C-mail: Everything New
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posted by Kelvin @ 2/16/2012 08:59:00 AM
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Notes from the Overground
Notes, thoughts, and C-mails from life in Caracas
2/16/2012
9/19/2011
C-mail: Germination
Howdy All!
Well, I know I'm late with the update, but I've got a good excuse: I'm getting married! Which brings me to my first point....
1. I'm getting married!! You might have noticed the status change on Facebook, but just to confirm, yes I am getting married to a wonderful young woman named Zulay (pronounced sue-lie). Zulay is originally from Colombia and has lived in Venezuela for the past six years. We first met when . . . actually, it's better if you read our stories on our wedding site. You can read about how we met, find details about the wedding, see a few photos and learn how you can bless us if you feel so led. The wedding will be held here in Venezuela on December 10th. Lord willing we can procure a visa for Zulay to visit the states for late 2012 so you can have a chance to meet her.
2. A quick update on the hillside. Reconstruction has thankfully been going well. Our main road has been rebuilt and is holding up like a charm. Retention walls are being constructed and life in general is back to normal. There has not been any more settling of the hillside even with recent heavy rains. Thank God for his protection! Some of the families around the country that lost their homes have now received new apartments or houses. However many families continue waiting. Please pray for a quick and efficient end to the massive construction of new residences destined for occupation by those still holed up in refugee shelters.
3. This June we hosted the first ever, Spanish speaking InnerCHANGE apprenticeship orientation. That's a mouthful and what it means is a big step for InnerCHANGE as we begin to see more Latins and international ministers join our ranks. We officially inducted our three team members, Arturo, Lay Yen, and Noretys as part of InnerCHANGE. Also present were two guests from Guatemala City who serve as principle leaders in a wonderful ministry in the barrio of La Limonada. A beautiful recent documentary called Reparando (Repairing) showcases their ministry as well as the difficulties facing the people of Guatemala. Overall, the event was a blessing to all participants and hosts. Our team was glad to be able to pioneer the first among many hoped for orientations for future Latin InnerCHANGE missionaries.
4. At the end of August we hosted a Vacation Bible School focused on the theme of the parable of the sower. At the beginning of the week 47 kids showed up and by the end of the week we had to close door after 85 had entered since we weren't sure if the house would structurally support any more weight. We were seriously blessed by wonderful volunteers from the community and two local churches. We have since continued to meet with the children weekly where we're doing interactive drama based bible studies.
5. This June I returned to the states for a month to spend some time with my parents and attend a conference. CRM sponsored a workshop led by David Watson on Church Planting Movements. I explain a bit about what Church Planting Movements are below. Our team has just started seriously working towards one of these movements and suffice it to say I'm excited and encouraged by what we have seen so far. None the less, the needs are great and the workers are few. Jesus instructed His disciples to pray for more workers. If you would like to be a regular intercessor for Caracas and Venezuela, please email me and I'll put you on a regular prayer update.
That's going to be it for this time. I miss you all and I would love to hear from you. If you would like to financially support InnerCHANGE's ministry in Caracas, you can do so here. If you'd like to pray, write me back and I'll get you praying! If you'd like a hug, ask a nearby friend or family member. Thank you for your prayers and gifts even amidst difficult times. May God abundantly supply all of your needs. Until next time, stay strong, seek the Lord and
Press on for Joy!
Cameron
It was a miracle he was alive. The only direct evidence of the trauma was a silver dollar sized bald spot in the middle of the back of his head where the bullet had entered. The indirect evidence was the wheelchair, a left arm that could feel but not move, and a similar prognosis of the left foot. Three of us were visiting him today: Carlos, Zulema and myself.
Carlos and Zulema are a middle aged couple from the community of San Pablito. Our team met them last March when we did a Bible study in their home. They invited us back and we've been studying the Bible with them for the past six months.
However, today we're in the house of Señor Martin. In early July he was doing some work on top of his house when a stray bullet nailed him square in the back of the head. His brother-in-law was close by and was able to get him into a car to take him to the closest hospital. The closest hospital didn't want to attend to him since all the doctors were on strike. Thankfully, the next closest hospital did attend to him where they managed to save his life. Even so, the doctors were sure he would never walk again. Now six weeks later, he's back home recuperating. We're able to read the story of Jesus healing the paralytic brought to Him by his friends. He likes the story and Carlos points out the miracle sitting right in front of us, and encourages Martin to starting reading the Bible. Martin seems open and receives a prayer for continued healing and restoration of his arm and leg. The next week when we return he tells us that he has started walking a little in therapy and has had some movement in his left arm.
This June, I had the blessing of being able to attend a workshop run by David Watson explaining the basics of CPM's: Church Planting Movements. I guess the best way to explain the methodology is by telling a bit about how David started a movement.
David was the star church planter for the IMB (International Mission Board) of the Southern Baptists. He planted churches in the states and all over Asia until one day the board sent him to plant churches among the bhojpuri people of India. The bhojpuri had been very resistant to the gospel and that region in India had earned the nickname of "the graveyard of missionaries." He began discipling six men in church planting and at the end of 18 months the six had been martyred. David was destroyed and due to various factors had to leave India. He wanted to give up missions, however God kept calling him back. Like a good Baptist, David told God that he would only go back if God showed him the how of planting churches directly from the Bible. Like the good God that He is, He was faithful to do so. After intensive study and preparation based on Matthew 28 and Luke 10, David soon returned to India and began to work anew among the bhojpuri people.
The vision was simple: reach all the bhojpuri with the gospel. Anything less wouldn't be acceptable. After two years of work, there were eight churches. The year after there were 48. The year after 148, then 327, then 526, then 1026, and so on. Now, more than fifteen years later, there are approximately 4 million bhojpuri baptisted believers meeting in well over 40,000 churches and the growth doesn't seem to be slowing.
