Fighting for Marriage

Hi -

One of the saddest things about Venezuela's 10 year socio-economic crisis is the toll it's taken on families. Marriages have been ripped apart as husbands emigrate to other countries in search of greater opportunities, leaving behind their wives and children as they're left to fend for themselves until the struggling husband can create enough income to send home some help.

In some cases the husband will eventually make enough money to pay the transportation costs for his family to join him in his improvised living situation, but even then - culture shock, discomfort, and humiliation can create such a strain on the relationship that the family eventually disintegrates... Add a global pandemic to the equation, and no longer family unity, but just sheer survival becomes the issue.

...A few weeks back I got civilly married to Alejandra, and a little bit after signing the papers, we drove down to Colombia's border with Ecuador to pick up a Venezuelan family of 6 with a baby on its way... I met the husband of this family (Frank) 2 years ago when I was starting a church in Cucuta, but he eventually left this city and found his way to Peru where he made enough money to send for his wife and kids. They did well initially, but after a while they started to struggle again, so they started their trek back to Venezuela. They got stuck in Ecuador and had to live on the street for a few days, but then got some help from a foundation, and later found a way to cross the border into Colombia. 

A little bit later Alejandra and I picked up the Perez family in my father-in-law's van, and we made it a little North of Bogota to a town called Duitama where Alejandra and I had already rented an apartment to start living in after our wedding... We let our Venezuelan friends live there in the mean time, and 6 days ago their new son Freider David was born... As wonderful as it is to celebrate the birth of this child, the process was difficult, as there were complications during labor, and the child was born small and with low levels of sugar... 

I remember when I first saw Freider - I laid my hands on him to pray for him, but half way through I started crying, as I thought about all the challenges that this boy has already gone through and doesn't even know about, as well as all the challenges that lie ahead...

Helping Frank and Anabel and their children has given Alejandra and I a crash course on what it means to be a family, and despite the enormous challenge it is even for us, to assist them in the middle of everything, we love seeing that Frank, Anabel, Frank, Frangelis, Francis, Freneci, and now Freider are all together. 

Sacrifice, love, and humility is the stuff marriage is made of, and in just serving this family, Alejandra and I are starting to understand a little about what that means... I'm amazed at how sensitive Alejandra is, and how willing she is to adapt in the midst of such a complex situation. Her tenderness, patience, and her attention to detail are amazing, and I could never do this without her.

    

Alejandra and I are going to have our wedding ceremony on the 10th of October on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, and it's quite promising that my family from the US will be able to join us... I know that travel of any kind is pretty complicated these days (especially international travel), but if anyone of you would love to come and celebrate this day with us, please let us know, and we'll give you more info. 

-Sam 

Missionary Profile: https://www.cmml.us/node/817  

"Chapita" Church Planting

Hi -

This last Sunday a bunch of Venezuelan friends and I played chapita after our open-air church meeting in a park.

"Chapita" is a basic, easy set-up way of playing baseball with just a stick and a bottle cap, and especially in Venezuela, just about every kid grows up playing this game. It's kind of fun actually, and miraculously enough, I was able to hit a few caps without the pitcher intercepting them, and thus score a few points.

Playing chapita got me thinking about how churches everywhere have had to adjust to the harsh reality of Covid-19. Church formats which would have been considered obscure and almost illegitimate a few months ago, have nearly become standard practice all over the world... One of the things that I most appreciate about this pandemic, is that the church has finally woken up to the fact that we are not a building. 

...So while the main church I've been involved with here in Bogota has done a great job of adapting to doing things on-line, I was noticing that especially among my poorer Venezuelan friends, asking them to connect to two-hour by-weekly Zoom meetings was not working... Most of my Venezuelan friends' cell phones aren't very state of the art, and plus, their internet connectivity is fairly limited... 

Just because of that, I'm not going to stop sharing the gospel, or giving up meeting with my friends in person... Basically, I believe that Jesus's command of making disciples of all nations takes precedence over government's requirement of social distancing, even though we all agree that this pandemic is no joke, and that we should still take as many precautionary measures as possible.

I feel like it's kind of like chapita. Does this strange game with no stadiums or gloves or bases or outfielders really even have the right to be considered a sport? ...I guess I don't know, but it gets pretty close, and it's definitely better than playing nothing at all.

...Are the Sunday morning gatherings where we take part in the Lord's Supper and study the Scriptures and pray and have fellowship and worship together on a roof or in a park with about 15 other Venezuelans really a church? Yes, I think we are - even though there are a lot of things that we can improve on, and we're still not immune to Coronavirus. 

...Not having a building to meet in where we could get sanctioned by the government is a lot cheaper as well, and it's a lot more reproducible (or contagious even), just like this pandemic...          

