Imagine the anticipation of the folks on shore as the boats finally after made their way into port.   Their would be fresh flour to bake bread and other goodies.  By now the flour from last trip would be almost gone. And the little that was left, well you could sift (the ladies had been doing it for weeks) the weevils out but you could not get rid of the characteristic weevil taste in the bread.  Many would go ahead and sift the new flour to begin with because, you guessed right, it often came from the store with weevils. Folks taped cotton doused with something (dare I say formaldehyde)  inside the flour containers but even that didn’t stop the little critters.  I should add that the formaldehyde didn’t actually touch the flour.

And the mail, yes the mail!  In this day of instant communication it’s hard to imagine going for months without hearing from home.

People had been running out of literally everything that didn’t originate there in the jungle. Some foods did of course come from the jungle and all missionaries at some point did live on that food and it was good food even if there was no salt, sugar or cooking oil.  In this day and age we’re taught to cast a baleful eye at these ingredients but try and live without them for awhile.  Speaking of salt.  At times a missionary family would order a hundred pound sack of rock salt complete with seashells and other “things”.  The rock salt would be ground by a hand grinder as it was needed.  One supply trip a sack of this rock was left by mistake in an area of the boat not under a roof or canvas tarp.  On that trip it rained almost constantly. Not good for rock salt. When the sack was unloaded at the destination all that was left of the hundred pounds were the seashells.  If the chaps bailing that particular boat had tasted the bilge water it would have been very, very salty.

In those beginning days trade goods were more valuable than money to the tribal folks so the missionaries planned to always keep a supply of the most common items on hand. Fishing line, fish hooks, knives, machetes, files, cooking pots, matches, red cloth for making loincloths etc. were all greatly needed and desired.

But probably the most important items the missionaries would be running low on would be medical supplies. And hopefully on those boats pulling into port would be quantities of penicillin, eye salve for pink eye, worm treatments, antiseptics, suture material,  pain medication, alcohol, cotton and of course the list went on and on.

To put the importance of these medical supplies in perspective, think of this:  There were no doctors or clinics within hundreds of river miles.  But each of  the missionaries had at least some medical training and at times there were missionaries who were actual trained nurses working in some locations there in the villages.  Of course this fact was known far and wide. Later we actually had a dentist out there in the jungle. So the combination of loving, caring missionaries with medical training, having at last some medical supplies available, drew the jungle folks like a magnet.  Many patients went home well but there were too many we were unable to help. I think of the girl who died giving birth. Her people had left her not knowing all was not well. It would have taken days just to get to her people so we had no choice but to bury her along with her baby who died as well Another time a sick man was left by his friends who planned to come back for him when he got better.  He thought he’d been poisoned by an enemy who’d slipped something into a cup of coffee.  It was plain to us however he was in the last stages of tuberculosis. We buried him as well. We grieved when in spite of our best efforts we were not able to help some of the folks.  It was occasion for great joy when someone we’d been able to help placed their faith in the Lord Jesus.

Life however wasn’t all work and sickness and serious stuff.  At one jungle location because of  the bend in the river and if the wind was blowing just right you could hear the supply boats for an hour before they pulled into port.  So one day when all ears were straining to hear the first faint noise of the supply boat’s engines, several teenage boys (don’t ask for names) decided to trick everyone into thinking they heard the boats coming. By rigging the exhaust sound of a little outboard motor to sound like the much bigger engines, and by simulating the slow progress of the much bigger boats, these mischievous boys were responsible for making the whole village wind their way down to the port to welcome what they thought was the arrival of the supply boats. As they wound their way down the trail one might be thinking, “wow tonight I get to take a bath with real soap”, another could hardly wait to get her hands on mail from home and of course everyone was thinking of something good on that cargo.  What they saw however was those boys trying to keep their sides from splitting with laughter.  They had succeeded against all odds because everyone knows it’s not easy to trick missionaries. Fortunately however most missionaries have a, well let’s say, a decent sense of humor.  In the end everyone had a good laugh and the real boats and the real goodies soon arrived. Now you understand how totally important the “supply boats” were.

