Travels with Dick and Brenda

Hoy es Lunes

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:34:03 -0500

“Hoy es Lunes.” Three simple words that mask an encyclopedia of adventure. “Today is Monday. Yesterday a squad of camo-clad weapon-wielding soldados invited me to descend back down the mountain and procure photos of the volunteers building the new San Pedro church “from a lower angle.” Seems they had chosen the hill above the church as the perfect bivouac this week. Protection for us. Great practice for them. “No fotos!” “OK.”

The San Pedro team was about to install windows yesterday afternoon, but chose to go up-over-around-down-around again and then more down to the open market in San Juan Chamula where they’ll have purchased embroidered tablecloths, crocheted giraffes with polka dot spots made from cotton puff-balls, wooden masks of animals God chose not to create, and vests made of very wooly sheep. Black vest if you’re common. White vest if you’re important.

The clinic team treated scores of village folks in San Pedro, including the community “Alcalde” who came in his white shirt and skirt. Too hot for the vest. The docs have a portable sonogram machine and have kept busy confirming pregnancies and showing middle-aged men how their hearts are aging faster than their desires. “If you plan to live,” I heard one doctor say, (all translated into the local Tsotxil dialect) “you’ll need to give up smoking and drinking, and start eating a healthy diet.” Wish we could leave a health educator in San Pedro!

The San Pedro church congregation exists because of Maximino El Adventista. Someone dropped a stack of Watchtower magazines in the prison where he was serving a 14-yr term. He threw his in the trash…but a couple days later sat down and began reading one that lay on the cell table. Five hours later, “I felt like God had given me a new shirt, pants, and shoes,” Max says. A cell mate, seeing Max reading spiritual stuff, offered him a Bible that someone had given him a couple years earlier. “I don’t want anything to do with it, but now that you’ve Gone Christian you’ll need one of these to figure out what you believe.”

“But I don’t know where to start,” Max said. So the unbelieving, disinterested prisoner taught Max how to read the Bible and learn more about the God he had found in the Watchtower.

Max changed so much they let him out early. He immediately went home to his wife and seven children in San Pedro, excited to tell them about God. That’s where the story gets complicated – including Alpha & Omega sermons, radio evangelists, lay evangelism, and Maranatha. Max married his wife, gave Bible Studies, to his kids and neighbors and started the church where UW20 is installing windows this morning.

The video team is trucking 5 hours North to Solo Dios. Heavy rain has washed out the bridge to the project so the UW20 team has to ford the river, climb the far bank, and carry all their gear to the building site. Someone told us they’re using camels, but we won’t believe that till we see humps.

Jetja’s church is rising. San Pedro is only a few blocks behind. Solo Dios is caught in the rain and fog. Neighbors at the Malpaso site have sued to stop the church construction, but have now fallen in love with the teens and are happily helping with VBS. In Union Progresso all is progressing along nicely. The teens are building like hungry contractors, making music like Las Trompetas de Jehova, and falling in love…sometimes with ministry. Only a few Imodium used. Other than that, please do not pray for rain.

Dick and Brenda Duerksen
Storytellers
Maranatha Volunteers International
dduerksen@maranatha.org

UW Reunion

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:56:22 -0500

Ultimate Workout held a reunion project with the Esperanza congregation in Tuxla-Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico last week. After 19 years of UWs it seemed like a good idea to get the “graduates” together and see if they could still build.

Nine alumni arrived for a project that really needed more than a score of workers. But, this is the first alumni project, so the team prayed, evaluated the challenges, and started work.

Four local Maranatha employees were there (part of the time) to help.

Four adults (Gary the slave driver, Grandpa Dave the bricklayer, Loretta the cook, and Big Dan the leader) filled out the team. Steve and Marit were preparing for the 200 teens who were coming this week for UW20, but worked on the blocks whenever they could. That left a small group with a large job.

The Maranatha guys, who had prepared the floor and steel, dove into making grout and cutting blocks to support the alums. But they quickly had to begin cutting blocks to fit around window frames - because the volunteers were going faster than possible.

After several courses of blocks had been laid the local church members (totally amazed and now eager to be involved) swelled the work force. Together the new team participated in a miracle.

By Friday afternoon the new church had been completed - floor, walls, roof, and pulpit.

The first Ultimate Workout Reunion was more than a success, it was a model of how God’s power always clears the road for Victory.