What exactly is a CPM? A Church Planting Movement according to one author is "a rapid and exponential increase of indigenous churches planting churches within a given people group or population segment." The central idea is that of indigenous churches planting churches. That means that the missionary isn't planting churches, but rather groups of baptized believers creating more groups of baptized believers. The growth is exponential because every group is multiplying itself among those that are open to the message.
There are a number of key elements necessary in order to see movements like this take off, and I want to highlight just a few of them:
Person of Peace: When Jesus sent out his disciples ahead of Him during His ministry He gave them very clear instructions. Two of these are rather odd. The first is that they were not to greet anyone along the road. The second was that they were to find a person of peace (son of peace or a worthy person depending on your translation) and they were to stay with that person and not move around from house to house. It seems like Jesus had the idea that the message was not meant to be shared with just anyone, nor were the disciples to participate in public evangelism except as an act of protest. Rather, they were to focus on the person in the town that God had already prepared ahead of time. This person of peace is the person that opens their house to the disciples in order for them to receive the good news of the Kingdom.
In practice today, this implies that before anything else, the first step is to pray and look for a person of peace. After finding them, it means focusing on them and their household. They are the key to starting the process and once the process has begun, it means a commitment to that person and their household.
Jeff is a person of peace. I had met him a few times, and I got the feeling that he might be open to starting a bible study. I saw him one day in Zulay's church and we got to talking. He had just recently truly converted and was very open to the prospect of studying the Bible. I met with him on a Thursday one-on-one. The next time we met, he brought four friends. That following Sunday he brought two different friends to his church. He's started reaching out in his network of friends (his household) which has opened up many more people to God than I could ever hope to reach individually.
Obedience: As Jesus left this world, he gave a few final instructions to His disciples. One of those was to go making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that He had commanded them, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For most of my life, I figured what Jesus meant here was to go and teach; that's all I had ever seen modeled in my Christian walk. However, that is not what He said. He told is disciples to go making disciples, teaching them to observe all of His commandments. Teaching is simply information transfer. Teaching to obey is something radically different.
When I started discipling Jeff, we started with Genesis 1. After understanding what it said, we asked ourselves the question, "What can we do to live in accordance with this passage?" Jeff, after some very general statements, suggested that we not throw trash on the street, in fact we should pick it up off the ground if we see it. Sounds like a plan. Right then and there we started walking around and picking up bits of trash as we went. The next time we met up, Jeff, without any coaxing on my part, went around picking up bags and other bits of rubbish as we walked. His friends noticed and started doing the same.
Chains of Discipleship: During the conference David made a repeated point: A disciple makes more disciples, otherwise, they aren't a disciple. According to that definition, I have spent very little of my Christian life being a disciple. None the less, the point is valid. The chain starts with the Father. Jesus obeyed the Father, and He commanded His disciples to obey Him (Jesus). Paul lived a life imitating Jesus, and asked the Corinthian church to imitate him. During the Bible studies we ask the question: "Who needs to hear this story?" This has led us to three previously non-visited, yet open households in the community of San Pablito.
Discovery Process: The Bible studies in these movements are simple and easily reproducible. The person of peace or the leader in a household is asked to start leading the Bible study after two or three weeks. You might wonder how do you avoid heresy or takeover from someone that's a bit off theologically. One of the fundamental elements of the study is the importance of group discovery. As the group learns, they tend to self correct and see the passage for what it really says. Additionally, one simple question asked at the right time keeps everything on track. While reading Genesis 1 with Jeff, when we got to the part where God gave plants and trees to humans, he protested. "This is what all my rastafari friends use to justify smoking weed. They say that God gave them all the herbs for them to use." I asked him if that was what the passage actually said. He returned to the passage and found that God gave all the seed bearing plants and fruit producing trees for use as food. That's an important part of the story and Jeff was the one to discover it. He won't soon forget it because he himself found it in the passage.
The neat thing about a group discovery process is that the group can learn elements within the story that a single person would otherwise miss. One great example is from our friend Carlos. While studying the story of Abram, he asked a very simple question. "So why did Abram take his nephew with him when God told him to leave his family and his father's house behind?" Excellent question Carlos. It would seem that most of Abram's problems came as a result of bringing Lot with him. I, a college educated professional missionary, had never seen that before, but Carlos, an uneducated country boy that moved to the big city at nine years old who has a hard time reading, caught it.
While these are just a few of the key elements necessary to see churches take off and multiply, there is sadly one element which greatly impedes, if not kills the process: the established church. I've heard this from missionaries all over the globe and here I'm just now beginning to see why as well.
In Venezuela, there is the typical religious guilt that applies to all things related to God. Aka, to be good with God means going to something on Sunday morning. That applies even more so among those that have rotated through the evangelical world. Yet even beyond that, in this culture, there is a felt need for a priest. In the Catholic end of things, it takes the form of the father. In the Pentecostal, it takes the form of the pastor. In the animistic, it takes the form of the witch or witch doctor. In Santeria, it takes the form of the babalawo. In all these cases, there is the one person with spiritual and organizational authority running the show. By being in good with this person, you can be sure they will put a good word in for you with God. Of course I generalize, but the mentality is subtly present. Thus the organic nature of these church planting movements doesn't really provide the formal nature of a catholic or even pentecostal type of structure.
Thus it seems like these types of movements take off like wild fire in unreached people groups that have a marginal or nonexistent Christian presence, but not so much in people groups that already have some sort of cultural Christianity. The outcome in Caracas is yet to be determined. Are these groups that we're starting only going to become a reinforcement for the existing church, or will it develop to occupy a different space in the culture? My guess is that we will begin to see both develop as things progress. In the case of Jeff, his friends are starting to attend to Zulay's youth group. In the case of Carlos, he gets drug along to church with his wife, but he prefers meeting in his or a nearby house.