Life howev

The veteran travelers thought it pretty neat to have any kind of work space and neater yet to have anything to work with in the kitchen. First time river travelers had some adjusting and learning to do, in other words they had a lot on their plates.  On the ride out to the river port from town the ladies usually rode in the cab of the truck that was loaded with supplies of all kinds, fuel drums and the like.  However if there were several ladies the overflow from the cab went to the back of the truck where passengers were an afterthought.  There, perched on top of the boxes or fuel drums they rode with the boat crew, everyone hanging on for dear life on the 60 kilometer drive on the dirt road to the port. As the new missionaries climbed down from the truck the reality of absolutely no facilities, the roastingly hot tropical sun or drenching rain as the case might be, the zillions of biting insects, and the thought of clambering aboard the boats being filled with boxes and boxes of supplies, dozens of 55 gallon fuel drums and who knows what else was sometimes overwhelming.  But that was just the beginning!

Once the supplies and fuel drums were in place, and this took the crew hours and hours of hard and dangerous work, the boats were ready to cast off with the passengers spread out on the boxes of supplies and the fuel drums and the crew at their stations.  There was always a time of prayer, usually by the captain, for safety on the journey.  I’ll do a post on the responsibilities of the crew at a later date.  Within minutes of leaving port the fortitude of the newcomers would again be tested as the crew steered the boats through a series of very dangerous rapids, rocks and whirlpools.  To experience the waves splashing over the side could be unnerving, even for an experienced deckhand.

Soon however the ladies would begin to get the kitchen organized, cleaning it up and washing the dishes.  The running water was right over the side of the boat. An experienced lady would fill up a bigger kettle or pot, (usually a big aluminum pot with handle over the whole thing) by dipping water out of the river using a cup or small pan.  If there were no experienced ladies along, an unsuspecting cook might try to get her water by dipping the big pot over the side into the water rushing by the side of the boat.  As the pot filled with water it quickly became an anchor pulled backwards by the forward momentum of the boat.  At this point one of three things immediately happened.  A. The lady held on for dear life and was unceremoniously  yanked over the side of the boat.  B. The handle broke. or  C. She’d let go of the handle and the pot would find a final resting place on the river’s equivalent of Davy Jones’s locker.  In most cases the dear lady would choose the last option without too much thought.

The cooks would prepare rice, spaghetti or some other pasta mixed with canned sardines or canned corned beef.  Sometimes the crew would catch fish or bag a turkey.  Anything fresh was always preferred over the canned version.   And of course there was always coffee. One of our crew members would  remind us that drinking coffee was necessary “so the sardines would have something to swim around in down there”.  Yes and we had cooked oatmeal for breakfast. Once the food got cooked ( remember everything going on was happening with the always present noise and din of the engines pushing the boats) the cooks would dish up each person’s portion.  Each plate and cup of drink,  which would be coffee or sometimes kool-aid,  had to be hand carried to the passengers and crew scattered everywhere over the three or sometimes more boats. If someone wanted more food hand signals would have to do. The cooks were pretty good at figuring out what a still hungry deckhand might be trying to communicate.

This scenario played out day after weary day as the boats slowly labored up the river. Everyone could hardly wait till our destination was reached. I’ll do a post on the “supply boat’s” arrival in the future. It had an excitement and drama of it’s own!   But for now, everyone without exception was very, very thankful for the little kitchen and the cooks who labored there. It’s part of the adventure anyone who has experienced it will never forget.

There as here and then as now the excitement of Christmas was all too quickly left behind as the realities of life and ministry  with their never ending challenges, of necessity became the focus, front and center of daily life.

By the time our kids had flown away to study or minister elsewhere the school kids were coming back to our jungle school.  There was always much to do in getting everything ready to receive the students as they were flown in on our little jungle planes.

We were on call 24/7 for any and everyone out there in the jungle.  We helped our tribal neighbors with medical and dental needs and were always there to help officials who lived in the area or who happened to be visiting.  You could speak in the Sunday morning church service with tribal folks, National folks and missionaries in attendance and that afternoon be called upon to pull a badly aching tooth for a tribal brother. That same evening Diana might bake a cake for some local official.  Late that night someone might knock on your door asking you to make a medical house call because their daughter had been stung by a scorpion. That would be after you’d spent several hours visiting with folks who came by to just chat or share some need.  Come Monday morning, well then you really got busy!

