaders, the rest of us stayed quietly on the truck and prayed.    I, personsally, felt a sense of spiritual warfare and a darkness deeper than the mere black of night. 

Pastor Saul conferred with the villagers for about 45 minutes, but they refused to remove the bloqueo (blockade).  Then he discovered there was a small group of Christians in the village.   They attempted to influence the others to allow us to pass.  However, the villagers were determined to make some kind of statement regarding their frustrations with the government.  Blocking roads is one of the few ways they can get attention. 

Encouraged by the presence of Christians in the village, we began singing some old-favorite Christian songs, and the tension eased somewhat.   Finally, we got the okay to unload ourselves and our luggage, and walk to the other side of the village and then out to a main road (dirt, very dusty and “washboardy”).   There, miraculously,  a bus came through the night, stopped and let us all on to travel the final 74 kilometers to our destination.    The drivers we had paid and the truck we had rented had to turn around and go back where we started.

What were we doing out in the middle of the night in an open truck in the Amazon jungle?  Basically, we were taking a back road to try to avoid another bloqueo.   Obviously, it did not work, but that’s another story.

Part of the miracle is the diversity of the group of six Americans and nine Canadians enroute to help Bolivian Christians build a boat to use in ministry to remote villages along the winding rivers of the Amazon Basin.   

The Americans included a former drug addict and alcoholic who works on a dredge on the Mississippi River,  an employee of a major communications company,  a  dairyman, a bookkeeper, a missionary leader who has lived in Greenland and Mexico,  a retired editor, and a doctor of psychology.   The Canadians were an equally diverse group.  There was also a couple from Great Britain.  They own a fish and chips restaurant in a resort town near the White Cliffs of Dover.

So, you ask, what’s the point?   The point is that no humanly devised club or organization could bring such a dissimilar group together to work in harmony (and much sweat) towards one objective.   It was our mutual faith in Jesus Christ; our desire to be obedient to His command to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every person,” that brought us together to work  with (not over, but under) Bolivian believers to help achieve this  goal in their part of this troubled world. 

The uncertainty and tension we experienced made the Lord’s promise that He “would never leave us nor forsake us” a strong reality,  along with a better understanding that, according to the Apostle Paul’s words to Timothy, his young disciple,  our lives have a “purpose and grace” which were given us “in Christ Jesus before time began” (cf. 2 Timothy 1:9)

“For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations” (Psalm 100:5)

                                           –30–

Seems Self-Evident to Me

    I step out the front door early on these spring mornings and am greeted by the glorious blossoms on several rose bushes.   The oleanders along the driveway are masses of white, pink and red blossoms.   A mockingbird is perched on a power pole, greeting the new day with an incredible variety of rills and trills.  Every so often, he flies up from his perch and does a joyful little air dance, while still singing, and then flies back down.    The prickly pear in my cactus garden has some bright yellow blossoms.

My only  response to this magnificent display of God’s creative genius must be: “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).  And then there is the final verse in the Book of Psalms: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord!”  (Psalm 150:6).

It makes me wonder how someone I know, who makes it known to everyone possible that he is a “humanist cleric,” responds to such beauty.   Does he look out and say thanks to “unguided evolutionary change” (Humanist Manifesto III, paragraph 5)?   Or maybe, “thanks” to these “accidents of nature”?

Dr. Richard Dawkins, atheist scientist of Oxford University, wrote a book titled “The Blind Watchmaker” espousing the idea that evolution can take place in very small steps.  He says the human eye could have started millions of years ago   as a single light cell. 

I have an optometrist friend.  He  started studying the human eye as an unbeliever.   He was so convicted by the overwhelming evidence that it could not function unless it was fully formed, that he placed his faith and trust in Jesus Christ. He feels that Dawkins’ idea that the eye could have evolved is pure baloney.

Discussing the principle of irreducible complexity, Dr. David Foster, mathematician, scientist and engineer, says that the probability of even one molecule of hemoglobin occurring by chance is the impossible number of 10 to the minus 654th power.

Well, the Apostle Paul summed up he situation  in the first chapter of the Book to the Romans: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even by His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (1:20).  Paul also observed (2 Corinthians 4:3-4) “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, lest the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”

 I’m so glad that I can look around me and thank the Lord for all He has created.   And thank Him also, that He has provided the answer, through His Son, for all of the evil that “the god of this world” has brought into God’s creation. 

“Let everythng that has breath praise the Lord!”

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A QUICK THOUGHT ON GAMBLING–I had taken my youngest daughter to the airport (about  100 miles from here) so she could make a very special trip to see some relatives.

On the way back, I stopped at a Denny’s to get some breakfast.  After eating, I went to the rest room and was washing my hands when another man came it. 

He was cheerful and friendly, but tired.   He said he had been gambling all night in a nearby Indian casino.   “How much  did you lose?” I asked.   “Oh, I made about $200,” he replied.  “Yeah,” said I, “no one ever talks about it when they lose.”  He just laughed, and agreed with me.

It made me think of a few weeks earlier when I had been the speaker at a Friday evening service at a local church.   Afterwards, I had a conversation with an attractive young woman with a sad story.  

She told me how she and her husband had worked together as long-haul truck drivers.   Between them, they were making about $150,000 a year.    However, their trips often took them to Las Vegas.   Her husband began gambling and “got hooked.” Every time they were in Las Vegas, he would disappear into the casinos for hours at a time. 

Soon, he found himself $200,000 in debt.  Desperate, and knowing no other way out, he committed suicide.  HIs widowed wife said they had had no children. 

We have gambling casinos all over the place in this area of the world.   They are excellent at public relations, often giving to various local organizations and causes. 

But the tragedies they create are shoved under the rug, while the big winners are publicized.     I call the casinos the “Indians’ Revenge.”   If you don’t take that first drink, you won’t become an alcoholic; likewise, if you don’t start gambling, you won’t get addicted.    Besides, it is good to remember,  every dollar won, is one that someone else lost.    It seems to me to be “ill-gotten gain.”   

Well, better get off this soap box.    I won’t be back on it for a few days, but hope to have other thoughts to share soon. Thanks to those who have made kind comments regarding my “blogs.”

                                       –30–

I know an optometrist who would dismiss this fantasy as so much foolishness.   He started studying the eye as an unbeliever, but was so convicted by its marvelous complexity and the impossibility of it functioning without being complete, that he became a believer in Jesus Christ.