A Field Service Experience …

 

We had an experience in the field ministry today which reminded us of something similar in the Watchtower of October 15 2014, in the article “They Offered Themselves Willingly in Taiwan”.

We had a Bible study arranged for this morning, so we walked to the shop where the man works. Unfortunately, he was not there, so we turned around and came back.

On our way to the study, we passed a couple of men working in a hole where road work was in progress. On the way back, one man looked up, so we greeted them and he asked if we were Testigos de Jehová (Jehovah’s Witnesses).

After we replied that we were, he spoke to us in rather fast Spanish, which we had difficulty picking up. We could pick up some words and phrases and understood that he himself wasn’t a Witness but that he was “Roman Catolica Apostolica”, and that he was saying something about “explaining the Word of God”, etc, but weren’t sure if he wanted us to explain the Word of God to him or if he wanted to explain it to us.

Fortunately, after a while of us trying to make sense of the bits and pieces we could understand, Brendan worked out that perhaps he wanted some literature that would help explain the Word of God, as we weren’t managing to do such a good job of it by ourselves.

So, I reached into my field service bag for some Spanish magazines (even though we focus on English speakers, it’s always handy to have some literature in Spanish and Quichua for occasions such as these), asked the man if that was what he wanted, and yes, it appeared it was.

This is our field service group at the start of the campaign in August with the tract to promote jw.org

Afterwards we were talking about the frustrations of having an incomplete understanding of the language, and it reminded me of the article I mentioned at the start of this blog.

In it, a couple named Brian and Michelle, moved to Taiwan and ‘at first, they felt that they had no meaningful share in the ministry. But an experienced missionary told them: “Even if you can only hand a tract to someone, you should remember that it will likely be the very first time that person receives a message about Jehovah. So you’re already having an important share in the ministry.”

So even though our Spanish is patchy, there are still opportunities for us to be able to give a witness to those who speak only Spanish.

One thing that still surprises us here is that it’s not uncommon for people to ask for Bible literature, and even if we can’t communicate very well, we are still able to hand them something that will help them.

A couple of times we have been in the field ministry when someone approached us in the street and asked for magazines, and once we were knocking at a door and a lady was up on her roof doing the washing and she also called down to ask for literature.

So, we figure if we are out there and available, we can still be of use in spreading the message, even with our incomplete knowledge of the language.

Some of our territory – on the outskirts of the town of San Antonio, near Ibarra

The Dry (and Windy and Dusty) Season

 

Well, as we’ve had some rain lately, it seems the Dry Season in the north of Ecuador is on its way out. Although with the way the weather seems to be going in most parts of the world lately, who knows what’s going on?

Because we are on the equator here in Ecuador, we don’t have 4 seasons like most of the rest of the world does, but instead we have Wet and Dry Seasons, which vary depending on which part of the country you are in, and on local microclimates.

When we still lived in Cuenca, we really only had a Dry Season the first year (2012), around the middle of the year, and it really was dry – the grass in the parks dried out and it was sunny and warm (but not unpleasantly so). But the next 2 Dry Seasons weren’t really dry at all – it rained and was cloudy and cool. Although we had moved up to Otavalo before the Cuenca Dry Season of 2014, we did visit Cuenca around the end of July and it was rainy then and the grass was green, and friends there said that it had been rainy.

Up here in Otavalo and surrounding areas, there was no doubt we had a Dry Season this year. For 2 or 3 months, we really had no rain at all; maybe a rain shower now and then. You could see it in the surrounding hills as the grass and vegetation dried out, and we began to see smoke from fires that some of the indigenous people traditionally set alight in order to bring rain.

Out in field service, we saw this lady (in the foreground wearing black and grey) moving her cows along – she was jogging along behind them and hitting them with her stick when they didn’t go fast enough!

One of the not so pleasant things about the dry season is that many of the country roads are not paved, and if you happen to have to walk along them, you find yourself walking in dust (very hard to keep your shoes looking clean and tidy) and also the sand fleas tend to find and bite you, which is not pleasant.

Brendan and another brother walking along a dusty road out in field service – there was supposed to be an English speaking man out there, but we couldn’t find him

One thing that happens with the Dry Season in the north of Ecuador is that at some point there are a few weeks where it can get extremely windy. In moderation, the warm wind is quite pleasant – I’ve enjoyed being able to hang my washing up on the washing line on our flat roof and to have the sun and the wind dry it, shake the wrinkles out and make it all fresh, and to be able to get it in again within a couple of hours. But there’s also a measure of necessity in not leaving your washing up there any longer than you have to – it may blow off the washing line never to be seen again!!

I was inside our apartment one day, looking towards the window, and I could hear a really strong wind coming towards us, and I quickly went to shut the sliding door as I knew there would be a lot of dust coming along with the wind. What I did see being blown along with the wind was a pair of jeans from the washing line of an apartment just near us.

A couple of weeks earlier, someone’s sheet blew off their line. It’s the time of year that doubling up on clothes pegs is essential if you want to be able to bring in as many items as you hung out on the line!

I also came to realise why it is that many of the houses or apartments here that don’t have concrete roofs as we do, but have corrugated iron or cement sheet roofing, also have car or truck tyres, or cement blocks sitting up on their roofs. It kinda holds your roof on when it’s windy!

 

Oops!  One of the pieces of cement sheet that was on the roof is now shattered into a thousand tiny pieces on the ground below

It’s a good thing someone invented cement blocks – they are handy for roofs as well as for walls!