[Guyana-Mission-Report] Called from the Pulpit

Yesterday I was preaching a message at the new little Adventist Church in Shea when a young lady appeared at the back of the church and started waiving her hands animatedly.  It was the wife of my translator, so he quietly excused himself to go see what was the matter.  I tried to continue my sermon without translation, but by this time my train of thought was pretty well derailed.  A minute or two later he whispered in my ear, "There's a medical emergency in Marurinau and they need the airplane to fly the patient to the hospital".  Question to you - What would you do in this situation?  Do you continue preaching and finish your sermon hoping the patient doesn't die on you?  Or do you leave your audience hanging mid-sentence and race out the door?  I tried to strike a happy medium, closing off the message in a few well placed sentences, and with a closing prayer.  I must admit that it wasn't the smoothest conclusion, but it worked - and people understood The young girl who came to inform us had run the 5 miles from Marurinau to Shea.  Fortunately and the kids with her didn't have to run back because we covered the 5 miles in 2 1/2 minutes. The man was elderly (late 60's), had lost a fair amount of blood, had bloody saliva, and was feeling cold in his lower extremities (possible shock).  Joy sent me off with some IV supplies to start an IV, because someone had said that a nurse might be at the airstrip.  As it turned out she didn't show up.  Looking around at the villagers I could see the tense look in the faces of people who came to see the patient off.  They were deeply concerned that he might not make it.  One of the villagers turned to me and said, "We're sorry to bother you on your Sabbath".  I looked him in the eye and as convincing as I could be said, "Hey... That's why we're here...  We're here to serve.  It doesn't matter what day it is".  After the patient and his wife were strapped in, I debated what to do.  I couldn't raise either of the two hospitals on the HF radio.  So I decided to go to the field hospital in Aishalton since they could get an IV going and monitor his condition.  The only problem is how to alert them I'm coming? I decided to fly over the hospital and circle it until someone decided to come out.  Othere than a couple construction/maintenance workers who were milling around, it looked pretty desolate.  A couple minutes after I landed, the Medex showed up on his motorbike to find out what was going on.  I told him about the patient, and after assessing him he decided to keep him for the night.  Today we transported the same patient out to Lethem to the main hospital.  Please pray for Valentine P. Not too long ago I had another interesting experience.  Here in Guyana, the air regulations state that in order to be able to fly into an airstrip in the interior, you must first fly into the airstrip with another experienced pilot who has been there before.  Every time our chief pilot Gary Roberts comes to Guyana we try to train on new airstrips so that we can increase the reach of our ministry.  Anyway, not long ago I was getting a new airstrip checkouts to Achwib and Sowariwau.   The airstrips weren't particularly difficult, and we finished the checkout back in Shea.  That evening Joy and I packed up our stuff and flew to Lethem. The next morning my cell phone began to ring.  It was the Lethem hospital stating that there was an emergency in Achwib Village.  A young man had gotten his face sliced open in a drunken fight, and was needing to be flown out. Immediately we responded by flying to the field hospital in Aishalton to pick up the field doctor before flying the 15 minutes to Achwib.  The boy had a huge gash on his left jaw, nearly down to the bone.  By the time we landed a huge number of people were standing around watching.  The doctor immediately started an IV on him and started doing an assessment of the injury.  Fortunately the knife hadn't cut any nerves or tendons.  It was basically a stich job.  So back to the hospital we went where the boy would be sutured up.  The next day the doctor told me that the wound had sutured up nice, and the boy would only have a thin little line to remind him of what had happened that night.   We don't know when the call might come.  But God does, and its experiences like this that serve as reminders that the Lord is only but a step in front of us. Must fly some boxes of medications to Aishalton, and then back to Shea. God bless, James James & Joy Ash 121 Durban Backlands Georgetown, Guyana 011-592-629-5141 http://guyanaaviationevangelism.blogspot.com/ James & Joy Ash Gospel Ministries International Project Name: Guyana Aviation Evangelism 874 South McDonald SW McDonald, TN 37353 1 (423) 473-1841 or 1 (423) 473-1842

