Lost in Translation

I just finished one of my projects for the year (nothing like last-minute work, heh?). Please visit our new seminary website:

Seminario Bautista de Colombia

Por favor visíte nuestro nuevo sitio web del Seminario Bautista de Colombia.

I finished about two weeks ago the biography on Jonathan Edwards by Ian Murray. Excellent and very interesting! My new goal is to start reading more of Edwards, seeing as I share his name, he is John Piper´s inspiration (Piper says he´s trying to be a 21st Century Edwards), and his theology is challenging to me.

A new guy at church loaned me Edward´s Religious Affections in Spanish, so I´ve started reading it. I was at the biggest Christian book warehouse in Bogotá today and noticed a whole section by the same publisher, called Faro de Gracia. They are publishing helpful Reformed books in Spanish, especially for pastors. What a blessing to see more and more good materials in Spanish!

Today started early at about 4:30 a.m. as Marcos woke me up. I got up, made some coffee (yes, I love Colombia!), and opened my new Bible (la Biblia de las Américas) to Jeremiah 24, where God says, "My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart" (NIV). I was thinking about how today was such a crucial day for our church. We were going to vote on whether to accept Daniel as the new pastor. I didn´t think there was much chance humanly speaking because I had talked to a member last night about the vote, and he said he wasn´t going because he didn´t feel peace about the selection process; you gotta love boycotts of church business meetings.

Things didn´t look promising at church as we got everything ready. José and I had done the count, and apparently we had the potential to have a quorum, but everyone we were planning on had to show up. During the break between Sunday School and church I noticed Alvaro who had not been able to be at church for a month. Blanca showed up, who had been gravely ill for about two months. God was at work!

When we started the meeting we ended up with one more person than the quorum we needed. Of 37 members we had a total of 27 people to vote (we needed 70% of the members to have the meeting). We ended up voting for Daniel with 22 votes in favor, for a percentage 81% in favor!

We also approved three deacons and the rest of the administrative committee.

Later we went to Bogotá to see our friends Nic and Megan and their 3 new adopted kids! They now have five, and in my opinion they are heroes. I´ve mentioned their blog before... check it out -- Colombian Brewed

Here´s the little man! He was born at 9:11 p.m. on Nov. 14th.

I´ve begun to work on the initial research to write an article on la malicia indígena, or native cunning. I´d seen other translations of the phrase in English, but they sounded terrible. For example, "Indian malice," which is very misleading because malice and malicia are not the same thing. I wrote about the concept a while back under the title Reading between the lines.

My hope is to get published in the Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ), but obviously I have to write the article, and it has to be good enough. I honestly think that the idea for the article merits attention, but maybe not everyone else does.

I´m considering the title "The truth of the gospel in Colombia," with a focus on how the gospel should change many Colombian practices related to this "native cunning." Jorge Morales, speaking about la malicia indígena, says, "According to popular opinion, it´s a “combination of creativity, astuteness, prudence, and hypocrisy” which are “sufficient to make up for underdevelopment evident in education, poverty and abandonment by the State."

We´ve seen a number of ways in which the native cunning is made manifest in the ministry here. To note a few: manipulating, lying, taking advantage of others, mistrust, slandering, expressing a victim mentality. Now I know that these examples are not unique to Colombia, but what was new was the subtlety in which these sins are expressed. We´ve seen some masters at lying and giving false impressions. I´d never run into something similar in the U.S.

I want to focus in on how we should deal with these actions from a biblical point of view. What do you do when you have two people in your church fighting about the same issue and explaining the situation in completely opposite ways? (Say you´re going to cut their baby in half.) How can a missionary not get a completely negative attitude toward Colombian culture? (Have close Colombian friends.)

At any rate, you get the idea. If you have any ideas, let me know.

I just finished reading The Five Dysfunctinos of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. I would recommend the book, not for being profound but for clearly portraying something that I´ve seen happen here in Colombia. His book can be summarized in the pyramid illustration that he uses, which includes the following levels from the base on up: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, inattention to results.

For me the point that most interested me was the fear of conflict. According to the author, in a good team there should be healthy conflict. If there´s no conflict in meetings, that shows that something is wrong, probably that there is a lack of trust because people are afraid of what others will say. This lack of trust leads to a fear of conflict, and when people don´t express their thoughts openly, they don´t commit. When there´s no real committment there´s no accountability and without accountability we can all do what we want with inattention to results.

I recommend this book for executives, pastoral staffs, and missionary teams. I think that it crystalizes some neglected concepts about working as a team.