In January the number of turtles laying their eggs on the sand bars reached their peak.  Jungle folks weren’t the only ones hoping to add the protein from the eggs to their diet.  Jaguars, lizards and birds all were drawn to the sandy nests  hoping to make a good meal of the eggs.

In the jungle scheme of gardening January was when many gardeners felled the big trees.  This is the last step in garden making before the entire plot is set on fire just before the rains begin.

And speaking of trees.  By now the jungle turkeys will be singing or humming at 4:00 am and will continue through midmorning and sometimes till noon.  As noted previously the skilled jungle hunter can sneak right up to the tree the turkey is roosting in.  The Jaguar and other jungle cats are known to mimic the turkey’s singing. The jungle hunter must be careful and cautious.  I personally have come across a jungle cat doing this very thing in the predawn darkness.

The jungle with it’s rivers and steams can be a very dangerous place.  We have friends who have been barbed by stingrays, others have been sliced open by wild pigs, and many who’ve been bitten by bushmaster snakes.  One of the tribal children we knew and had cared for was killed by a Jaguar.  And sadly over a period of several years three of our tribal friends, people we knew and had ministered to over the years from sharing the gospel to nursing them back to health after a serious illness, just disappeared in the jungle.  In one case some bones were found (results of a Jaguar attack) but in the other two no trace was ever found.

But we must end on this positive note.  For most jungle dwellers January is a great all around month.

All the rivers and streams are confined within their banks for good till April or May of the next year. The sand bars will be out till the same time. Now the two main species of turtles will begin laying in earnest. That is great news for the folks living along the bigger streams and rivers.  Turtle egg hunters will be out every morning, each dugout canoe load of searchers hoping their’s will be the first one to the turtles favorite laying spots.

Low water means better hunting and fishing.  Better hunting because thirst forces the animals out to the banks of the streams where  hunters are active day and night hoping to bag a tapir, a capybara, a paca or a caiman.  The several species of wild turkeys that live along the river banks will now be singing every morning leading the careful hunter right to the tree they happen to be roosting in.  And how great the fishing becomes!  The fish are now all concentrated in the rivers and lagoons instead of cruising around in the flooded rain forrest.  Fish can be caught on hook and line in the daytime and speared at night. All things being equal, night hunting is probably the preferred way to hunt for the jungle dweller.   He paddles his dugout oh so quietly along the river bank hunting dinner for his hungry family back home.  The night is full of dangers and the hunter can quickly become the hunted.  There are caimans and  anacondas about. Poisonous snakes abound. The hunters spotlight finds them hanging from the vines their eyes glistening white against the dark of the jungle.  Night wasps love to swam to the light and will nail a sleepy hunter but good.   Imagine yourself paddling ever so quietly along a jungle stream near the  river bank, your ears straining to place the direction of the tapir’s whistle you’ve just heard.  You try not to make even the slightest of sounds as you  glide toward the spot on the bank you’ve chosen to climb out and try and whistle the tapir in. And it will be just at that moment the water all around your canoe literally explodes with dozens of fish rocketing straight out of the water.  Some of these fish will clobber you before falling back into the water and always but always some will land in your canoe and turn your quite approach to the bank into the biggest commotion you’ve hard in your life. It’ll be wonpity ,clompity, flopity, bangity, wapity, and on and on.  If the tapir was far enough away he may not have heard the commotion but if he was close by  he’ll be long gone.  And another angle on the rocketing fish is that if you get smashed in the face by a two foot peacock bass you won’t forget it for a long time.  Actually hunters have gotten seriously injured by these spooked fish.

If you live far inland, away from the bigger rivers and streams and you move about by foot on the jungle trails you love December (you just know it as the real beginning of the dry season) because the walking and camping out is so much more pleasant. So many jungle fruits are coming into season and the new blossoms on many jungle trees mean the honey harvest will be good.  That dry season breeze sweeps over the jungle as well as the rivers and dries things out nicely.

