September 9 through December 2, Dave and I
participated in Kenya Safari, Wycliffe’s field orientation course designed to
teach skills for living in remote settings.
We had worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators in South America fifteen years earlier but, because we’d made a short-term commitment then, only three
years, we didn’t need to take an orientation course. This time, though, in
Africa, we’d made a long-term commitment and had to take the course.
In South America, did we hear stories!
Friends and coworkers told us about their orientation, called Jungle Camp, in a
remote locale in the Chiapas area of southern Mexico.
Jungle Camp was more than an orientation
course—it was a survival course. They told me that participants who didn’t do
well in the three-month course were disqualified as members of Wycliffe.
They told stories of building their own
shelters in isolated jungle settings, of making their own mud stoves, and of learning how to butcher whatever
jungle critters they could find. They told stories of lots of hiking, and/or
riding mules over rough mountain trails, and paddling up rivers—some trips taking
two or three days—and sleeping in hammocks strung from trees.
Mickey Richards wrote this of her 1973 experience with her husband in Jungle Camp
during their five weeks of Main Base, the easiest part of their training:
“On an overnight trip . . . we stayed in the home of a family in a village we visited. We had dinner with the Tzeltals [an indigenous group]. . . . After singing songs and talking with people [in the Tzeltal language], we were shown our sleeping quarters. Behind the house was a wooden building of ill-fitting boards, and it was there we slept.
“Our bed was a set of wooden boards set up on sawhorses. We wore our clothes to bed that night, the same clothes we had worn during the day. We had brought our own blankets . . . but nothing to put under us, and it was extremely uncomfortable. . . .
“We could hear their hogs outside the building making grunting noises most of the night. Fleas were rampant, and they got inside of our pants and made us miserable.” (Read more from her blog post as well as from her book, A Joyful Life in God’s Hands, The Mickey Richards Story.)
After several
weeks at the Main Base, participants set out for Advanced Base, designed to
increase their skills and toughen them physically, mentally, emotionally, and
spiritually for the jobs they would soon begin in equally primitive locales.
Transitioning
into Main Base started with a long hike (for some it was an overnight hike). The
following is Rich Mansen’s account of that from his new memoir, Trail Posts: Defining Moments of My Life:
We all hiked together, campers, children and a few staff. Our destination: twenty miles across the savannah and into the rain forest, closer to the mountains and the Guatemalan border—yes, farther from the comforts of Main Base.
Mid-morning we crossed the first stream. Some got to ride over on a mule, the rest slung their boots across their shoulders and crossed on bare feet. Young children had it made—two or three on a mule or resting in the lap of a lady in the saddle.
By lunch break, sweating, aching and with canteens nearly empty, we didn’t care whether we ate or not. Flimsy straw hats shaded sunburned noses. We had tied our pant legs to keep out ticks, but they got in anyway. What a sorry sight—everyone sprawled on the ground, trying to catch a few moments’ rest or quietly picking off ticks. . . .
The next day we all spread out in search of suitable sites to build our champas. Each family or pair of singles had to locate at least 150 feet away from anyone else. Karis and I found an ideal place close to the river, our only source of water, and close to some wild cane. This was to be our new home turf.
The following day, we cut a short trail to the river and dug a latrine and garbage pit. Next, we started building our champa, using only machetes—no hammer, no saw, no nails, no rope. The wild cane served a multitude of purposes, from covering the roof to building furniture. Vines hanging from tall trees took the place of nails and rope.”
(I
encourage you to read Rich’s Trail Posts: Defining Moments of My Life. Many
years after this account, I worked with Rich in Colombia, South America. I wrote
about my three years there in my new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)
Jungle Camp training got only more difficult
from there.
Let me say
that again:
Jungle Camp
got only more difficult from there.
The stories I
heard scared me out of my wits.
I could never
do such things!
And then,
some fifteen years later,
I found
myself setting out
on my own
orientation course,
this one in
East Africa,
called Kenya
Safari.
Oswald Chambers, writing of those who face big challenges, told us to thank God when
we catch a vision of the reality of who and what we are compared to what we
know God wants us to be.
He’s
referring to our recognition of our immaturity, inexperience, and inadequate training;
our less-than-perfect physical, mental, and emotional condition; the state of
our spiritual health.
He writes,
“You have had the vision [of what you could be], but you are not there yet. . .
. It is when we are in the valley . . . that most of us turn back.
“We are not
quite prepared for the blows which must come if we are going to be turned into
the shape of the vision.
“We have seen
what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to have the
vision ‘batter’d to shape and use’ by God?” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)
Come back
next Monday
and I’ll tell
you about setting out for
our
orientation course, Kenya Safari.
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