One interesting constituent which might become the deciding factor are the "apartados" or the separated ones. Evangelicals use this word for those that at one point were part of a church but later drifted away. I believe that these "lost ones" represent a significant chunk of the population. Many people in Caracas that have stopped attending church; not because they're through with God, but rather because they've been burned by the church. A leader that fell into sin, continued insistence on giving to an already rich pastor, internal fighting, incessant gossip, spiritual abuse, and hypocrisy mixed with legalism are elements that drive people away from established congregations. When talking to "apartados" I get the feeling that they still want to be with God, but due to serious wounding, they simply can't or won't bring themselves to return to the church.
One example is Jenifer. She lives just behind and above the house of Carlos and Zulema. Jenifer has been involved in just about every group you can imagine. She first dabbled with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Then she was a long skirt wearing, head covering, make-up shunning pentecostal. Then she got involved with the G12 (think Shepherding Movement mixed with multilevel marketing Latin style) and even lead two groups of 12. She's also left all of these groups. So when one day she came into Carlos and Zulema's house while we were there, she decided to join in on the study. She seemed to like it even though she was a bit perplexed as to why we weren't preaching, but instead simply reading the passage and trying to understand it. A couple weeks later she invited us all to her house and we got to meet her husband. Zulema led the study and Jenifer's husband, who isn't Christian, seemed to be impacted by it, but hasn't come to any more. Soon after that, he was tragically involved in a major traffic accident and has just returned home after spending a couple of months in the hospital. He received a major hit to the head, not to mention two broken legs, and it's unclear as to what point he will recover. Jenifer has completely isolated herself in the tragedy, yet we are praying for them both.
More than anything, the idea is simply to bring people into contact with the word such that they might hear from The Word and fall in love with Him as He reaches out to them. In the beginning studies with Carlos and Zulema, while we were part way through the story of Noah, Carlos blurted in: "Noah got drunk, didn't he." I smiled and told him "Yes he did, and you've been reading ahead!" He confirmed that he had. He said that many nights he would wait up until twelve at night when everyone else had gone to bed so that he could have some time alone to read the Bible. He's falling in love with this God of creation, of floods and of Abraham, and soon we'll be reading about this God that took on flesh and lived among us and even gave His life, yet God raised Him up.
This has encouraged me to keep praying for more workers. This is a process with a slow start but the exponential nature creates rapid growth with time. Even so numbers aren't important. What is important is the people receive God's love through His grace, and that they respond to Him in love as well. We're just now starting to see the first few seeds of this love germinate. I know better than to kid myself into thinking that all seeds make mature plants. But in the right soil, so I've been told, they'll multiply themselves quite well. Until the harvest,
Press on for Joy!
Cameron
posted by Kelvin @ 9/19/2011 09:11:00 AM
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4/12/2011
C-mail: Roughing it
Howdy All!
I'm glad to be writing you again from Caracas, Venezuela. The past months have been a bit grueling to say the least, but you can read more about that below in the story section. Thankfully, everything is back to normal, aside from the uncountable number of families who have lost their homes. But allow me to explain:
After my last update explaining the tragic affects due to the heavy rains in Venezuela, things got worse in our barrio. I explain what exactly happened to our hillside in much more detail below, but let's just say Murphy wrote the law and you know how that goes. At the end of it all, I'd guess about 200 homes were lost just below where our team lives leaving a huge scar on our hillside covered with rubble and dirt. For those of us who didn't lose their home, we are almost back to normal: we have running water, working transportation, phone and internet, trash collection, and the dust plague has abated. But most important is that no one lost their life due to the landslide and falling houses. Praise the Lord!
With so many of our neighbors having lost their homes and now displaced, we've continued to minister to them in the refugee shelters. Starting in December, the government set up these shelters all over the country to give temporary housing to the 130,000+ people nationwide who had lost their homes. As the months have rolled on, people have been moved and shifted different shelters all over the city and surrounding areas leaving our neighbors scattered to the four winds. We have been visiting weekly one shelter in particular where the greatest concentration of our neighbors are located. There are many needs and much opportunity for ministry in this and all such shelters. The need is great, but the workers are very few. Please pray for volunteers to come along side to help with and start new ministries in these shelters.
We have recently seen new movement with bible studies and house church groups in the community of San Pablito. I don't want to say too much for the moment, but we're pretty excited to see what is taking place. Please pray for new leaders to rise up to lead bible studies and for us to find households open to reading the bible. More on this in the next C-mail.
Team update: The Shorack family returned from their sabbatical late this January. It was wonderful to receive them back as they are a huge blessing to the team. The Shorack family, and the InnerCHANGE Caracas team, will be celebrating ten years on the ground in Caracas this November. Arturo and LayYen, the Venezuelan couple that joined our team in September, just had their first baby. Grecia was born on the 21st of February after an emergency cesarean. Even though she had defecated in her amniotic fluid, the doctors were able to get her out quickly enough for her to be completely healthy. They are all enjoying being a new family. Noretys, the young Venezuelan woman who also joined our team in September, is getting ready to start her preparation to minister with InnerCHANGE in Africa. Starting in July, she will be studying English in Trinidad for six months. Please email me if you would like information on how you can support the ministry of InnerCHANGE in raising up new and local missionaries.
Personally, I've been feeling swamped as of late. All the instability of the hillside, comings and goings on the team, and the continual adjustments here have been exhausting. At the same, I'm really excited about what God is doing here. At the end of April, our team is going to take a vision retreat to take time to listen to what God would have us chose as our vision. There are many exciting options and needs we can choose to work on, but we need God's help in guiding our process on how to focus our efforts. Please pray for strength and wisdom for me as leader and for our team as we hope to hear from Him.