There are so many facets of what December in the jungle means but I want to focus on what December in the jungle meant to our family.  It all goes back to my first post about community.  Our experience there begins back in 1949 when my parents arrived at a little riverside village on the banks of a midsize river to  begin ministry.  Eventually my Father moved his family several days travel by dugout canoe further into the rain forrest to the site which would become a Tribal center for three diverse Indigenous groups. In the course of time Diana’s family moved there for ministry as well.   Her Father Russ taught the tribal men outboard motor mechanics and was the only dentist for days and days travel in any direction.  We became good friends with our tribal neighbors.  We shared the blessings and difficulties of life together, we laughed and cried together.  My brother Joel and my father Robert died there and are buried there.

Years passed and Diana and I were married. More years passed and the time came in our lives when our there kids were grown and gone, either doing ministry themselves or preparing for ministry.  And now in December at Christmas time the kids were coming home to the jungle where we still ministered.  What an indescribably exciting and joyous time!  All the complex travel arrangements and details were behind us and now the kids were on the final leg of the journey home for Christmas in the little one engine airplane.  Note. In the beginning days there was no airplane, all travel was by boat or trail.  We would eagerly follow the one and one half hour flight as the pilot reported in every time he passed one of the familiar land marks along the way.  Finally you could hear the plane and then you could see it and then they were on the ground and then came the hugs and more hugs. As we’d walk hand in hand out to the house on the river bank we’d all be talking at once and making plans for the next few weeks we’d be at home together for Christmas. How good it was to be together for Christmas.  Some days we’d just hang out and enjoy being together. The kids got to spent time with their Tribal friends. Some afternoons we’d motor up river, jump over the side and let the current take us back home.  At night we might motor over to one of the now huge sand bars and walk marveling at God’s handiwork in the night sky.  We’d go fishing and we’d usually bag a turkey for our Christmas Day feast.  I can’t forget to mention that most of every day we spent  working together, Indians and missionaries on some project for the community.

How soon our time together would come to an end.  How fast the days passed and it would be time for the kids to leave.  But even as the kids flew away in that little airplane we were all thinking of next year’s Christmas when we’d all be together again at home for Christmas.

I can’t wait for that final home going, that for which we were created, where we’ll be forever at home, living at home in that perfect community with our Creator forever and forever!  Amen and Amen.  Rev. 22:20b “Surely I come quickly. Amen, Even so come Lord Jesus”.

Adam ,Eve and their descendants became defined by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of which they had partaken.  The fruit of that tree was DEATH.  They were forbidden access to the TREE of LIFE lest they eat of that tree and live forever in their sinful out of God state and condition.  When Christ died as our representative He took who we were in Adam to Himself there on the cross and we died with Him there and then He took us with Him to the grave.  Christ died to sin and  who we were in Adam died with Him there.  But Christ rose from that grave and we rose with Him a new creation “IN CHRIST”, alive unto God as God had designed us to be.  We are still in these bodies, still susceptible to sinning, still have the ‘old man’ with us but we are no longer defined by God as being “in Adam”.  We are “IN CHRIST” and can experience victory over sin in our lives by reckoning ourselves to be “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Romans 610b.

I hope very soon to put up a post on what the month of December meat to us out there in the jungle.

November is the last month till May or June you can count on the river being deep enough to operate the bigger river boats.  Usually by Dec. 1st the rivers are too shallow for anything but the smaller craft.  There are many dangers associated with navigating the rivers in dry season.  Someday I’d like to do a post just about those dangers and how to navigate safely throughout the maze of rocks and sandbars.

In November the brown Pajuil begins to sing in earnest. The Pajuil is a turkey like bird, whose scientific name is “Lesser Razor-Billed Curassow”,  just in case you wanted to know. It’s rhythmic singing or humming leads the stealthy and quit jungle hunter right to where the bird is roosting allowing the hunter (if he’s a good shot) to take wild turkey home to his family for dinner.

Toward the end of November is when some jungle dwellers begin to plan this dry season’s “camping out”.  You may think of jungle dwellers as being on a “perpetual camp out” but they themselves don’t view their more permanent dwellings as such.  When I reminded one Tribal friend, who had been excitedly telling me of his family’s plans  to go camping in a certain area know for it’s delicious jungle fruit,  that the fruit wouldn’t be ripe for another moon, (his way of saying a month) his reply was “but I just get so tired and bored with seeing this same old hillside day after day”.  I guess people everywhere like a change of scenery!