We´ve been working on a number of different fronts to wrap up things here in Chía before we head back to the States on Feb. 9th. First, we need to leave the church with a national pastor and all of our ministries covered. God has answered prayers, and we have two candidates for pastor--Daniel and Pedro. I think that either one would be good, but we just worked up a plan today about how the church is going to be able to get to know them and finally choose their pastor. As far as our ministries, the goal is to step down in the middle of November from almost all of our responsabilities (Holly has the excuse of having a baby) and just guide and give feedback as necessary.

We´re also working on our plans for the following term. At this point we´re looking at working in Cali, a city of about 2.2 million people. We need to work through a myriad of details with the mission team here before this can happen, but God can work it all out.

The other project is our furlough. We need to prepare our new missionary presentation and set up meetings for 2009. In the midst of these different challenges, we know that God can work out all of the details for us.

We´ve been teaching a class on hermeneutics in church on Friday nights. It´s been a lot of fun. We just covered textual criticism and Bible versions in Spanish. José and I are hoping to upload the whole course to our church website in the future.

The course also reminded me of a professor whom I´ve never had but who has taught me a lot. Rodney Decker is a professor at Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA. You can access his valuable website here. I also just ran across the faculty site for Thomas Schreiner, who is a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His commentary on Romans is my favorite for that book (and Romans is my strongest suit in commentaries).

Estoy trabajando en las notas para este viernes en el curso de Hermenéutica y encontré un recurso muy útil en español acerca de la crítica textual y otros asuntos del estudio bíblico. De hecho, es impresionante ver todo lo que este señor ha hecho en sus numerosos sitios web.

Criticismo bíblico

José subió la página de la Federación Bautista Fundamental Independiente a la que pertecemos para que la conozcan...

Bautistas en Colombia

José uploaded the webpage for the fellowship of Baptists churches with whom we fellowship so you can get to know them...

I just ran across two free resources on internet. First, the Peacemaker brochure is available as a free download on their website. If you haven´t heard of Peacemaker Ministries, you need to look at their materials because they are a real blessing for developing a culture of peace in the church. Their website is www.peacemaker.net. and you can access the brochure at Peacemaker materials in other languages

The other site is The Gospel Coalition which now has Themelios Journal online for free. I perused the issue online and read one good article on the definition of "mission," a topic that is of great importance. What is "mission"? For many it has become only the Missio Dei or the social mandate, but the author argues that "mission" should be defined by the Great Commission. Good stuff!

We went this week on a trip to Neiva (6 hours to the southwest of Bogotá) to rest and also investigate the possibility of church planting there. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and the heat actually for me wasn´t as bad as everyone says. Holly said it was hot, but in comparison to a humid Iowa July day it wasn´t bad. We were able to travel to a desert about 45 minutes northeast of Neiva which was really interesting. We also traveled to a dam about an hour to the south of Neiva. As always it was fascinating to see how different the geography of the country is. It reminded me of Arizona in some ways.

As far as church planting, the city has a need, but we found that the location is not central enough for branching out to other cities. We talked to one Baptist pastor who is serving faithfully.

I haven´t had a chance to blog about anything because the team that was with us just left on Tuesday and we´ve been trying to catch up this week. Last week while we were with the group we heard the best news for Colombia we´ve heard in a while. Ingrid Betancourt, the three American hostages and 11 Colombians were rescued by the Colombian military from the FARC guerrillas. When we saw the announcement on TV, I was moved emotionally. The operation was a huge strike against terrorism in this country because the FARC lost their most important hostages and the way that the military tricked the guerrillas shows that they´re closer and closer to defeat.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with the group from Campus Baptist Church. In fact, nothing went wrong on the trip. We didn´t have any troubles; everyone had a great time; we had about 65-70 kids total in our basketball camp and were able to teach them the eight essential truths about the gospel (God, man, sin, death, Christ, cross, faith, life) in relation to basketball. On Saturday, 23 kids came to a youth activity at our church and 10 made professions of faith in Christ. As I was meditating on the liberation of Ingrid, I thought about how she was a captive when she woke up on July 3, 2008. But later in the day she was rescued and free. This is exactly what happens when someone places their faith in Jesus Christ. They are rescued and set free!