That's going to be it for now. It is always so encouraging to hear back from you, even if only to know how to be praying. I wish you all the best in everything and miss you all dearly. Until next time, stay strong, seek the Lord and
Press on for Joy!
Cameron
In a nifty little class called Strength of Materials, a young engineering student learns that nothing in this world is rigid. That is to say, everything deforms, everything is elastic. When a force is applied to an object, the object experiences a stress. This stress causes a corresponding deformation in the object. When the stress is removed, the deformation also disappears and the object returns to its original state, assuming that the original stress was not sufficient to permanently deform the object. Some materials deform better than others, aka they are more elastic. For example, ceramics and glass don't deform much before they break. Metals on the other hand are rather elastic and deform nicely until they reach a critical stress at which the metal catastrophically deforms and soon fractures. However, there is a material that I would characterize as being one of the most elastic in existence. Over the past few months, I've had the privilege to both observe and be part of the human material as it underwent stress, the consequent deformation and the return to its original state once the stress was removed.
Things really started going bad back in early December. As I mentioned in my last update, many families had lost their homes due to the landslides. Even though they were continually shuffled around refugee centers and had to deal with serious loss of privilege, they were at times, and from a certain perspective, lucky. The government did an excellent preliminary job of getting people into shelters and getting them the needed resources for basic life. Additionally, the Venezuelan people assembled generous outpourings of donations, but in this particular case, they were largely unnecessary and many donated items never reached their intended recipients. Many cultural groups, churches and other programs flocked in droves to the shelters to do programs and sports with the children. However, since December, their presence has been minimal to nonexistent. In our section of the city, which was heavily hit, schools were converted into temporary shelters with each classroom housing 8-15 families. The loss of privacy was difficult. Women were given shifts to cook for the entire shelter and of course, when someone else cooks for large numbers of people the food never comes just like you want it, nor is it even what you might care to eat. The loss of good food was difficult. In the shelters large lines of students and those with jobs formed outside of the bathrooms at four in the morning. The loss of time for showering, shaving, and everything else was difficult. I won't even mention the paper work involved with beginning the process of securing a new residence, but the loss of time was difficult. The word that has floated around is that most families in the refugee centers are going to be there at least a year and a half before all the houses and apartment buildings are completed.
For those of us on the hill that didn't lose their homes, things were tense. Although the rains had stopped, the hillside continued to move. Everyday, the ground would sink about half an inch. I wish I had a stop motion camera to track the movement of the ground. One road in particular was divided in half by the settlement. Walking up the hill, the section of the road on the right did not move at all. While the left slowly settled little by little until a 15' foot cliff divided the two halves. Check out the attached pictures to see its progress down the hill. It's easy to write about now looking back over the course of the months, but during the process it was a little disconcerting.
At my last update, a post had fallen blocking traffic up the hill. This meant that everyone who lived higher up the hill had to walk to their homes. Thankfully the post was soon repaired and transportation continued on as normal. However, just weeks later, precisely on Christmas day, a huge hole opened up swallowing the post and asphalt alike, leaving only half of the narrow road in tact. Transportation by car and jeep became impossible and the only way to come up the road was by foot or motorcycle. Those of us that lived higher up on the hill were now left with two possible routes to get home: 1. The adventurous route by the gaping hole in the aforementioned road (which also had a broken sewer pipe pumping raw sewage down the mountainside) or 2. Taking a very narrow set of stairs that connected to another road. Many people chose the stairs that first day. However, the not so local criminals from a neighboring sector took advantage of the situation and chain robbed about 60 people over the course of an hour, at which point a more local criminal came to the defense of his neighborhood and chased off the offending criminals with a pistol. After the robbery everyone decided to take the route by the gaping hole.
A meeting was organized on that Sunday to address the situation. Held in the parking lot of a textile factory located just below the gaping hole, we were there informed that the gaping hole was not only a risk to our transportation and neighboring houses, but also to the water pump that services the upper part of our hillside. The hole (located directly in front of the pump station) was bound to grow and and the pump would have to be moved. There were uncertainties of when the pump would be moved, when it would be reinstalled, of how many more days of running water we would have to fill up our tanks, etc. There were also questions about what would be done about the crime and if there would be police stationed on the stairs. These questions were not addressed at the meeting. There were promises to build an alternate road behind the factory that would connect to the rest of the barrio. There were calls for everyone to bring their trash down to the main road below the gapping hole so that it could be collected there instead of disposing of it where the trash trucks no longer had access. There were also a number of women who were not satisfied with the responses of the officials and decided to protest the next day.
My teammate KT and I decided to participate in the protest. What happened there is a story in and of itself, but suffice it to say, the protest, like many protests, was successful, completely unnecessary, and a flop, all at the same time.
There were still issues with the trash. Thankfully everybody collaborated in carrying their trash with them down the hill to the indicated locations, but there were still piles of rotting trash that had not been collected for days left the meeting. One day after buying a few items to make a rainwater collection system, a neighbor asked me if I could help bag up the trash. The textile factory had agreed to let smaller trash trucks pass through the factory on an alternate road to collect the trash, as long as it was bagged up.
I spent that afternoon with a small and eclectic group of neighbors bagging up the dump on the street. Those present included the family of the welder across from us. While he worked with the shovel, his wife and children asked for donations from passersby to buy garbage bags. Also present was the taxi driver whose wife is in charge of the drug trade in our neighborhood. Also present were the moms in the neighboring houses concerned about the plague of flies bothering their children. Also present were a few young men who, as they passed by, decided to throw their strength into the matter. Also present were a couple of crack addicts that live and work on the street and helped out. Also present were 10-20 million maggots about which I don't particularly care to write. After about three hours or so, we had all of our trash bagged up and ready to be taken away. Present in the shower that night was a bottle of bleach.
