A church from across town used our facilities on Easter Weekend for a leadership retreat.
Here is a short clip from the leadership retreat.
Jambo blossoms will turn into a red fruit that tastes like strawberries and apples, with a twist.
I am still in touch with many of these friends.
I think God, in His blessings, redeems our memories.
I have the best memories of my seven years in the Yukon.
I could tell long stories about each photo.
“Big Charlie” was the chief of a band the last time I talked to his son, a couple of years ago. He ran the generators that provided electricity for Destruction Bay when I lived there.
Destruction Bay had a one-room schoolhouse with 12 students in grades 1-8. We also had a gas station, hotel, one RCMP, two park rangers, a post office lady, and a road maintenance crew of five. I started at the gas station and moved to the highway maintenance crew over time.
My truck is the blue one. We’re going prospecting.
My friend, Al, was still gold mining the last time I talked with him. While I lived in Destruction Bay, I helped him stake placer claims. We are prospecting here, but when Al found color, he soon moved his Cat and sluice boxes in.
This is Bella’s first trip home in seven years! Bella is our youngest daughter and married Tim Nielsen in June 2022. And everyone is delighted to meet Tim.
Many of Bella’s friends from church are still faithful.
Bella organized a painting for her friend’s children.
Tim, Ariela, Douglas, Anna, and Bella
Then their numbers decreased,
and they were humbled by oppression,
he who pours contempt on nobles
made them wander in a trackless waste.
But he lifted the needy out of their affliction
and increased their families like flocks.
The upright see and rejoice,
but all the wicked shut their mouths.
Let the one who is wise heed these things
and ponder the loving deeds of the Lord.
I lived in Destruction Bay, Yukon, for three winters, from 19-22. It was very cold. It is in the shadow of huge mountains, so for three months in winter, we could see the sunshine on the mountains across the lake, but we remained in the shadow. In summer, on the other hand, we had bright daylight all night long. The community of 32 people celebrated June 21st by starting a baseball game at midnight and ending hours later with barbecued t-bone steaks at the community hall. While I have many good memories of those years, it was also a season of binge drinking and excess, leading to a complete personal crisis for me and returning to God. When I committed my life to God 100%, I thought I had given up all fun and my life would turn dreary until I got to heaven. I was so wrong.
Life with Jesus has been vibrant and colorful, but I wonder how it would have been without the desert experience.
Forty years later, I overheard my mom describing their journey as I strayed farther from how I was raised. “Then he moved to Destruction Bay.” For her, it symbolized a prodigal son season of utter chaos. Thankfully Mom and Dad got many friends from their church to pray for me, and those prayers became pillars in our missionary support team ten years later.
This week I realized that the prodigal son becomes the child the father always wanted (Luke 15:11-32).
The son who did everything right struggled with entitlement and a judgemental critical spirit.
To be clear, I am not suggesting we intentionally engage with sin to experience God’s grace. Not at all. But God tailors special desert experiences for each of His children. He hopes to draw closer to them through these experiences, but many get hung up fighting their way around the trials. The way forward is through.
God is working hard to develop humans who will reign for eternity.
The Bible teaches us about God’s processes through stories. Consider three people from near the end of the book of Genesis.
Rebekah was highly capable and loved serving. She watered all of Abraham’s servant’s camels and then left her parents to journey to a far land to marry a stranger. Imagine the courage and the capacity to make things happen. But it got her in trouble.
When Rebekah was pregnant with twins, she prayed, and God told her the older son would serve the younger son (Gen. 25:32).
The Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”
(Gen. 25:23)
Rebekah conspired with her favorite younger son to deceive her husband to make God’s will happen. Her husband was blind in his old age. Jacob was hesitant, not because it was the wrong thing to do, but because he might get caught.
Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin. What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing” (Gen. 27:11-12).
Courageous Rebekah said, “It’s all on me.” She took it upon herself to fulfill God’s plans through deception, manipulation, and power-over. We never hear from her again.
Jacob continually struggled to get God’s blessing through human striving. Even near the end, he was upset with his sons for revealing to the Egyptian ruler they had a brother. One brother had to offer his children as a pledge so they could get more food in Egypt. He is one of the big three patriarchs, but one can see him crawling over the finish line.
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers” (Gen. 47:9).
Joseph, like Rebekah, gets a prophecy from God about the future.
Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had; for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.” Then his brothers said, “Are you going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words
(Gen. 37:5-8)
Joseph tells his brothers about his dream. They got furious. This is similar to Abel, who gave an acceptable offering to God, and his brother got furious. Giving the right offering or receiving God’s plan for your life is still a good idea. If we do not tell others what God has called us to do, we risk losing our call, forgetting our dream, and becoming normal.
Joseph’s brothers are slightly better than Cain. They narrowly avoid killing their brother, instead selling him into a lifetime of slavery.
The Bible gives a strong sense that Joseph embraced his chaos season, the season when nothing makes sense. Since Joseph embraced what he could not change, God blessed him. This reminds me of the famous Serenity Prayer.
Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed;
courage to change that which can be changed,
and wisdom to know the one from the other,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Of the three persons compared in this study, Joseph thrived to the end.
Leão pointed me in the direction of “the second most dangerous neighborhood in Gurupá” so I went for a walk. On the other side of that neighborhood, I found a trail through the bush. I walked down that trail for a mile or two until I met a guy on a bicycle. He told me the trail goes all the way to Porto de Moz. The trail was full of jungle flowers, and if you come to visit maybe we can arrange a trip so can see it.
