Church de-construction

After a second attempt we managed to land in Juaibor. The cows on the airstrip had forced the pilot to change the direction at which he approached the airstrip. The village was out to welcome the plane and curious to see what it had come to bring to them, some of the pastors were there to welcome me. It is always great to see these men. There’s a sense of excitement in me whenever I see them, there is great potential for church growth and strengthening represented in these men.
This quote by CS Lewis is a truth i seek to grasp for my life and ministry both here and back home… “You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors… Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”
The next day I visited the church premises and found the men busy at work, taking down their church building, or rather, whatever of it that was left. The elders were in their work clothes pulling down the walls of the mud structure, gathering the grass from the old church roof to help thatch the roof of their “prophet’s chamber”. By the time I walked in my friend Peter Kuol had been stung by a scorpion twice in the arm. The old thatch roof was crawling with them. Somehow he was not in pain, nor did the poison affect him. He might have managed to shake them off before they got the poison in. God was gracious to Him. I stuck around for an hour or two, tried to help them get some work done but they would not let me do much because of the wound on my hand. Before I left, we had killed two more snakes which came from the bundles of grass that we were moving into a nearby hut. They caused mild drama for the team.
It was great to see the church leadership at work like that. The ladies helping to prepare the food and the men breaking sweat under the sun. These folks love their church and to know that EBC was sacrificing to help out people who were doing their utmost to provide their church with a meeting place was encouraging and challenging.
We spent the evening with the Juaibor team discussing the prosperity gospel. Then we all turned in early.