-Sam

P.S. This Wednesday, August 26th I'll be getting civilly married to Alejandra! (stay tuned for when we we'll have our wedding), and then we'll be heading to the border with Ecuador in my recently purchased SUV (see picture #1). There, we'll be picking up a Venezuelan family that Alejandra and I both got to know a couple years ago when we were starting a church that continues to function in Cucuta (Colombia's main border city with Venezuela) under the leadership of another great Christian family from Venezuela that I've been sponsoring ever since February (see picture #2). Frank and his pregnant wife Anabel, along with their 3 children have been struggling a lot since the beginning of the pandemic, and were stranded for over 3 months in Ecuador during which they even had to live on the street for a few days (see picture #3)... In the initial part of this situation, Alejandra and I were able to send them some money so they could stay in a hotel, and eventually they received some help from a foundation that took up their case. Recently they were cleared to cross the border into Colombia, and their desire is to make it back to Venezuela. Hopefully Alejandra and I will be able to help in this process... We both feel that fighting for their family at this time is a good way to start our own.  

Love in Times of Coronavirus

Hi -

Alejandra said yes to marrying me about a month ago in San Vicente del Caguán.

It was an awesome engagement in one of the most dangerous towns of Colombia, and I chose that location because I wanted to redeem the negative image of San Vicente as being a place of war, to becoming a place of love. 

For some reason I've always been inspired to go to the ends of the earth with a mindset of love, and I felt like proposing to Alejandra in this southern region of Colombia was my quintessential way of doing that.

Things have changed quite a bit since then, and instead of fearing the left wing insurgent groups of San Vicente, the world is mostly terrified about an invisible virus that has ravaged some of the most developed nations on every continent. 

Places that seemed indestructible have become so fragile, and places where no one previously wanted to go, may become the next safe-havens for those fleeing Coronavirus... Either that, or those remote places that have corrupt governments and poor economies may become the next places to get hit the hardest. In any case, Jesus's command of going into all the world to make disciples of every ethnic group still stands.

Venezuelan immigrant disciples of Jesus that I've been helping in Cúcuta

I hope that this devastating time will give us a little more empathy towards other countries as we start to understand what it's like to suffer in the midst of a situation that we can't control; and perhaps instead of hording what little we have, we can learn to share... Maybe God will bring others back to himself in the midst of all this fear; and hopefully people will start experiencing his love and peace and faithfulness even more in this darkest hour... Wouldn't it be cool if when all of this is over, we had a renewed passion to go into the whole world to share the gospel, and be a stronger, more organic and versatile church than ever?... I honestly feel like smaller churches with low overhead and shared leadership in remote parts of the world are currently the most viable (see example below of me sharing the gospel in a cashew plant in Puerto Carreño). 

   

...A little bit after Alejandra's and my engagement, we traveled up to the States to visit some friends and family and churches, and it was so great to have her there with me as she got to be a part of my ministry in the US.

...On our flight back to Colombia we were thinking about inviting most of you reading this post to our upcoming wedding, but now we don't know if that will be possible. 

The only thing we know right now is that we both love each other, and we love God, and one day Alejandra and I are going to get married... In the mean time, we want to keep serving the Lord in any way that we can. 

And maybe before you know it, we'll be doing it with the same last name.   

-Sam (and Alejandra too)

Missionary Profile: https://www.cmml.us/node/817

YouTube Video with Alejandra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmDyV4WGbgQ&t=42s

How I'm Trying To Help

Hi -

Every Saturday I get together with a dozen or so Venezuelan immigrant street vendors/musicians to eat lunch and study the Bible. In the midst of their day to day struggle to survive, it's nice for them to get out of the sun and eat a nice meal in an air-conditioned room where they can find support and camaraderie. Teaching them Biblical principles about work, and occasionally investing in small entrepreneurial projects is a good way to help my friends out, without creating a long-term dependency. We also pray and ask God to guide us and open doors, recognizing that ultimately, every good gift comes from above (James 1:17).

Saturday support lunch

It's tough sometimes to know how to help, and I've made a lot of mistakes, but with each mistake I want to learn how to do better. I really like 1 Thessalonians 5:14 which says, "And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all."

Devotional before lunch

There isn't any one formula to help all people who are struggling economically, and it takes a lot of wisdom to discern what is the right way and what isn't... Some people need to get kicked in the butt, others need to be encouraged, and still others need immediate solutions to very precarious situations. Sometimes I'm haunted by the thought of not having helped someone or a whole family enough, and it can be tempting to just throw in the towel altogether and try to ignore people's tragic reality, or detach myself from it. 