December is coming!  December is an important month for all  jungle dwellers. For those who haven’t been introduced to quote, civilization, unquote, December is when the rains really slack off for the remainder of the dry season. That means better hunting and fishing,  it means it’s time to begin making next year’s garden, many jungle fruits and berries come into season and lots of  jungle trees are in blossom which means more abundant honey.  For the jungle dweller living within the reach of civilization December means all the above but it includes much more which I’ll address in the December post.

The further a civilization gets from the  foundation of a worldview based on objective truth the more skewed and distorted its worldview becomes.  The more off kilter a worldview becomes the harder it is to find any evidence of objective truth therein.  Read Romans 1:18-23.  And finally, tragically, there’s only a faint vestige of reality left in myths and legends.  The only reality left is that no one knows how to get back to the truth.

Originally the Creator put everything in place for mankind to naturally live by the only right worldview man has ever known.  This worldview was based on knowing, worshipping and serving the Creator.  Everything those first created ones saw of God’s handiwork was good, everything they heard God say was truth.  They interpreted life the right way till the day the deceiver placed doubt in their minds as to the purpose and goodness of the Creator, and most of all to the truth of His words. The fruit of the choice and actions of those first created ones is the endless seeking by their descendents for that which cannot be found save in the Creator.

The Creator God has made His “original” available to mankind through His beloved Son.  His revelation has make what mankind is really looking for, that is eternal life, which is God’s life ,available in the Person of the Son of His love.

October’s afternoon’s bring violent thunder and lightening storms usually blowing from the East, which happened to be a straight shot down the river. If you timed it just right you could step outside your house and stand letting the wind blow the blood sucking insects away while you revel in the breeze.  This is literally one of the very few occasions you can be outside without being attacked by these clouds of hungry  insects.  Of course you have to ready to duck back inside before sheets of rain catch you and you get fried by lightening.  On a more serious note a number of Tribal folks are struck by lightening each year though in a context other than enjoying the breeze.  As to the insects, although they are always a real nuisance  one does get used to them, sort of!

Even though the real dry season is still a couple of months away it isn’t too early for the jungle dwellers to begin working on the garden site they will plant at the beginning of the next wet season. For better or for worse slash and burn is the only method for gardening employed by the tribal folks.  At the front end of the work the underbrush is cut down, then the big trees are felled followed by a period of weeks or months during which everything dries out so it can be burned.  Then close to the start of the next rainy season the crops are planted between the stumps and logs which were too massive to burn completely.  October is too early to fell the big trees but the underbrush machete work can get started.  Though slash and burn may not be the best way to preserve the jungle eco system, along the big rivers I’ve not observed the jungles catch fire from the burning garden plots. And in the end the jungle takes over again.  What isn’t helpful is when the same areas are used over and over again for garden plots without waiting for the jungle to fully recover.

I was o.k. with the do’s of discipleship but now know there was a vey important ingredient missing in what I had learned years ago.  The book I was reading a few days ago basically was saying the same thing I had learned years ago. The author correctly assumed that anyone who has become a child of God by faith in the Lord Jesus should obey Him no matter what the cost.  What however was missing was any emphasis on the child of God being “In Christ”.  An understanding of what it means to be “In Christ” is foundational to the “doing” part of a disciple.  The “BEING” comes before the “DOING”.

Jesus said: “If any man come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”  This command of Jesus was to be lived out on the foundation of His soon coming death on the cross where He would die, not only in His follower’s place as but also as His follower’s representative.  In Christ not only would the follower die to the power of sin, but he would rise with Christ to being alive with God’s life, a new creation in Christ, with Christ living His life, doing His work, by the Spirit through His follower.  So many of us have tried to “reform” ourselves with God’s help, into His disciples.  The truth is God isn’t in the business of reforming who we were before we were in Christ.  Yes, each of us must by faith’s deliberate identification reckon ourselves alive unto God and move forward by His power to becoming more like Christ as we live here on earth, but we must do so on the foundation of who we were in Adam having died to sin there with Christ on the cross and now being alive to God  with God’s life, a new creation, IN CHRIST”.