Dick and Brenda Duerksen
Storytellers
Maranatha Volunteers International
dduerksen@maranatha.org

A.D. 500 at Palenque

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:09:33 -0500

K'inich Ahkal Mo' Nahb' III ruled in the Mayan city of Palenque long before CNN conquered the world. Listen to the guides at this well-restored jungle site and they’ll tell of games “to the death” on the ball court (the winners were given to the gods), of virgin sacrifices on the temple altars, and of vast forced-labor teams dedicated to building palaces, temples, aqueducts, and tombs.

“Palenque was the capital when much of Mexico and Honduras was Mayan,” a guide might say, “but there was very bad blood between Mayan cities and kings and so there were many wars. Then one day it was over.”

But they’re not all gone. A Mayan heritage is still obvious in many of the residents of Chiapas, and when they visit Palenque it is with a sense of “going home.” Rather like Americans standing on the top of Bunker Hill or staring quietly through the trees of Cemetery Ridge. There’s not a lot of laughter here. Just quiet awe amidst the echoes of ball games and screams.

I’d like to have been here to speak out for Jesus.

How about five sermons: 1) The Creator-God who was lonely without you. 2) The Lover-God who is sad when you abandon Him. 3) The Savior-God who took your place on the altar. 4) The Power-God who infuses His kids with His righteousness. 5) The Resurrection-God who can hardly wait to get you home for dinner.

His Truth would stop the ball games, extinguish the altar fires, and bring shouts of grace-full joy.

Dick and Brenda Duerksen
Storytellers
Maranatha Volunteers International
dduerksen@maranatha.org

MADONNA AND CHILD

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:20:00 -0500

UW20 is about to begin. This is the 20th year Steve Case and Maranatha have joined prayers to carry teenagers into two weeks of life-changing adventures outside the USA. For the next 48 hours the project leaders - teens and adults with a “wee bit” of Ultimate Workout experience - are resting, planning, resting, rehearsing their “how to” lists, resting, and praying in preparation for the moment when God and Mexicana Airlines drop 200 teens into our lives.

The leaders are prepared - but not ready.

“I’m never quite ready,” one experienced leader said this evening, “till the kids arrive. Then God’s adrenaline kicks in and He keeps me about half-a-step ahead.”

Maranatha is a construction company, so the teens will actually be building 5 church buildings. Heavy cement blocks. Grout, grout, and more grout. Concrete saws spewing dust into humidity-soaked eyes. Kids needing toothbrushes and wrinkleds needing reading glasses. And did I mention grout?

Yes, we’ll build five churches. But UW20 is really about relationships, the grout of Divine Love that glues all of us closer together as family.

Down the road from a new Maranatha church site a black hole marred the lines of a purple wall. Then, for a fleeting inquisitive moment, mother and child transformed the black hole into “a window to heaven.” Her name is not Mary nor is his Jesus, but their presence opened a God-filled conversation.

Why are you here?
Are you safe to have as a friend?
How will my life be better because you came?
Will I see Jesus in you?

UW20 has begun - and Jesus is here.

Dick and Brenda Duerksen
Storytellers
Maranatha Volunteers International
dduerksen@maranatha.org

Blue Waters

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:33:34 -0500

Aguas Azul is one of earth’s nicest rivers for putting feet into. Or for baptizing, if you’d like. Usually the water can hardly find how to run through all the people - especially when the July air is hot, a bathing suit available, and spare hours can be inserted into the schedule. The Chiapanecos really know how to relax.

But today there is space enough for floating in the cool Azul and dreaming of how the Euphrates felt to Eve and her husband. Imagine the Creator sitting with them - admiring the skills of the monkeys in the trees, the bright colors of the Macaws swooping just above the spray, the cool of the water between their toes - all while reveling in flavorful bananas “picked from the Tree of Life.”

Tomorrow begins a major event in the yearly calendar of Maranatha Volunteers International. Steve Case, one of our long-time project leaders, has 200 teenagers joining him in Chiapas, Mexico - just up the road from Aguas Azul. Two hundred teenagers - and no one’s on a vacation.

The teens are building churches, holding medical clinics, and conducting VBS on five different sites in the mountains. Church members have been preparing their community friends for the experience of their lives. The adventure is ON and The Creator is there.

Subscribe to Travels with Dick and Brenda (just click on the link beside the heron) and we’ll try to bring you a daily dose of reality from Ultimate Workout #20.

Dick and Brenda Duerksen
Storytellers
Maranatha Volunteers International
rduerksen@mac.com