New years eve was very low key this year due to the lack of water. The aforementioned pump was turned back on the day after the meeting, but a hole in one of the pipes prevented it from reaching anyone. From that moment on, no one would receive water by the traditional means of the pipes in the ground. For the moment however, everyone still had their water tank. The race to save water was on. In my "apartment" I have access to running water inside my house only if the aforementioned pump is on. When the pump is off, I get my water from a tank just outside my door. This tank is shared between four renters, including myself, and their respective families. The tank ran out within days. Even so, we did all we could to save water. The drain pipe below the sink was disconnected to collect the water from washing the dishes for flushing the toilet. Washing clothes was out of the question and thankfully my girlfriend was glad to help me out in that area (although in the barrio where they live, they only get water every two weeks to fill up their tank.) The essentials of showers and doing the dishes became possible with progressively smaller amounts of water.
Eventually everyone's tanks ran dry and it became necessary to get water the hard way. In actuality, there were many hard ways to get water. The first thing to understand is that there are anywhere from 60-45,000 people that live on our hill. When the pump was removed it left at least 20,000 residents without water. The second thing to understand is that our hill is a real hill, and a steep one at that. So the people that live at highest point were going to be in very sore shape if they had to carry water up themselves. But no need to worry, somebody (and no one is really sure who organized this; there were many officials running around with badges of ministries that no one had heard of before) organized to send water trucks up the hill. They managed this with the help of the textile factory that let the trucks pass through the working factory that gave them access to the alternate road. And even then, this "road" has parts that are at least a 30% grade (see the photo if you don't believe me). The water trucks were destined for the highest sectors on the hill. This was frustrating to many who didn't receive water and soon a few trucks fell pray to armed gangs on motorcycles that directed the trucks to their section of the hill. The national guard quickly stepped in and began to escort every truck coming up. I know one well organized sector in particular received water twice a day and had plenty to spare. However, this left the families lower down on the hill waiting, and waiting, and waiting for some truck driver to have mercy on them and fill up their barrels. It was not uncommon to see a group of women wait from 7 in the morning to 9 or later at night, standing guard over a regiment of empty 55 gallon drums. For those not gifted with patience like that, we got to carry the stuff. Everyday a steady stream of men, women, and children pushed, pulled and heaved gallons and gallons of water. 3-4 gallons in a wheeled basket were the choice of children. Men on foot without dollys, like myself, carried 5-6 gallon containers on their shoulder. Those with dollys would mount a few 5-6 gallon containers or jump straight to a large 10 or 15 gallons. Those blessed with cars and trucks used anything and everything. The comunal house in a lower sector that still had access to running water offered their hose at first and then individual homes began to share their water with the dry.
Carrying water every to every other day was good exercise for a week. After a week it turned grueling. It made me think of the proverbial African women that walk for miles every day carrying water on their heads. We weren't walking for miles, but we were carrying it uphill. Neither did any of us know, nor learned how, nor even tried to carry it on our head. All that to say, it wasn't fun. Nor can it be for the women in Africa I imagine.
As the days went on, the ground kept falling just a little bit everyday. The area around the hole began to worsen. Asphalt began to crumple and break apart. Electric and phone lines hung inches off the ground as telephone poles bent and gave way. The houses across the street from the hole began to crack and show fissures at the corners of the windows. One house built on columns fell down in one piece and landed like a trailer in the aftermath of a tornado. Frequently you could hear the structure of the houses cracking as you walked by causing screams and frantic scrambles from the pedestrians. And yet, most chose to take this Indiana Jones route instead of the stairs. The fear of getting robbed or shot was still much greater than that of getting hit by a falling brick or being swept away in a landslide.
Our valiant team of three began to get in really good shape by this time. Walking up and down the hill carrying groceries proved to be wonderful exercise. But we're young; it was the elderly, disabled, and the unhealthy that suffered greatly. The transportation game changed daily. Sometimes there were jeeps in certain locations, other times not. As the hill continued to fall, previously usable roads became impassible and the routes of the jeeps changed. For where we live, it made more sense to walk.
I know this all sounds like a bad Monty Python skit, but things continued to worsen in the same vane. It was about that time that the water works started excavating to place a new pipeline. One Friday morning, a machine with a saw blade the size of a small kiddy pool magically appeared. The still morning was cut to shreds as the carbon tipped teeth dug into the asphalt and lower substrate. The street and all nearby houses filled with dust. The excavation continued for another two weeks, and inundated our street with a heavy yellow dust. Our office transformed into tutankomen's tomb. Jeep drivers and pedestrians alike donned facemasks giving a strangely medical quarantine feel to the street. That is of course, if you could see people's faces through the thick dust fog.
It was also about that time that the textile factory graciously opened its doors and allowed transportation to come through the middle of the factory to access the provisional road with the 30% or more grade. It was a nice gesture, but in practice it left much to be desired. The factory would randomly close their gates leaving long lines of cars waiting to pass for hours. Many people returning from work at night had to find other places to sleep as it became impossible to find transportation up the hill after 8 o'clock in the evening. The other complication with the steep street was that very few cars had the strength get up the road. And forget about it when the road was wet. Traffic up and down became a dangerous journey. Sadly, one jeep lost its brakes on the way down and claimed the life of an elderly woman in the resulting crash. By this time, the gaping hole had taken the entire street and the only accessible pedestrian route was by the stairs. Thankfully the national guard had finally stationed a few soldiers along the stairs, but even then, robberies around the stairs were common place.
By then it was early February, and I took a much needed spiritual retreat I had put off since November. When I returned I didn't recognize the hillside. Heavy machinery had come in and torn down cracked house after crumbling house. The gapping hole was no longer a gapping hole, but a field of rubble. I heard stories of people laying down in front of menacing machinery ready tear down their beloved houses of 40 years that they had built with their own hands. I don't have an exact number, but I would guess around 200 homes were ultimately lost.