The Father related to Jesus as “MY BELOVED SON” in whom I delight”.  And because we are “IN HIM” (remember we died with Him and rose with Him a new creation “IN HIM”) the Father relates to us in the same manner He does to Christ.  So sure, being a disciple of Christ means denying self and forsaking all to follow Him.  To do so however is no stern, austere discipline of trying to do something impossible. It means joyfully giving Him our all because yes, He demands our all, but He does so on the foundation of being in Christ, loved by the Father and the Son and empowered by the Spirit.  We must DO THE DOING, but we do so because of whom we have BECOME, “IN Christ”.

Three things here to clarify the above.  1. I do not believe the old nature is eradicated.  2. We haven’t become and it isn’t God’s purpose that we become divine.   3.  We become “In Christ” when we believe He died for us in our place, in other words, when we were “saved”.

Here’s how a supply run would play out.  The missionaries would have gotten a detailed food and whatever else they might need from town for the next several months, list, out to the mission buyer in town.  The buyer would then spend  the next several weeks purchasing, packing and marking each missionary’s order.  The challenges of the buyer and what he had or didn’t have to work with is a subject for a whole post in itself.  When the orders were were all ready, meaning dozens if not hundreds of boxes stacked high in the buyers home, the supply launch would be brought down the river to the port closest to town.  A series of nasty rapids made navigation right up to town impossible.   So a local truck owner, driver would shuttle the supplies and people the 60 kilometers from town to the port.  He was very fussy  about whom or what he would brake for.  A cow yes but anything else, maybe yes and maybe no.  Loading the boats (usually three plank boats or huge dugout canoes lashed together with long poles) was an art in itself.  My Father from whom several of us learned the tricks of the trade would have every box and every barrel of fuel loaded where they would fit best in the boats, on paper, before it ever got out to the port.  That helped greatly  with the actual loading.  The work was beastly!  It seemed the truck loads would always arrive at the port around noon when the sun was the very hottest.  Fifty five gallon drums, full of fuel, had to be stacked three high.  Each one was wrestled into place by brute strength.  On one occasion my father was working a full drum  weighing  200 kilos if full of gasoline, a lot more it it’s full of diesel fuel,  down a steep slope,  lost his footing and the drum rolled right over him.  He was o.k but thinking of that incident reminded me of the time he had spent the night sleeping on board the launch in his hammock.  He couldn’t  figure out what was so slippery under foot when he got up the next morning.  It turned out the vampires had been feasting on him the night before and had forgotten to turn the spigot off when they had finished.  He was slipping and sliding around in his own blood.

Once the boats were all loaded they would be held in position by long straight poles lashed into place by hundreds of feet of ropes and chains.  It was of utmost importance each boat hold it’s own position as the rig made it’s way up the river.  Navigating through the ‘rapids of death,’or the ‘devil’s passage’, (just two of the many very dangerous stretches of river along the way) required that the boats maintain the proper distance from the others or disaster would follow.  The port of departure itself was located on the very tranquil banks of a smaller river but within a couple of hundred yards the boats would move out into the waters of the big river.  At that point the big river is very swift and full of rapids and rocks.  More than one rig has sunk right there because the river pilot didn’t approach the swift current at the right angle or  any number of other things could have gone wrong. Everyone on board and especially the crew responsible for “getting everything right” heaves a sigh of relief when that first stretch of bad water has been successfully navigated.

But we must back up and speak of the most precious of all the cargo.  That would be the women and children.  Before we had air service the only way for anyone to go and come there in the jungle was by river boat. As the boats were being loaded at the port, there was always a small area that would be used as a kitchen left open on the biggest boat.   If possible there would be a palm roof over this area.  The women on boat would do the cooking, usually over a coleman camp stove.  I need to do an entire post on the kitchen and cooking on these trips.  There were no chairs for passengers or crew on these voyages.  People sat on the sides of the boats or on the cargo, sometimes on fuel drums.  At night folks hung hammocks over the cargo, this when there was a roof with a strong enough frame to hang the hammocks from.   The bilge area was a good place over which to hang your hammock but you’d be awakened several times at night when the designated bailer bailed the boat.  I see I’ll have to continue this another time.