[Guyana-Mission-Report] Expanding Fronts

This last Sabbath was our first worship service in the new church.  I was a little worried that we would get lost in the building, so I encouraged the members to invite a friend.  One small oversight...  I forgot that we didn't have enough benches!  Many people happily sat on the new concrete floor for the service.  One of our church members is from a neighboring village five miles to the South.  This village (Marurinau) is staunch Catholic and has steadfastly opposed other church groups building a church in their village.  But we'll be starting a bible study group in the home of our member, and eventually this will include weekend services.  Who says we need a church building!  We are the church! As time goes by I hear of other strange groups that are making evangelistic overtures in other villages.  Just recently we heard of a strange new group that has come to Rupinau just an hour away from us.  This group purports to have a prophet who has the OT Shekinah Glory following him around.  They've been handing out CD's of this guy preaching.  I listened to half of one message, which was just enough to determine that this guy was completely out to lunch.  But the sad reality is that many of these dear Amerindians don't have a firm bible base and they have a hard time determining the difference between a true and a false prophet.  This week I plan to fly over to Rupinau to visit with the village toshao, but I also want to meet with the family that is getting all mixed up with these erroneous doctrines. Please pray for our work.  Nothing comes easy. Nothing... James James & Joy Ash 121 Durban Backlands Georgetown, Guyana 011-592-629-5141 www.guyanaaviationevangelism.org James & Joy Ash Gospel Ministries International Project Name: Guyana Aviation Evangelism 874 South McDonald SW McDonald, TN 37353 1 (423) 473-1841 or 1 (423) 473-1842

[Guyana-Mission-Report] Church building Shea Style

Here are some pictures of the new church 1.  Carrying Sand five hundred feet from the sand pit to the church site.  We had 3 tractor loads of sand transported to the church site, but as the contractors continued to work, that sand disappeared in a hurry.  It became clear that we needed to get another 50 wheelborrows of sand.  The church members rose to the occasion.  Some of the members started at midnight, and others at 3am.  By the time I took this picture at 7:30am we were pretty much done with the sand and one of our members was goofing around carrying his wife in the borrow.   2.  We had to dig backfill for the stage area.  After the sand was complete we all started digging and filling in the stage area.  Some didn't have even a bucket, so they used old cement sacks, bucket lids, pots, etc.    3.  This is the backfill compactor.  Fairly primative, but very effective!  After a while of doing this, the arms complain!  I would do this a while and then jump around and give my legs a workout.  Of course everyone thought that was the funniest thing in the world, and they laughed and laughed.   4.  By 9am this last Sunday we were all done and ready for breakfast!  Notice the new cement floor at the bottom of the picture.   5.  When our bible worker made the temporary doors, they were an inch to big.  As you can see in the picture, its no big deal if you have a Stihl 051.   James James & Joy Ash 121 Durban Backlands Georgetown, Guyana 011-592-629-5141 www.guyanaaviationevangelism.org James & Joy Ash Gospel Ministries International Project Name: Guyana Aviation Evangelism 874 South McDonald SW McDonald, TN 37353 1 (423) 473-1841 or 1 (423) 473-1842

[Guyana-Mission-Report] It happened again

Well it happened again.  I came out with a medevac yesterday only to find out that there's a mini-fuel shortage in Lethem again!  Had to overnight to wait for more trucks to arrive from Georgetown.  I've gotta do something about this, because this is getting crazy! I'm excited to announce that the interior of the Shea Church is done!  Praise God.  In about two weeks, the roof was put on, the interior walls completely plastered, and the floor and rostrum poured.  The professionals that we hired from Aishalton to help with the project, did it for a discount since, the one guy is related to our bible worker.  Most of our members pitched in, working long hours hauling sand and mixing cement.  Some of them worked 12am to 3am so that the contractors would have the sand they needed.  Now that's commitment!  The contractors themselves worked till midnight one night with a small generator and a couple bare light bulbs so that they could do the entire floor in one pour.  The next day the one guy showed up at the health clinic to get his fingers wrapped.  The lime in the cement had made his fingers pretty raw. One day we hired the tractor to come from a neighboring village to get some loads of sand.  I was going to hire some guys in the village to come and help load the trailer, but there wasn't a sober guy in the village.  (Sigh)  That's one of the terrible scourges of our village.  It's become so bad that Shea has built up a reputation for being an alcoholic village.  We need a twelve step program in the worst way, especially for the men.  I'm dead serious when I say, that I don't know if a single day or night goes by that there isn't a party going on somewhere in the village.  Since we couldn't hire any guys we had 4 guys pitching sand from 11am to 4:30pm.  It was brutally hot, but we were able to get the job done, by the grace of God. There's still quite a bit of finishing work to do.  We've got an Out-house to build, the outside walls to plaster, paint, inside & outside, pews to build, chairs for the rostrum, a pulpit, windows to install, etc.  We're hoping to have a church dedication by the early part of this next year. Must run, James James & Joy Ash 121 Durban Backlands Georgetown, Guyana 011-592-629-5141 www.guyanaaviationevangelism.org James & Joy Ash Gospel Ministries International Project Name: Guyana Aviation Evangelism 874 South McDonald SW McDonald, TN 37353 1 (423) 473-1841 or 1 (423) 473-1842