American Missionary Fellowship

In my prayer I asked that God would even now send us kids today if it was His will, but if it wasn’t that He would send them on Tuesday…

June 28 marked the first day of Shiloh’s children’s camps. We had ninety-one 7th & 8th graders at the camp and over fifty staff and staff children. A severe storm hit the Donnelly area around 9:15 p.m., when all of our campers were in the chapel. High winds uprooted and broke off approximately 200 trees on the thirteen acres where Shiloh sits. I stood in the dining hall watching out the window with a few other staff members as the storm blew its course through the valley. I asked the Lord for His mercy on the camp and those in it. We could see trees falling over from where we watched…

As I was telling them that the story comes from the Bible, I noticed a young girl’s hand go up. I stopped and asked her if she had a question. She replied, “What’s a Bible?”

“Eladio, Alfredo – I have an idea!” I eagerly told my friends, a Peruvian and a Chilean who were shepherds.  “I will make a newspaper for the shepherds with news from Peru or Chile and things about the Bible.”  They liked the idea and suggested that, among other things, it should include the latest exchange rate.  I produced the first edition of Mensjero de Saludos (“Greetings Messenger”) in March 2002.  It filled just one side of a sheet of paper.

Building Trust

Our puffing breath gradually became less as we looked back down the mountainside we had just ascended.  We had been doing this same short hike daily for months and what had once been a fresh, splintery log now bore smooth places from where we’d sat for these talks. This was our hiatus from the demands of the rushing world, a safe place to gush out and address all the joys, heartaches, and profound questions of a 13-year-old heart.  As our breathing allowed greater conversation, we each pulled our feet up on the log, wrapping our arms around our knees as we talked face-to-face…