Be sure to check out efcacrisisresonse.blogspot.com for the latest on Ike response. I just got a note that power came on at the place our team was going to spend the night fifteen minutes before they arrived. God is leading the way. Pray that this new mission field will yield eternal results.
I will be in Minneapolis this week for a missional summit and executive meetings.
Rainy season in Costa Rica means sunny mornings, cloudy mid-days and rainy afternoons. So the creative younger Duggan kids take advantage of the time to get even more wet. Here Anna is demonstrating with her brother that a cardboard box does not hold up to an intense stream of water from a hose. So much for keeping the original packaging for my printer.
36 hours. That’s how long I stayed awake until I was able to collapse in bed at home in Costa Rica. The full flight from Uruguay through Buenos Aires and on to Miami meant I didn’t get a chance to stretch out across several seats and for me, that means no sleep on the flight. Fortunately, the Miami Admiral’s Club has showers, so that put new life in me to get me through the next leg on to San Jose. Unfortunately, I entered the wrong code three times in my phone when I arrived and locked out the SIM card. I’ll explain what that means here in another post. Meanwhile, it’s nice to be home and be with the family a day earlier than originally planned.
On the eastern tip of Uruguay is the resort town of Punto del Este. Since it’s winter here the population is pretty sparse but the view is magnificent. We drove out for a picnic and returned for my flight through Buenos Aires (where I am now posting this). Although I had a wonderful three seats to stretch out and sleep in on the way here, this time I’m on a full flight, so I may be pretty grumpy by the time I hit Miami early in the morning.
The time with Alejandro, Kris and their children David, Nicole and Elizabeth was wonderful. We had a barbeque last night in the most unique setup I’ve seen in awhile (see photo). You burn the wood on the left there and rake the coals as they drop over to underneath the meat. It gets cooked by both and it really works well. I might try to make something like this someday.
I really liked this sculpture of a hand reaching up from the beach too. And can you guess how old this VW bus is? Would you believe it’s a 1995? Brazil kept up the VW production long after they ended these models in the USA.
Interesting things about Uruguay: It is fairly flat with its highest hill reaching only 400 meters. It is a big exporter of beef, has no oil of its own, and is a stable government. The people are friendly and ethnically would fit in many European countries. The population is around 3.5 million people, half of whom live in the vicinity of Montevideo, the capital. The Spanish accent is interesting too. They pronounce words fairly clearly but speak more rapidly than Costa Ricans. They use “vos” a lot more than in Costa Rica and have an interesting contraction, “ta” that is short for “esta bien” or “OK”. Kris comes from a German Menonite conclave about an hour from Montevideo so she’s bilingual and has dual citizenship, as do the kids. Ale speaks Spanish, English and Portuguese and supplements his pastoral salary with translation work.
I was very impressed with the work and plans of this church in Uruguay and look forward to seeing how we can partner with them more.
Today I welcome my brother into the wonderful world of his mid-forties. May they last for many years!
I’m used to a cheek to cheek kiss that is the typical greeting between men and women….but between men too?! Now I understand why my wife likes me to shave!
I went to church this morning at Faro where my new friend Ale is the pastor. He gave me a heads-up that this was a typical greeting and sure enough I brushed hairy cheeks with every man at church. Ouch!
Uruguay is hard soil. The president is a declared atheist and most of this population is indifferent to spiritual things. It is in this situation that Alejandro is ministering to those few who choose to follow Christ. I was encouraged to see a number of young people who are on fire for God. They are excited to grow and serve as young leaders.
They were also excited because Uruguay beat Colombia last night in the elimination rounds for the World Cup. This was all the more exciting because they did it in Bogota at over 7,000 feet elevation. There is nowhere to practice in Uruguay that is at that altitude and they have always felt taken advantage of by the Colombians. Go Uruguay!
It’s cold! I mean that damp to your bones type of cold. Low 40s and rain here in Uruguay. It’s quite a contrast from New Orleans yesterday. Alejandro met me at the airport and we’ve had a good time getting to know each other. I’m going to his house shortly to have barbeque with his young family. I’ll try to get some pictures, but cold rainy days don’t make for good shots.
Today was our shortened and intense day of strategic planning in New Orleans and we added in some debrief on the Gustav response as well as some initial planning for Ike. I am now in Miami about to board a flight to Uruguay. Gene is not able to come due to some home challenges (water has a way of causing a lot of damage), and Ike is due to visit Miami on Tuesday, the day I am scheduled to fly through on my way home. So I changed flights to get me through Miami on Monday and arrive home Tuesday morning. What a trip!
Doors continue to open. We concentrated in one neighborhood and by the afternoon everyone knew who the people in the green shirts were and why we’re here. We had a wonderful shrimp spaghetti made by Bo who has invited us back for his very special “very best in Houma” jambalaya. Mark and I were scouting areas that we heard had needs and saw a woman trying to carry her suitcases through the broken trees to her house. She had just arrived back from evacuating and was overwhelmed by the damage and her responsibility for a very elderly father. God brought us at just the right time to encourage and help her with the promise of a team to come clear and repair.
Crisis Response can be fun and exciting, but the purpose is not the work itself, it’s the connections made as we show the hands of Christ through holistic ministry. Tomorrow will be spent repairing equipment, sharpening saws and resting while the rest of us work on the plan for extending this type of ministry to have even more effective response both in the USA and around the world.
Do pray that our time tomorrow will be filled with good ideas and plans that will take this ministry to a new level.
I’ve written a bit more about the work in Louisiana at efcacrisisresponse.blogspot.com. There you can find more pictures and what we’re doing. It’s amazing to me that 48 hours ago I was in Costa Rica wondering if this trip was going to happen at all. Now I’m cutting, dragging and talking to people who are wide open to the gospel in a town I’ve never heard of before. Houma took a big hit with high winds from Gustav. From the way some trees are twisted and torn, it appears there may have been some small tornados as well. As of yesterday, we were the only ministry on the ground helping people get trees off roofs and bringing them food and water. A cornerstone principle of this type of ministry is that where crisis occurs a new mission field opens.
Yesterday Mark Lewis and I were searching for the disaster management center that we knew had to be around somewhere. We stopped next to a police car and told the officer what we are doing and asked if we could help him in any way. His eyes told the story of exhaustion and worry. His house was fine but his parents house had a tree on it and he had no opportunity in the near future to help. So he led the way to their home and we soon had a team there removing the tree. Soon the call went out on the police radio that there was a church group seeking to help officers and their families and as we were cleaning the first officer’s parents’ home two more squad cars drove up. They couldn’t believe we were really willing to help them and they were amazed as we took down their information so we could go to their homes. Yesterday morning we had no idea what doors God would open…now we are finding doors open into the law enforcement community. Pray that God would use this opportunity for something amazing.
I’m sitting in a man’s home who has a generator going and amazingly, has Internet working. He has lived here fifty years and says this is the worst storm ever to hit this area. It’s not on CNN, but the drama is real and people are in crisis.
Tonight the team will return to Covington and tomorrow we will do some consolidation of the strategic planning we’ve done as we’ve been together. We had the week all worked out….strategic planning and team building in Covington. God had other plans for the location but both goals are being accomplished.
Be sure to visit the efcacrisisresponse.blogspot.com blog to see more pictures.
TeamDuggan 
Recent Comments