It would be a few days after that until the new pipeline would be finished. It would be another two weeks until the water came back with full pressure. It would be another two weeks after that until the machinery had cleared a new road and transportation began to flow as before. And now, aside from a bit of dust from the continual excavation of the hill, things are back to normal.
I've honestly had to think pretty hard about all that happened to be able to remember and then write this. Truth be told, the whole incident seems like a dream that never really happened. Even in the midst of it all, we just adapted. We were all in the same boat and we got used to it: the lack of water, carrying the water, the dust, the trash, the walking, the falling houses, the horrible transportation, etc. It was all just another thing like the rain. And now that it's all over, we're used to that too.
Interestingly enough, no one really talks about what happened. It's not a topic of conversation, precisely because we've all forgotten about it. There are more pressing things to adjust to. The stress is gone and we have elastically adjusted back to where we were at before this whole mess started.
That isn't to say that the stress wasn't, well, stressful, because it really was. Life without stress is much easier, but it isn't necessarily happier or more fulfilling. A stressful life needs to be a shared life. Not shared verbally per se, but shared in experience. The fact that everyone lived the same difficulties made it possible to keep on living, and also return to normal once it was all over.
I wish I could say that I'm hit with a grand sense of gratitude every time I turn on the faucet, or every time the trash gets taken away but honestly I'm not. I'm pretty good at forgetting what things were like. The reality is that no matter how horrible or wonderful the circumstances, the extremity or blandness of the situation, the absolute misery or absolute tranquility of the environment, we can adapt to it and we can live in it. There will always be something to complain about, and there will always be something to be thankful for. That's a choice we all need to make, and it's a choice made much easier together.
Until next time, stay strong, seek the Lord and
Press on for Joy!
Cameron
posted by Kelvin @ 4/12/2011 08:03:00 PM
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4/11/2011
Protest
Here's the story of the protest that blocked la redoma on the 27th of December.
My teammate KT and I decided to join the protest. I felt that the authorities were doing as best a job as they could with planning and rebuilding the infrastructure, but they were completely ignoring the issue of crime. There was a rumor that when someone asked the police to come and watch over the stairs, they responded that the community should hire its own delinquents to patrol the stairway.
The protest was my first such event and was an excellent learning space. First, I learned that groups doing something out of the ordinary need strong leaders. Strong leaders are natural leaders. That is to say, they can't help but be leaders regardless of the their own disposition; everyone looks to them for instruction and inspiration. Remove the leaders and the movement dissipates. There were two such natural leaders present at the protest. The second thing I learned is that many times natural leaders are clueless as to their status as natural leaders.
The protest blocked off a major intersection at the base of our hill that feeds the local market place (la redoma) and serves as a major hub for our section of the city. The police showed up immediately, and very naturally ended up being directed towards the leaders. The police briefly chatted with the leaders asking for the demands of the protest and then quietly took a spot in the shade to make sure everything proceeded peacefully. When motorcycles tried breaking the human blockade, one of the leaders asked the police for a caution tape and was quickly rewarded with a full roll. The blockade of the intersection lasted for about three hours. It came to an end when the leaders, obviously unaware that they were the leaders and moral support of the group, went to shore up a road block at a different location and left the main location leaderless. Soon a group of people, who knows who they were, showed up at the scene and began to negotiate with us to unblock the road, and in spite of our verbal protests, completely undid the blockade while the leaderless protesters were left wondering what exactly had happened. A very anti-climatic protest over all. One interesting cultural note, almost all of the protesters were women. Our little group vacillated between 20-40 people, while an equal number of men sat by watching. We later figured that blocking the road as a man can be very dangerous as it leads to many confrontations with other men on motorcycles which can turn deadly in a not so public setting.
The blockade turned out to be actually counter productive in the end, but I chalk it up to the ever present chaos of groups. The blockade first started in a different location much earlier in the morning. A high ranking minister in the government deployed to the scene of the protest immediately and then climbed the hill to survey the damage with two of our neighbors.The arrival of the minister and his action up on the hillside were of course was completely unknown to us. The president of Venezuela, interestingly enough, was immediately informed of the blockade we had made (after the initial protest) and called the minister asking why in the world people were still protesting if he was already on the scene. The poor minister, who to the best of his knowledge thought that the protest had ended, could only respond that all the protesters were part of the opposition against the president. It was a lie to cover himself, but what was to be done? He didn't know we were protesting, and we didn't know he had already showed up. What's more, the people who knew that the minister had arrived were not natural leaders, and even if they had tried to stop the blockade, it would have come to nothing. We only found out these details of the story a week after the protest.
So, like I said, the protest was successful in that it caught the attention of the authorities and they responded, unnecessary in that the protest had already achieved its goal when it started the blockade, and a flop in that it was a unresolved ending with no clear outcome.
posted by Kelvin @ 4/11/2011 03:39:00 PM
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12/10/2010
C-mail: Extended Emergency
Howdy All,
No reason to delay; time is short and its been way to long since the last update. You'll soon see why its been so long in coming. Here's what we've been up to:
1. In early October we were privileged and honored to have three Venezuelans join our team: Arturo, Lay Yen and Noretys. Arturo and Lay Yen were married last year in December and are both from Caracas. Arturo has a huge heart for and many years of working with the indigenous peoples in the jungle of Venezuela. He hopes to setup a missionary training base in the jungle over the course of the next few years. Lay Yen is studying art in a public university and is excited about the jungle, but her big priority for the moment is her pregnancy and giving birth to their baby girl in early February. Noretys, also from Caracas, has a dream to go to Africa and desires to ultimately work with Muslims and other unreached people groups. She'll be with us on the team while raising funds, learning english and preparing to go. Please pray for us as we are now a bi-cultural team which brings its own benefits and challenges. We give thanks for the blessing it is to see these three Venezuelans as part of InnerCHANGE, as that has been a hope of the team in Caracas for years. Please pray for me as team leader as I learn how to work with and mentor and be mentored by these three talented missionaries.
