Rivers Baptist Church - Christ alone - and Him crucified

3rd June 2008

Thanks for your prayers for my trip to Columbia. We got there and back safely and without incidents. That in itself was a real answer to prayer.
Our adventure began with a bus ride to San Cristobal (a Venezuelan city near the border), then a taxi ride to Cucuta (a city just inside of Columbia), and then a bus ride to our destination, Bucaramanga. The first bus ride had covered about 1000km in 15 hours. The taxi covered about 30km but took us 5 hours but most of that time we were stopped in border queues including a checkpoint to check how much fuel the taxi was taking into Columbia. (Fuel in Venezuela costs less than $0.05 per litre whereas in Columbia a poorer quality grade of fuel costs what we pay back home in Australia. Thus checkpoints out of Venezuela check that vehicles do not have any more than a standard tank of fuel. The fuel was pumped out of our taxi and they measured it. Although our taxi had within the legal limit they only returned half of it… (Rumour has it that each night they sell what they confiscate). The last bus ride took 8 hours to complete the 180kms of winding highway through the mountains. This last part reminded me of many of my journeys along the better roads throughout the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Our buses and taxis flaunted with danger on numerous occasions by overtaking with no idea of whether there was traffic coming around the next bend! In our last bus ride there our driver was so tired that I was assigned the duty of talking to him so that he didn’t fall asleep. The trip there took 30 hours from when our bus left the bus terminal.

The trip was a real eye-opener. Firstly it challenged my belief of how dangerous a country it is. It was good to see cities that do not live in fear from the guerrillas that have marred Columbia’s international reputation. High fences are a common sight in most South American cities but yet Alex’s in-laws live in a house with no fence and without a guard patrolling the street.

I had sensed Alex’s excitement in my seeing 'his' church (the one that was instrumental in his coming to the Lord last year and the one that he had previously thought was the best). With about 8000 members it is Bucaramanga's biggest church. Whilst I appreciated the experience I felt completely uneasy throughout the whole service. The few occasions when they referred to Scripture they took verses out of context. There was over an hour in which the pastor preached health and prosperity (with no Biblical foundation) during which he publically 'humiliated' those who had reneged on their 'faith' promise to the church... (He asked all such folk to come to the front where they were 'preached to' for half an hour on how failure to complete a promise negates the blessing God wanted to give them... Give first... then God will bless). Admittedly the pastor did pray for them that God would bless them so that they could fulfil their promise to the church. The pastor then spent another 25 minutes preaching 4 church rules such as "2. No one may sell anything in or around the church property" & "3. No one may purchase anything from the street vendors around the church". As if the explanation of such rules weren’t bad enough he explained that the rules did not apply to the official church shops which obviously have a special concession from the wrath of God because they generate funds for the church building programme! When we left my ‘rebel’ nature really wanted to stop at every street vendor outside the church and buy something from each of them but I thought it probably not the most tactful way of expressing my dislike of that church. When we got back to the car I was thrilled when Alex told me how 'annoyed' he was at the church... Alex has come a long way over the past year. When he had been part of that church he saw nothing wrong with it but now he does. Next time we're back in Bucaramanga we're both going back to the church specifically to buy from the street-sellers!

That particular church was the 2nd of 3 churches we visited (Carolina's church, His church and the church of the pastor who married them). He has asked me what I thought of each of them and I have told him they were like Goldilocks and the 3 bears... with the third one being the best (but still with one major problem). I honestly but tactfully explained that all three of them are majorly flawed with a prosperity doctrine that obliges God to provide material blessing to His people. I firmly believe that God wants to bless His people with material blessings at times but He does so because He is sovereign not because His people ‘claim’ this right. And I also know that God has blessed us at times through the absence of money and possessions, and that such times were important times of spiritual growth for us. On the way back to Venezuela we spent the whole day discussing and looking at Scripture and over the course of that day Alex now sees the Prosperity Doctrine from a very different perspective to what he did. At church on Sunday I overheard him talking to someone on this topic and he repeated his own version of something I had said... that the best prayer for the poor of South America is not that God will bless them with riches but rather that God will give them wisdom to wisely use even the little they have. I see Alex as someone whom God has given me to invest time and energy, and in return God has given me a great friend and someone with whom I have mutual accountability. I praise God for our friendship.

Geof