“HARDSHIPS AND CALAMITIES”
February 5, 2002
Dear Friends of Flying World Mission,
This is not a “tough-luck” story. We are not crying
on anybody’s shoulder. We are enduring “hardness, as a
good soldier of Jesus Christ” (II Timothy 2:3 KJV).
The Apostle went so far as to write, “I am quite
content with my…hardships …and calamities” (II Cor.
12:10 NLT). In fact he included more: “weaknesses
and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and
calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
It was somewhat a hardship when Leticia had
continuous power failures. I wrote back in November
2001, “Personally, I am seriously inconvenienced with
power failures not being able to send faxes, make
important telephone calls, or dispatch urgent internet
messages. I am not receiving financial reports from
the states, nor letters from the family, nor am I
able to communicate with critical business affairs
around the world.”
We just had another power failure at 9:30 PM. In
which I lost the next two paragraphs which I must
rewrite. I had written about a good diesel light
plant which we had bought as standby for the Casa
Grande. We still owe $2,000.00 on this generator.
This former is the “hardship” part of this article.
The “calamity” is the wreckage of our large “Balsa”
(or boathouse down on the Amazon below the Casa
Grande.
On a bad stormy night, the “Balsa” broke loose from
its moorings and drifted into another balsa doing
damage for which we had to pay. We also had to pay
the man who rescued our drifting “Balsa” on this
stormy night and pushed it onto a sandbar down near
the port. There it collapsed. We had also suffered
heavy loss of equipment stored within the boathouse.
I had been praying about how we could remodel this
very necessary property of the mission. It definitely
was in bad repair before this calamity, wondering how
we could replace some of the old balsa logs on which
it was built. Now I have the answer. We must build a
new “Balsa” patterning it somewhat like the old one.
This is so we can keep the same registration number
and the same anchoring location. It will be the “old”
made “new.” This will cost the Mission AMA in the
neighborhood of $7,000.00. The river launch must have
a balsa to anchor to when it returns from its
church-building trips in Amazonas. Also we need
anchorage for our smaller craft.
How many shipwrecks did the Apostle Paul witness?
Hardships and calamities are a part of missionary work
on the Amazon. Do you sense the need? We have the
courage. We do not have the funds. Can you help us?
Yours for OUTREACH AMAZON
—Erwin and Jean Bourne