Missionary Gas

I don’t know if it was heresy, I don’t think so, but Olwen and I acted as God parents on Sunday morning. It was for Luisa, a teenage girl who lives in the alleyway next to the Seminary and who publicly made her confession of faith in Christ when being confirmed into the Lutheran Church. The significant thing is that she has become a luterana and is no longer a catolica. In the Spanish language luterano has a nasty sound to it, equivalent to being called a Papist in English. It indicates a minority, extremist and persecuted faith. It will single her out in school as one who has rejected the country’s traditional religion and espoused the protestant heresy. She is the daughter of one of the ladies who comes to the Sewing Room and is the first member of her extended family to make her Christian commitment known. It’s really what we are all about here: the Christ of the Bible graciously entering lives. We leave Colombia next Wednesday. It’s been farewell meals, sales

On Thursday I almost fainted and on Saturday I fainted while attempting to eat a boiled egg. It turned out I had Dengue Fever. Olwen was relieved at the diagnosis: nothing sinister and thousands have had it in Colombia. I suspected there would be a catch somewhere. On Monday it turned out my blood clotting platelets were falling, I was hospitalised and fainted again. There is no cure for Dengue – that’s the catch. Being hospitalised means two of you in hospital: the patient and the assistant (Olwen). You have your own room which includes a sofa bed for the assistant. She does all the simple nursing stuff day and night. As Dengue is a mosquito transmitted disease I was isolated under a white mosquito net. The paid nurses came and gave me drips every few hours, the doctor cheered me up and thankfully some of you prayed. My platelets continued to fall for two days, but just when things became dangerously low, levels started to rise. At the end of the week we were sent home looking like Ox

It was Sunday morning and the sun was shining. Olwen assiduously read her SU Bible Notes and I was sprawled out on the bed. Then we heard the shouting - angry, discordant and male. There had been loud music all night and now something had turned nasty. And then there was gunfire. I guessed the all-night music-maker was protecting himself from an angry mob. Thankfully the rest of the day was quiet. It was Dia de la Biblia (Bible Sunday) and our church gave New Testaments to passers-by. However in the evening as we played Scrabble, the peace was broken by 3 shots. This time I guessed that judgment had come on the troubled music-maker. There’s been no music since. I find the sound of gunfire chilling. It signifies death, as well as tears and pain. It takes away the Christian along with the wicked. We hear it frequently for Colombia’s 50,000 disarmed guerrillas have rearmed in urban gangs. But it’s not for this reason we’re leaving the countr