Today we spent almost all day shopping for food for the missions team that is coming down tomorrow. 16 people are coming down from our sending church, Campus Baptist of Ames, Iowa. God has blessed with the preparation for the trip, as it looks like a good number of teens have signed up for the camp (70 had already signed the last time I checked), and more will surely sign up (we´re shooting for about 100-120). The team should Lord-willing get in tomorrow night at about 8:45 p.m., so we´ll be getting to Chía about 10:30-11 p.m. We´ll have an orientation day on Saturday, then church on Sunday, a camp prep day on Monday, the camp from Tuesday to Friday, a youth activity on Saturday, church on Sunday, a trip on Monday and then on Tuesday they´ll be heading off.

I also just wanted to plug the blog of Nic and Megan Olson: Colombian Brewed. They are a couple from one of our supporting churches in Minnesota, and already have adopted two Colombian babies. The amazing thing is that they are working towards adopting a sibling group of children between 0-10 years of age. We consider it a privilege to know Nic and Megan and pray that God would bless them richly in this new adventure.

I just ran across a free online seminary, called Biblical Training. They offer courses for new believers, foundational courses, and upper-level courses.

Biblical Training

They also have a page of links to other online courses with other institutions.

Other online courses

I think that buying an iPod was one of the best things I´ve done to grow in wisdom. Since we got ours last year, I don´t know how many hours of good lectures and sermons I´ve listened to while I wash dishes or jog. It´s been a real blessing.

I started reading David Brainerd´s diary this week, which is included in the works of Jonathan Edwards. I was struck by his constant desire to be closer to the Lord. He definitely wasn´t perfect, as he speaks of constant bouts of discouragement and melancholy. The interesting thing was to think of how I´ve felt similarly many times, wondering what I´m doing in the ministry, and then coming back to the truth that it´s not about us. It´s about our Savior. The gospel message keeps us humbled and dependent on Christ.

On a related note, I started The Way to Joy discipleship material with one of my disciples, and I think that it´s helping me to expand my understanding of the gospel. Sometimes we think that the gospel is a series of three facts (death, burial and resurrection of Christ), which it is, but it´s more. Because the whole message of the Bible points towards Christ, and without that context a person won´t understand the gospel.

José and I have been talking about where our church members are at spiritually. We came up with a list of ministry competencies (what we want each disciple to understand and do), and now we´re developing a questionaire to evaluate where they´re at. It´s a little scary to begin thinking about this. For example, how many of our members shared the gospel with someone this week? Or, how many have a consistent devotional time each day? How many are giving faithfully on a regular basis? I think that simply asking the questions is going to help us as a church.

I thought that I´d mention two resources that may be of blessing or challenge:

Web site of Ron and Val Berrus (two of my heroes from ABWE). They have a ton of great discipleship, church-planting, and spiritual discipline resources.

Acts 29 network. This is something new for me, so I don´t understand all about this group, but the two messages I´ve listened to have been a real blessing and challenge. Have you heard of missional living? If not, check it out.

We were planning to spend most of our week in Barranquilla on our survey trip to the Colombian coast but ended up spending as much time in Santa Marta because after two days of work in Barranquilla we realized that it´s not the best place for us to start. We saw a directory of churches that listed around 800 churches in Barranquilla. Of these there are at least 35 Baptist churches. Granted most are Pentecostal now, but we decided that we don´t want to have to work in that type of environment, at least for our first church plant. In constrast, Santa Marta, a city of around 400,000 (or up to 600,000 in some estimates), has only one Baptist church. We weren´t able to talk to the pastor but asked if the pastora (lady pastor) was around. The girl told us that the pastora would be there later in the afternoon. Scott asked when their healings service was, and the girl said on Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

As you can see from this example, it´s really not that hard to figure out when a church isn´t fundamental here. That said, Santa Marta is now looking like our number one possibility for a future church plant. The three of us left enchanted with the place and the need for sound churches is evident. Please continue to pray with us!

NASA image of Barranquilla on the Magdalena River and Caribbean coast

I fly out this evening with Alfredo and Scott to Barranquilla on the Colombian coast. The goal is to do an investigative study of the churches and need in this city. We have set a goal of interviewing 63 pastors in this week, and I also plan to talk to a seminary director. We also want to understand the cost of living in Barranquilla.

Of the main cities on the coast, this one seems like the best possibility for future church planting because it is the most industrialized and doesn´t rely on tourism so much. Cartagena is busy during vacation times, but for more than half of the year the people don´t have work and that makes it more difficult to serve as a future hub for church planting. Barranquilla is also the most centrally-located city on the coast.

