Hurry up and Wait!

That’s what it was…a fascinating eleven days of hurry up…and wait!
It started out well enough: we drove to the Monteria airport in excellent time, and flew to Bogotá without a hitch. David had excellent meetings at the U.S. embassy with people interested in what he is doing. Then the flight from Bogotá to Quito was delayed because it was raining hard in Quito… the flight took off and circled over Quito 45 minutes and finally went back to Cali, Colombia, then Bogotá…. Two additional, aborted flights later and it was 1:00 a.m. in Bogota, and Avianca airlines finally decided to put all 200 of us in a hotel. We finally got to Quito at noon the next day.
Fortunately, David’s friend Luis met us at the airport, and helped us find the bus station, and we caught a bus for the 5 hour trip to the border town of Tulcán. There is a Colombian consulate in Tulcán, and that was our target. After a night in a very inexpensive hotel ($7 per person!) near the bus station, we got up early and found the Colombian consulate, arriving when it opened at 8 a.m. The guard let us in, along with other “clients,” but no one important showed up until 9:00 a.m.
Finally at 11:00 a.m. the Consul’s assistant saw us and informed us that two of our papers would have to be re-done: one had the name of the Consul wrong, and one was out of date: all such papers have to be written and sealed within 30 days of presenting them. So then we hurried to find a telephone and make calls to see what could be done about our incorrect documents. One of them could be re-done by our agency, but could not possibly reach us until Thursday or Friday (this was Wednesday). About the other paper, no one was sure what to do: there was no chance of “re-doing” it: the person who had written it was traveling and we did not know how to locate him. Also, looming in the near future was the fact of Semana Santa (Holy Week) when everything shuts down and nothing can be done.
So, we prayed. We moved to a slightly better hotel! We scrounged around the neighborhood looking for a lawyer, a notary public…anyone who could add the correct name of the Consul to our faulty document. Finally, we found a travel agent who loaned us a typewriter, and we typed in the correct name! Amazingly, the Consul graciously accepted this change.
There was now absolutely nothing for us to do except wait until Friday for the other document. So on Thursday we took a bus (3 hour ride) to the lovely town of Otavalo and enjoyed the artisan market there, as well as a coffee shop with exquisite coffee and Tiramisú…we certainly weren’t suffering all the time!
On Friday David headed across the border to the Colombian town of Ipiales where our document from Bogotá was supposedly waiting for us. Only it wasn’t: there had been a landslide in the mountains and the packet would come in the afternoon. So we waited around in the Colombian Consulate some more, had lunch, and David went back across the border to get the packet… Got it!
Late Friday afternoon, all of our papers were duly turned in to the Consulate….but, they now tell us, the application has to be sent to Bogotá....and then sent back to Tulcán. “Come back,” says the lady, “on Monday afternoon. Not Monday morning, but Monday afternoon. Hopefully, it will be ready then.”
Hopefully! We have already missed our Friday flight back to Colombia, so David negotiates with Avianca airlines for a possible flight on Tuesday or Thursday—which is all they have open. Meanwhile, we have a week-end to “kill,” and opt to spend it in Otavalo again, rather than Tulcán. Tulcán is an ugly little town with a piercing, damp cold due to its location in the mountains at about 9,000 or 10,000 feet.
So back on the bus to Otavalo, where we enjoy a nicer hotel still, nice restaurants, the artisan market at its biggest and busiest on Saturday, a glimpse of beautiful snow-capped mountains, and a waterfall to hike to. Our week-end there was a lovely gift in the middle of “hurry up and wait.” If you have to wait anywhere, we heartily recommend Otavalo!
Monday morning and back to Tulcán. The bus trip is getting old by now…and Tulcán is as rainy and cold as ever. But the hotel desk clerk informed us immediately that someone from the Colombian Consulate had been by on Friday to say that our residencies had come from Bogotá! We can hardly believe our ears! Perhaps our speculating about what to do if the visas didn’t come was unnecessary.
The Consulate is closed between noon and 2:30, but we were there at 2:30 to wait in the waiting room some more, and by 4:00 p.m. had met with the Consul’s assistant. We had to run out and do a bunch of photocopies, and then wait some more….but by 5:00 p.m. we had our passports in our hands with the precious Residency Visas stamped in them. Thank you, Lord!!
At that point we had missed the opportunity to reserve the Tuesday Avianca flights to Colombia, so we spent one last night in Tulcán and gladly left that cold, rainy town on Tuesday morning and got to Quito about 6 hours later. On Wednesday we were able to see an LAM friend and missionary, visit with a contact of David’s, eat the unique Easter week meal of Fanesca with Luis and his family, and see a bit of downtown Quito and its incredible churches and museums.
4:00 a.m. the next morning we were up and off to the airport: one flight to Bogotá, another to Monteria, and a two-hour drive home. No more hurry up and wait—at least, not, for now, in Ecuador.
Hurry up…and wait is often how God works. Sometimes (maybe most of the time) He is doing things we know nothing about. Sometimes He is working on our character; or on the heart of another person. Our experience has been, in the past and in this trip, that not only does He know what He is doing, but in the midst of the “hurry” He gives His peace and in the midst of the “wait” He gives extraordinary gifts.

