At Last! The End of the Summer Blogging Break!

Jungle Adventure? No, a Spiritual Battle!

The Plan
“The SIL plane needs to fly to Brasilia for maintenance on Saturday.” The shortwave operator told us one morning. “It will stop in Barra do Corda to refuel and take on up to 400 kilos of cargo to drop off for you in the Canela village on the way.”
What an opportunity to bring in kerosene for lamps and bags of salt for the Canela, as well as fresh veggies, fruits, eggs, and meat for us.

Jo Teaching the Girls

On Tuesday I left Jo and our three small daughters in the village and rode the Tote Goat, an old motorcycle, seventy kilometres into Barra. There I bought trade goods and groceries and arranged to have them taken to the plane. But Wednesday morning the old motorcycle broke down and would not be repaired for several weeks. I had to wait until Saturday.

The Problem
There was neither phone nor short-wave radio in Barra at that time, I could not tell Belem centre so they could tell Jo of the delay. In the meantime, she was worried.

“Jack was supposed to be back on Wednesday,” Jo told the Belem radio operator. “Please pray that he is all right. I worry about him lying on the trail somewhere with a broken leg or worse.”

Satan’s Plan
Friends in Belem prayed that I would be okay. I was fine, but Jo was not. She was suffering with fever and severe pains in her belly. Our colleagues on the centre were alerted to pray for Jo as well.

Finally, on Saturday, the SIL plane overflew the school campus where I was staying to let them know to bring aviation gas to the airport. The pilot saw me standing out in the open, waving. Immediately he radioed Belem and Jo. “I see Jack; he’s okay.”

After refuelling and loading most of the cargo, we landed safely at the village. Jo and I hugged each other, right in front of the watching Canelas; she was so relieved after all those days of anxiety. Unloading quickly Paul continued on course to Brasilia.

“Besides my concerns about you,” Jo told me, “I had strong pains just to the right of my navel, had a fever and felt nauseous. So, I took massive doses of ampicillin antibiotic, and I am already feeling okay.”

The Rest of the Story
A year and a half later, just before Leanne’s birthday, we were in Belem, and Jo was preparing to bake a cake when she said,

“Jack, I am having those same pains again that I had that time in the village.” She went back to bed while I ran to get a colleague who was a nurse. She checked Jo thoroughly, turned to me, and ordered, “Get her to a hospital right now; she has appendicitis!”

“No, I can’t go to the hospital,” Jo argued, “I need to make a cake for Leanne’s birthday party tomorrow.”

We ignored her pleas and loaded her into the VW van. I sped to a small hospital about twenty-five minutes away. Within thirty minutes of our arrival, Jo was on the operating table, and the surgeons did an appendectomy.

“We found a lot of scar tissue when we took out her appendix,” the doctor told me after it was all over. “She must have had an attack earlier.”

“Yes, she did,” I said, “Nearly two years ago, she had these same symptoms when she was alone in an Indian village out in the jungle. She treated herself with massive doses of ampicillin antibiotics.”

“Good thing she did,” the doctor said, “your wife would surely have died in much pain without that treatment.”

God’s Plans
“Thank you, Loving Father in heaven,” I prayed as I walked back to the van, “for looking after my wife and the mother of our three little daughters back then. We so often ran out of antibiotics in those early years. But this time you guided Jo to take the right medication. No wonder I love you!”

It was also more evidence that we were involved in a spiritual battle. Satan tried to kill Jo, which would have stopped the Canela translation program. But God had other plans!

The above post is an excerpt from our next Memoir: From Adventure to Spiritual Warfare. (The Canela Decades)