Friends Hugo and Lili praying with a struggling Venezuelan family

On the flip side, it's scary to think that I could have some kind of savior complex where I can start to believe that I'm the solution to everyone's problems. In fact, in a lot of cases, what I really need to do is just learn from my Venezuelan friends, and tell them about my own struggles. Sometimes, people don't even want me to give them money or things like that, rather, what they really want is to be heard and dignified and honored with my friendship.      

Friends

Even though my priority is to preach the gospel and establish a Bible believing church, there is an element to that that must be tangible (Isaiah 61:1-2a), and I certainly can't come up with some kind of quid pro quo where I'm only going to help others if they are Christian or they come to our Sunday morning gatherings... Nevertheless, I especially need to be sensitive to those of the household of faith, and never grow weary of doing good (Galatians 6:9-11). 

The Refuge Church in Cucuta, Colombia consisting primarily of Venezuelan immigrants

One of my friends that I'm helping out came once to our Saturday lunch and then came to our Sunday gathering a couple weeks later. I asked him why he didn't come back to the Saturday lunch, and he told me that he didn't think it was right if he didn't put God first. Wow! ...He gets around in a wheel chair and sells candy on the streets, and his wife has a little store in the entrance to their house. I told them that all the money they save up to invest in the products they sell in the store, I'll match. They are grateful, and I'm grateful to them, because they wanted to host a Bible Study in their shop, and so every Monday I meet with them there, along with their neighbors, who have also started coming to our church.      

Bible Study in George's house

Other friends I've helped out by buying portable speakers that they use to sing on the street with, and I've bought perfume if they sell that, or guitars, or a bike, or rat poison in one case - for a guy who wanted to start a rat and pest eradication business. I've bought other people food and medications, especially if they're heading back to Venezuela to provide for their families; and I've also replenished water supplies or bread if that's what they sell. I've given my friends hats and shirts and tennis shoes, and suitcases as well as just straight up cash. I'll often invite them out for a bite to eat, or let them rest in my apartment, or take them to the mall to eat ice cream. 

The most important thing I can give my friends though is my love, because without it I have nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). 

That, as well as tell them about how God demonstrated His own love towards us: in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).   

-Sam
Missionary Profile: https://www.cmml.us/node/817

Tuk-tuk Motorized Tricycle

Jesus needed a donkey. A brand new one. And instead of buying one, he just borrowed one (Luke 19:30-34).

Recently I bought a vehicle that reminds me of a donkey, and I bought it not because I needed it, but because I think the Lord needs it, and because I think it can be fairly useful for the work that a friend and I are doing for Him in Colombia's border town with Venezuela known as Puerto Carreño.

My brand new vehicle

...Essentially it's like a motorized tricycle, and its main function is to pick up passengers as if it were a taxi, and take those passengers wherever they need to go.

And so why does the Lord need a motorized tricycle? ...Well, mainly because it provides a steady income for my friend Harry who's the one driving it (and who is the number one guy helping me start a church in Puerto Carreño); but also because it helps in taking us wherever we need to go and share the gospel, and likewise, it helps us in getting to know passengers.

Chauffeur Harry

...I basically used all my savings to buy the contraption, and, as I'll be traveling to Scotland here in a few days, I told Harry to use the 'mototaxi' and make some money in the process, and share the gospel to everyone he can until the end of December. Then, in January I'll be back so that we can both either keep planting a church in Puerto Carreño, or another solid Christian friend can join him in that effort, as I keep consolidating the church that God has entrusted me with in Cucuta (Colombia's largest border city with Venezuela).

...In both places there are lots of immigrants, Colombian locals, and indigenous people who all need to hear the gospel, and Harry and I are definitely getting after it - no pussyfooting allowed.

And by the way - one of the main places where I've gotten to share the gospel on various occasions is in a cashew plant, where I have a good relationship with the owners who let me share from the Scriptures while the cashew employees plug away at their work, taking the cashews out of their shell, and then scraping away the coating of the kernel as they meditate on God's Word... It's a pretty sweet set-up actually, and I've even become a frequent consumer of the delicious product they sell ...I mean who doesn't like cashews?

Sharing the gospel at the Cashew plant

...Anyway, if you could pray for my friends from this cashew business - that they would believe the gospel - as well as for my friend Harry and his 'mototaxi' business and his own spiritual walk with God, I would really appreciate it.

The last day that Harry and I were hanging out after I had shared a gospel message at the cashew plant and I was driving my tuk-tuk to the airport - I told Harry that the vehicle sort of reminded me of a modern day donkey. I told Harry that as he would be using the thing to transport people around for the next month or so - to always do it with the same excellence and care that he would as if he was transporting Jesus himself.

And so far, it seems like his customers have been very well pleased.

-Sam