I´m looking forward to the trip and praying that God will give us direction for future ministry. The time without José in Chía has helped me see that serving as a pastor alone is not my calling. I struggle on the pastoral side of things, as far as visitation and running after sheep that have strayed. Our pastoral intern Wilder has more gifts in that area, which is a blessing, but it also makes me feel bad when he asks "Have you called so-and-so?" and I haven´t. Obviously I need to grow in this area, but at the same time I know that some people are gifted for it and others are not.

I sometimes ask the Lord what I´m doing here as I seem to struggle to find the role for which I am gifted. For example, I´ve had a real burden for evangelism and reaching out to our neighbors, but it´s often difficult to work that area of the ministry while guiding the church, preparing messages and lessons, and preparing for an upcoming seminary class I´ll be teaching in a two weeks. I sometimes wonder how good I am at balancing things. I can balance things to "maintain" the ministry, but it´s hard for me to help it grow when I have several ministry roles to fulfill. For that reason I like these trips to other parts because I can focus in on one thing and do it well.

Please pray for my trip and God bless!

I was just directed to some good courses in Spanish that use the Moodle platform that we will be using for ABWE´s distance education. I was invited to take one of the courses, but I think that I will see if I can enroll our pastoral intern, Wilder, in the course.

Desarrollo Cristiano Bíblico

Proverbs 6:6-8 (NKJV) "Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest."

I´ve been preaching a series of messages on Proverbs and have been meditating on the them every morning. This morning I read the proverb above and thought, "Wow, that´s a perfect description of a good missionary." Being on the mission field I hardly have anyone who directs what I do each day. You pastors know how that is too. On one hand it´s liberating and on the other hand frightening. The question that constantly haughts me is, "Am I doing what´s most important as a missionary?"

I definitely think that "doing ministry" is not the place of a missionary. But it´s so easy to fall into that trap. I "do the ministry" when I preach, teach, counsel, etc. without thinking about training anyone to do the same. As the old addage says, "Teach them to fish. Don´t just give them a fish."

On a practical level our church started this week with Wilder as our ministry intern. The church is going to be paying him for a year to study and work with us. This Sunday he´s going to be preaching his first sermon. In spite of a lot of failures on my part as a missionary, I don´t think that we can lose with this idea because after a year Wilder will be more equipped then he is now. He´ll have learned a lot, and he´ll be able to avoid many pitfalls that José and I have fallen into.

Last week we were in Girardot, Colombia (about 2 1/2 hours down the mountain) for the conference we have with all of the ABWE Spanish-speaking missionaries every four years. It was a great week. In my opinion the highlight was the Good Soil evangelism training that we received. ABWE has already published "The Way to Joy" discipleship book, which is for new Christians, and they are beta testing the "Story of Hope" evangelistic study. To access, go to CEIM Resources

I highly recommend these resources. The evangelistic study is especially good, as it covers the 40 most important events in the Bible so the person can capture the big picture, and also includes the Bridge to Life, which includes the six essential concepts someone needs to grasp to be saved (God, Man, Sin, Death, Christ, Cross, Faith, Life).

What really struck me is how I´ve often short-circuited the process of evangelism, skipping over key concepts or not explaining the story line of the Bible. In our culture here, you may get "decisiones" but the person may not have truly understood the message of hope.

The course was especially timely since I´m going to be teaching an evangelism course at church next week.

We´re moved in to our new house in Chía, which is a great blessing. The house is a little smaller than the one we had in Bogotá, but has some nice features. It has a big patio out back with a grill, so maybe we can have people over for a grill-out. The house also has hot water, but I´m not sure how great that will be when the electric bill comes. The neighbors have been great... in one week we´ve noticed the difference in culture from Bogotá to a smaller pueblo (okay, 100,000 people isn´t that small). The neighbors actually have a minute to chat, and we´ve been able to talk to a number of them.

One negative is that the phone line was cut because the bill wasn´t paid on time, so we don´t have a telephone nor Internet. Sorry for the lack of communication.

We´ll be in a conference next week also, so we probably won´t feel totally settled for a while.

On the church front things have been going pretty well. We´re looking at the possibility of working with Wilder, a young man from our church, full-time in the ministry. We proposed the idea to the members on Sunday and will vote on the idea next Sunday. He would be like a pastoral intern for a year, working with us in every aspect of the ministry.

Just wanted to mention that we finished our church website and you can access it at:

I just ran across a great photo of the team from our church that helped us do the couples´ retreat in October... looking back on 2007, that retreat was one of the biggest blessings of the year, as we saw teamwork, a great weekend, and a number of spiritual decisions.