2. This August we hosted and ran two vacation bible schools in our neighborhood. Each ran for a week and we had tons of kids from ages of 2-12 pass through our doors. In the course of the two weeks, we had well over 100 children participate. We did the standard fare of games, crafts, bible drama, a field day, and all mixed in with snacks and drink. The VBS was a blessing to the parents and children of our hillside, even though it was an exhaustive labor of love on our part.
3. The most exciting bit of the VBS was the participation of some volunteers from our neighborhood. My teammate KT decided to invite a number of youth 13 or older to help out with the details and crowd control of the VBS. It turned out to be an excellent idea as more and more youth volunteers showed up every day. By the end of two weeks, we had a consistent group of 12 that had converted into a little youth group of sorts. We were continuing to meet, hang out, put on events for the neighborhood and begin the slow process of discipleship. But......
4. Venezuela has been hit HARD by the rains this year. And when I say hard, I mean national scale emergency flooding and landslides. As it stands for today, there are over 110,000 people located in government shelters because they have either lost their homes or their homes are no longer inhabitable. The entire country has been affected and the coastal areas have suffered the worst. I don't honestly know how many people have died, but it has been very few thankfully, especially considering the widespread nature of the tragedy.
5. In Caracas, the barrios are at extreme risk as they are built on steep hillsides. Our side of the city has seen the most damage. Our particular hillside has suffered it's fair share as well. The effects came over a long period of months but have been dramatic none the less. As far as I know, no one has lost their life, thanks be to the grace of God! Here's a brief rundown on the current situation:
--The community 16 de Julio (the 16th of July) where all of the youth volunteers come from has been evacuated. Parts of the hill have fallen off (taking houses with it) while in other parts the houses are left with large cracks in their walls and foundations.
--Two of the main roads up our hillside have been closed as they are no longer safe. The only remaining road is in a bad shape.
--Since the only remaining road is at risk, it has been closed to all heavy transport. This means that there has been no trash collection for at least the previous three weeks. The other troubling factor is that there is no access to gas (everyone here buys propane tanks to cook with).
--Last night a utility pole fell down by itself since the dirt underneath it gave way. The fallen pole blocked access up the main road until late this afternoon.
--Our team members live in three different houses/apartments. One of them is in a section of the hill that is in high risk and the other two are currently ok (actually just at "risk" instead of "high risk"). Our teammate who lives in the structure in high risk is currently on vacation, thankfully.
--The attached photos give an idea as to what things look like here, for today at least. Some places are complete disaster zones while the majority are largely unaffected. So in a big way life goes on as normal while others have lost everything.
6. The government has done an excellent job of getting people in to relocation shelters. The displaced families are receiving decent meals and donations of clothes and other necessities. Still, many of the shelters are crowded and people have to wake up very early to stand in line for the bathroom to bathe and prepare for work. The government has said that it could take up to a year and a half to find/construct housing for everyone in the shelters. The people on our hillside that have left their houses are located in three different shelters around our section of the city. Since we have connections with many of these families, we were able to receive many of their goods that they would have lost otherwise (appliances, furniture, etc). We have also been able to open our house to help them with washing their clothes. Our team has been visiting and coordinating donations from individuals and churches to different shelters.
7. Right before things got really bad (or even knew they were going to get bad), we held a Christmas celebration for the families of the youth volunteers. It was a beautiful celebration to bless them and their families with the traditional Venezuelan Christmas dinner: Hallacas, chicken salad and pan de jamón (rolled ham bread). Many of the mothers were highly appreciative noting that they had never had such a beautiful night in their lives. Sadly enough, two days later, they were forced to leave their houses.
8. Please pray for the following:
--No more rain! Thankfully we've had little rain since the start of December, but things keep shifting underground and leaving more houses at risk at the surface. Any additional rain will put everything at risk.
--For God to hold up the remaining parts of our hillside, for the main road to remain open and for a quick resolution to the trash issue.
--For our team as we are tired and there are a lot of necessities and possibilities in front of us.
--For those in the shelters, especially for security as there has been rumors of children being molested.
--For those who remain in our hillside in situations of risk, that they would be willing to abandon their at risk housing instead of sticking it out stubbornly.
--For everyone that is a bit traumatized by all the events and the uncertain future of our hillside.
We all appreciate your prayers and I hope to hear from you all soon, although it might be a while before I can respond. Also, if you would like to make a donation to help with the costs of the ministry we're doing, including a special Christmas celebration for the families in the shelters, you can make a donation to our Caracas team fund and put "Rains" in the additional information section. Until then, stay strong, seek the Lord and as always
Press on for Joy!
Cameron
Of all the natural disasters, flooding is certainly the most boring. Fires are mesmerizing, earthquakes leave swaths of collapsed buildings and daring rescues, and tornadoes are worthy of movies unto themselves. But water is simply just water. We see it, we drink it, we bathe in it daily. So the novelty of the stuff wears off pretty fast; a factor which makes it all the more destructive.
In 1999, Venezuela suffered one of the worst natural disasters in recent times when days of straight rain brought mudslides screaming down the mountain called El Avila towards the coastline. Between the coastline and the mountain stood the resort and beach capital of Caracas, La Guiara. The mudslides went straight to the beach taking houses, condos, cars, and people with them. The slides killed around 30,000 people and to this day, the area has not recovered it's former glory.
So when the rain started heavy this September, everyone was both thankful that the drought of the previous year had come to a definitive end, and also extremely worried. The ground became saturated and the community of 16 of Julio, built on a steep hillside landfill just below our barrio began to show signs of problems. Some walls of houses collapsed letting tons of dirt into families' kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. The stairs connecting the barrio the began to settle and sat off kilter. By the time the beginning of October rolled around, some families had already fled to government shelters, but the majority were determined to stay. "Hasta la muerte!" (Until death) they said.