From the Sublime to the….not so Sublime!

On the Bus
Sublime were the views out of the bus windows: the beautiful green mountains of Ecuador, just outside of Quito. Then, shortly after that there were craggy, rocky mountains with cacti spotting them here and there: prickly pear and agave, and a small, fuzzy cactus that I thought at first was a flower. Later on we could look down from the bus on green rolling hills with a patchwork quilt of fields, reminiscent of Austria or Switzerland, or up at mountains planted in pine or Eucalyptus. And always, in the background, were the Big Guys, purple or blue, and once in the morning sun, green and tan: the Andes.
Most of the time the Big Guys were shrouded in clouds, but one morning from the Consulate window we caught a glimpse of snow-capped mountain, so we kept watching for the clouds to clear. Then on Sunday morning, in Otavalo, when we got up: there they were with no clouds in the way: stark and craggy and searingly beautiful, with a dusting of snow on the top. Even their names are intimidating and beautiful: Cotacachi and Imbabura.
We also enjoyed the snacks on the bus! At many a stop, vendors would get on the bus selling drinks, hot meals, and many things we had never seen. We tried a packet of seeds called havas, which look like large, brown lima beans, and probably are related to the lima bean in some way. They were as delicious as walnuts, cashews or Brazil nuts. Another time we tried a bag of hard corn kernels mixed with soft kernels, tomato, onion and ají—yum! Ecuador has hundreds of varieties of corn. The apples were delicious, too, crisp and tart.
One very cold morning as we left Tulcán, David bought me breakfast from a lady vendor: it turned out to be a piping hot cob of corn with large, pulpy kernels, and a piece of white, soft cheese. Best breakfast I’ve had in a long time!
Not so sublime were “hawkers” who would get on the bus, with its captive audience, and proceed to spin a “sob story” or sell the local equivalent of old-time snake oil. We were always glad when they got off.
But just as bad, or worse, were Action Movies from the U.S. that were shown almost non-stop on the buses. One could turn one’s head and look at the glorious view, but one could not help hearing the groans, thumps, explosions and gun-fire...not to mention the amazingly fluent Spanish of Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta or Jean-Claude Van Damme. We didn’t see any Clint Eastwood, but assume he has developed perfect Spanish in Ecuador as well! We will never know how some of those movies ended, since we had to get off the bus... But we now understand a bit better the lamentable reputation the U.S. has abroad, thanks to such “action figures.”
The Consulate
The Colombian Consulate in Tulcán had a very nice waiting room: not sublime, exactly, but comfortably furnished. We should know: we spent hours there. Unfortunately, the temperature was frigid, but that’s because it was about 40 degrees everywhere in Tulcán: on the street, in the hotel, in the shower...in the consulate...you get the picture.
The staff at the consulate were courteous. Unfortunately, they could not allow us to use the bathroom, as it was out of order. This made waiting for hours in a cold room interesting, to say the least. Part of staff courtesy, apparently, is keeping a television on in the waiting room at all times, for the viewing pleasure of those who are waiting. We can now tell you, if you wish, all about the Ecuadoran equivalent of “Good Morning, America” and of the Soap Operas that come on at 11 a.m. Unfortunately, we will never know what happens to some of those people with their heart-rending lives. By comparison, waiting for hours to find out whether we were getting a visa or not was a mere picnic!
Ecuador is a beautiful country: we will remember with joy its stunning mountain vistas, delicious foods and the indigenous people in their colorful native dress. If we had to go somewhere outside Colombia and the U.S., and had to “hurry up and wait” for eleven days to get our visas, we are grateful we got to see and experience Ecuador, with the sublime and the ridiculous. We are richer by far than when we left—(although not in pesos or dollars!)—and not only in residency visas.
God is always good!