Someone was drying cacao beans on one of the paved streets in town. This is where chocolate comes from.
Bomeliads and orchids grow wild and live off of other trees.
If you look at the bark on this tree, you will see many diagonal scars. The sap from these seringa trees makes rubber. That is the Amazon River in the background.
God is watching for people who choose His way.
Pilate thought he could stop Jesus’ crucifixion, but Jesus was 100% convinced of God’s control, even in the most chaotic moments.
So Pilate said to Him, “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin” (John 19:10-11).
Jesus, of course, was there at the foundation of the world, helping God transform chaos into life (John 1:1-4).
The Bible starts with the story of how God transformed the chaos waters into habitats teaming with life.
“. . . darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters . . . Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures. . . God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind (Gen. 1:1b-21a).
The first book of the Bible ends with another chaos-transformation story.
The first and last stories in Genesis are the same theology (Tim Mackie).
Note: Theology is the study of the nature of God.
Joseph’s brothers, who had committed a terrible crime against one of their own, begged forgiveness. Joseph gives a startling answer.
“But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them” (Gen. 50:19-21).
Genesis starts with stories of Adam, Eve, and Cain wanting to be in the place of God, to judge good and evil. Genesis ends with a story of a man who traversed the chaos tests and came out the other side as the ruler of the world, second only to Pharoh. In spite of this great promotion, Joseph continued to humbly walk with God, to choose to be the right person. “Am I in God’s place?“
Someone might think, “Yeah, but those are two random stories.” It’s actually the whole story. Joseph was born into a volatile situation where there were four moms . . . that was a huge problem (Gen. 30:1-24). Even before that, Joseph’s dad and grandma made a plot to deceive his grandpa and steal the blessing. God let Jacob keep the blessing but he entered 20 years of exile. Joseph’s mom’s dad, Laban, deceived Joseph’s dad and got him to marry someone he did not want to marry.
Deceiving another person is not ok with God, but as we keep giving our stories back to Him, and courageously continue to trust, He continually redeems impossible situations.
(Note: If there is a large power gap, you may need professional help. I make the following suggestion for peer relationships).
Think of someone who has betrayed you or a situation where you feel like a victim of circumstances. Pick the first one that comes to mind. Almost for sure your situation will not be at the level of Joseph’s betrayal, but still… Let’s say you have forgiven the person or people responsible, but they don’t seem to care. They act as if nothing happened, or like they were justified and you did the wrong thing. There is no reconciliation. Communication is formal, distant, or nonexistent.
What if God orchestrated events, as he did for Joseph so that your enemies desired reconciliation? Let’s say you are actively praying about the situation. You might ask yourself:
(1) What would they have to do to make things as right as possible? Identifying what they would have to do for you to be reconciled is a step toward inner peace, at least on your part. The chronic stress of things that are out of your control begins to lift because now you know a theoretical solution.
(2) Next you might ask yourself if your demands are reasonable. Rather than settle for a permanently unreconciled future, it may be helpful to work it out with God, at least in a theoretical sense, to imagine if there is anything reasonable the other party might do to make things as right as possible. If they did that, would you consider yourselves reconciled?
(3) Now imagine a best-case scenario. They actually admitted to doing something wrong, made things as right as possible, and asked for forgiveness. How would you respond?
(a) If you say, “What you did was evil,” you agree you judged them.
(b) If you say, “It was a good thing you did,” that might be another judgment.
(c) If you say, “It was nothing,” that would be a lie because it really hurt you for a long time. It was something.
(d) Consider Joseph’s words, “Am I in the place of God? You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” With this response, you agree with Jesus, that God is ultimately in control of everything. Now you are in the perfect place to make the best of things, even in your unreconciled desert season, or your exodus journey to the promised land. You can enjoy the quails and manna that show up out of nowhere. God will increase your capacity to appreciate His limitless blessings. An increased capacity to enjoy God’s blessing is better than increased blessings that you take for granted. Now you are training to be a person God can trust with authority.
God is looking for people who will hold true to His plan even when things stop making sense.
 |
| The cells got their instructions a bit tangled up. Some thought they should be a green leaf while others wanted to be a flower. The harmonious resolution. (Study the RH flower pedal). |
Young people everywhere love going fast, to live on the edge.
The spectacular Xingu River in front of Porto de Moz.
Paponha tastes like a combination of potatoes and hazelnuts and is exceptionally good with strong sweet coffee when you are really hungry, and there is no other food around.
Deanna and I took two boats like this to get to Gurupá, with an overnight in between in Porto de Moz.
On the way home we got a ride on a barge or ferry, twenty-two hours on the boat, and then eight hours in our car, and we were home.
The rain clouds broke open over Porto de Moz while we were there.
The Porto de Moz sunset.
The river front in Gurupá.
Gurupá from the lineboat.
We spoke both nights to leaders in Gurupá.
Edna, the pastor of the Gurupá church, works at this city facility that helps special-needs students.
One of the towns along the TransAmazon Highway on our way home.
We got a liter of açai in Porto de Moz and had a relaxing supper on the line boat with some cheese, ham, and peanuts. Can you see that happily exhausted feeling of a good trip, when you are on your way home with only about 20 hours to go?