October was thankfully dry, but November was not. Things came to their climax on Monday, the 29th of November with hours and hours of constant rain. That evening, the community of 16 de julio stood huddled under umbrellas and staircases. A few large, abandoned trucks were threating to fall onto the houses and shacks below. As we waited there in the rain with the people of 16 de julio, the local consejo comunal (community counsel) organized and opened up it's doors to receive the families most at risk. We brought down as many mattresses as we could so that people would have something to sleep on that night, and as it turned out, many nights afterwards. We stayed with the families until one in the morning drawing and playing with the kids, and talking with worried mothers. Amazingly enough, the evacuated persons were not worried about themselves, instead they were worried about the rest of the people in the community that were still in potential danger.
The next day, the official government numbers revealed almost 27,000 people across the nation had been received into quickly established shelters. Now, less than two weeks later, the entire community of 16 de Julio is all but evacuated; it's residents who were previously defiant are now among the now 110,000 people in shelters in the long wait for the chance to start anew.
I wish I had more time to write, but for the moment, I'll have to limit myself to one story from the community of San Pablito to illustrate what happened there on the 29th, and the unassuming bravery of one of it's residents.
Rosa is quite the character. Rather obscene, loud, and overweight, accompanied by a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she tends to make a scene wherever she goes. She's from the community of San Pablito which is one of the most infamous, although not necessarily the worst, barrios in our part of town. All the same, she is a hero.
As I had mentioned, on Monday the 29th, it rained everywhere. San Pablito is built in a very steep ravine and can receive huge quantities of water from the mountainside above at any given moment. So Monday saw the small little stairway that serves as the main thoroughfare of the community under a rushing torrent of water full of mud, rocks, and pacifiers. Pacifiers? The houses highest up the hill were flooding and the residents were seeing their scant possessions whisked away by the water. Rosa lived in front of and thankfully above, one of these flooding houses.
She had just finished an exhausting day of washing and cleaning which necessitates the hooking up of a water pump to the main water line closer to the center of the barrio to get water to the house. As she told it, all she had left to do was to iron when the rain started. Even in spite of her tiredness, when the water from the ravine began to fill the house below, she jumped into action without thinking. Kicking off her sandals, she jumped into the torrent between her house and the other. Once inside the house, she waded through the thigh deep water looking for the people inside. Everything was floating, she said, in dark opaque water: the mattress, cups, plates, diapers, bottles, and so on. On the floating mattress was an eight day old baby girl. At the newborn's side, was a toddler of just over a year of age. Rosa grabbed the closest thing she could to wrap up the newborn. Swaddling the infant in a black plastic bag and holding her in one arm, she instinctively grabbed the sibling in another. Rosa turned around to find the baby's young mother sitting in a chair more than waist deep in the water and very startled. Rosa threw the young mother over her shoulder (only later did she realize that the mother had undergone a cesarean and was very much still recovering) and wading through the water filled house and torrent covered steps, brought all three to her house. She cleaned the newborn and had her soon wrapped up with the pajamas of her own toddler daughter. She was later in tears and hyperventilating coming down from the adrenaline, and wondering how in the world she had the strength to save all three of them, much less cross the newly formed river in front of her house. Soon after, a neighbor came by screaming. She was a relative of the young family that had just been saved. Rosa quickly informed her that she had them in her house and was taking care of them. Rosa didn't tell us the most amazing part of the story until we were just about to leave. Up to the moment of the rescue, Rosa and this family hadn't been talking for well over six months. Long ago, there had erupted some problem between the two houses that was still not resolved. However, in the right moment, God gave Rosa the grace to save her enemy.
Rosa is no saint, but I'm continually amazed how the most unsaintly continually perform the most sacrosanct acts. I'm also incredibly saddened at the slowness of the "saintly" here in Caracas to respond. While visiting San Pablito, we prayed with Rosa for God's protection over the barrio. Together, we gave thanks for His protection over the community and how He had used Rosa to save the lives of her neighbors. She gave thanks that no one had died, and we asked for His goodness and protection for those in the shelters.
Very early one Thursday morning a couple of week before the 29th, a number of us were independently awoken in the early morning with a calling to pray. It was raining cats and dogs and the fear that something bad was about to happen was thick. We were all praying, each individually unaware that our teammates and various members of a local church were all doing the same. I finally feel asleep at around four in the morning while Arturo and Lay Yen went outside soon after the rain had stopped. An electric orange sky painted with a full double rainbow awaited them. They took some pictures, but the camera couldn't capture the entire wonder. Arturo has taken it as God's promise over this section of the city, that although the ground around us might fall, His promise is greater. We give thanks that there have been so few deaths in the nation and none in our part of the city even though the rain has been at least double of what it was in 1999. We give thanks we still have a place here in the barrio that looks solid for the moment. We give thanks that people have a place they can go when they do lose their house. We give thanks that God has used us in very small ways. We give thanks for His protection and goodness. And Lord willing, we'll keep giving thanks for a long while more. Until that time, keep praying, trust Jesus and
Press on for Joy!
posted by Kelvin @ 12/10/2010 07:50:00 PM
0 comments
About Me
- Name: Kelvin
- Location: Caracas, Venezuela
I live in Pedro Camejo, a barrio on the west side of Caracas, Venezuela. Working with InnerCHANGE to participate in the growing Kingdom of God.
Links
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Previous Posts
- C-mail: Everything New
- C-mail: Germination
- C-mail: Roughing it
- Protest
- C-mail: Extended Emergency
- C-mail: Church
- It's good to know...
- Haiti bel anpil
- Some Photos
- Haiti Relief Effort
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