DON’T GET DISENCOURAGED
by Erwin Bourne—March 20, 2002
Don’t lose patience over my spelling. I know my
missionary helpmate who never gets discouraged, will
catch this and try to correct the word. —But I won’t
let her. It’s a word coined by my old South Texas
friend, Colonel Edwards. Anyway, I am weary. Is this
a sin? Galatians 6:9 reads: Don’t get tired of doing
what is good. Don’t get discouraged and don’t give
up…. Colonel Edwards was watching some tiny ants
trying to move an object far bigger than they were.
Another person who passed by kicked dirt in their way
and Colonel said, “Ah, don’t disencourage ‘em!”
Aren’t we doing a good work? So why am I weary? For
one thing, Leticia’s power plant is giving us
increasingly more problems. Dark nights and
troublesome days. It’s a struggle for us to get
enough money out of our U.S. account to pay our high
electric bill at the Casa Grande. The telephone got
cut. When we have no phone, we have no fax or e-mail.
When we got enough money drawn from our stateside
account to pay the lights and phone, the city lights
became undependable. They fluctuated terribly. Too
bright or too dim! This is hard on refrigerators,
water pumps, and computers—anything run by a motor.
This is also hard on my nerves—no computer.
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all.
I have waited for months for the developments of
several large projects of Mission AMA. Though we’ve
prayed daily concerning these expensive
propositions, I felt like waiting on God to put
everything together. If I had to ride these ventures
of faith, maybe they were of human and not divine
origin. Galatians 6:9 continues: for we will reap a
harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.
Yesterday, when I finally could open my e-mails, I had
a most welcomed correspondence. An architect has been
so burdened about our major project that he can hardly
sleep. He wants more information, and wants to fly
here to study what he can do to assist us.
—Erwin and Jean Bourne