Our Trip To Nova

On a sunny afternoon David needs to go to Nova: a place out in the boonies where an entrepreneurial lady has been persistently asking him to come help start a community bank. She came to one of his trainings in Sahagún, and has formed, she says, a group of 12 people from her church.
We are to meet someone at the bus stop in Chinú who will guide us to the church. The ride is lovely…not too much traffic at 2 p.m. and there are yellow and pink flowering trees dotting the open country here and there. The yellow trees are such a bright yellow they seem fluorescent and almost hurt your eyes. We pull in to the bus stop in Sahagún a few minutes early, but a man is waiting for us and comes up right away. Turns out it is the pastor of the church in Nova. He gets into the car and shows us which dirt road to take out of Chinú and off into the country. The road gets pretty bad in spots: it is dry season, so the road is hardened mud, but it has rained recently and there are puddles here and there, whose depth is hard to determine. Even more ominous are wheel ruts a foot deep where somebody must have gotten stuck. But our little car, with David guiding it carefully over the two safest wheel tracks, makes it through just fine.
It is obvious that we are in cattle country. On either side of the road hills roll gently away in pasture land and the white Brahmin cattle, with their huge humps and droopy ears, burrow for the new green grass one uncharacteristic recent rain has brought out, or rest in the shade of large spreading trees.
Another crop of the area is yuca (or manioc, a tuber like potatoes) and we see several places where the yuca is laid out to dry in the sun, and then packed in white sacking; later it will be taken somewhere and ground into flour that makes the rosquillos and diabolines (snacks) we have come to love.
We ask the pastor about how long he has pastored his current church in Nova: five years, now with a congregation of some 30 to 40 members. As the road gets worse and the houses spread farther apart, we ask him if the bus gets back into Nova. “No,” he says, “but twice a day there is a Willys.” A “Willys” is a jeep of World War II vintage that can handle these roads. Enterprising mechanics have figured out how to make parts to keep these vehicles, so necessary to rural transportation, alive.
We arrive at the church, which is not hard to note, since it is a large, new cement structure, painted yellow, and with the name over the door. But we meet with the group of 12 entrepreneurs in the open, thatch-roofed “building” in back that used to be their church before the new one was built.
It is remarkably comfortable there: the thatch roof somehow absorbs the heat and the breeze from off the fields blows through freely, smelling of grass and trees and sunshine. There is no city noise at all: no beeping horns, no motors, no radios; just an occasional bird—and bees. There are two or three large bumble bees snooping around the thatch roof. I have never seen such large bumble bees: they are at least an inch long, with a buzzing sound to match their size. But they are not interested in humans; they crawl into the bamboo poles that support the thatch roof and can safely be ignored.
Slowly the people gather who form part of this community bank group. While we wait, they occasionally talk to each other, but mostly they just wait peacefully. Someone brings David and I glasses of red soda pop that taste like bubble gum and buns with guava jelly inside. We are the honored guests, apparently, and the only ones to receive refreshments. There is no turning down such generosity, even if we do not need sweet soda pop or buns in our diet!
After awhile all have gathered and the meeting starts with prayer. David presents the Biblical basis for “work” and doing business—and therefore for the kind of program he is running. Then he describes how the program is run: how a community bank works. Theoretically, these participants know this from the lady who is their leader, but it is good for David to review it in person, and make sure they understand that what they get are loans, not handouts, and that the whole group agrees to pay for any participant who might have difficulty and not pay. David explains how important their individual business plans are for evaluating the validity of the small businesses and the probability of payment of the loan. He explains the concept of “margin” and that the first loan is really a kind of “test case” for only 4 months. If the people do well, they can get a second loan after the 4 months are over. Soon the people are discussing the different small businesses and the details of payment.
I sit and watch, and it is fascinating to watch them “get it.” They are not sure about David at first, although there is an occasional gleam in an eye as they hear about the dignity of work as God created it, and the examples of Jesus and Paul. And they listen soberly as David explains that there are no gifts. These are loans for real businesses with true margin, true productivity. This was a quiet group to begin with, quiet and subdued. Now they are still quiet, but not subdued: they are being talked to like adults and they stand up straighter. They begin to talk business to David and to each other. They are empowered.
It is much more empowering to have someone say, “Your business is worth investing in. I believe you will be able to pay back this loan,” than to have someone say, in effect, “Here’s a gift, since you aren’t doing too well on your own.”
I am dying to use the bathroom, but the only one I see is an out-house with only two walls: two walls too few, from my point of view! But I screw up my courage after awhile and ask the pastor’s wife if there is a bathroom I can use, and she guides me to a different out-house that I hadn’t seen: it has four walls (glory be!), but interestingly, no roof. A bucket of water is the only water in sight—no pipes or faucet, and the shower is clearly a ladle that one dips from the bucket. There is a small shelf wired to the cement block wall, with soap, shampoo and razor on it. Clearly this is the only bathroom, fully furnished.
Yet, paradoxically, as the meeting ends, someone pulls out the Acta, the formal paper that describes the organization and officers of this small community bank, and the Acta was printed out on a printer from a computer somewhere. David and I look at each other: where did they do this? But they did. We are always coming across these bizarre mixtures of Third World poverty and modern conveniences.
The group has some more work to do before their loans can be approved, but they have made a good beginning, so David and I say our good-byes, shaking each person’s hand solemnly. Then we wend our way over the mud bumps and through the peaceful fields back to the paved road…and back to Sincelejo.