The Final Chronicles of our trip to the North

Day Eleven, Friday, December 9, 2005

Friday morning, we took a break from our morning Bible study, and did some of the housekeeping chores, such as washing clothes and helping to clean up the house. It has to be a real chore to let five men come into your house and stay. We are grateful to Jaime and Eliana for letting us stay in their house.
Over the course of the next couple of days, Friday and Saturday, I played about fifteen games of chess with Jaime. This was the first time that I dared do so. I did not win a single game. Could it be because Jaime was a national champion in Chess in Chile? One of the things that Jaime does is teach classes in chess to children. During the weekend, he has several children in for chess class. Probably any one of them could tear me up in chess. Henry thought that this was particularly funny, because in Ecuador, two of the girls in the church in Ibarra wanted to play me in chess. They were champions in their particular age category. I was able to beat them in several games. Henry thought that Jaime beating me up in chess was a perfect revenge.
Friday afternoon, we had our last meeting in the prison. Milton taught the class. We were able to lay the groundwork for future classes that Jaime will have with these men. Milton taught on the need for these men to look to their salvation. It led to a good question and answer session. We left the prison in good spirits, since we felt that we had helped Jaime and that we had also built up a good relationship with the prisoners. Another positive factor is that our presence in Iquique also helps out Jaime. It gives him credibility in the sense that it is good for the prison guards to see that Jaime has backing from Santiago. The credibility that Pedro, Milton and I have with the prison system is excellent, since the head chaplain of all prisons in Chile said that we are the only ones that actually preach the Bible in all Chile. It makes you wonder what everybody else does. The chaplain also gave us an open door to any prison in Chile. This is limited to security considerations, of course, but we visit any inmate that asks for a visit. These requests may increase with the TV program.
Friday evening I returned to the question of sin, because the church members still had questions about it. This was especially important because of the one family that was trying to impose their view of sin on everyone else. Now, before I go any further, I have to confess that there is an element of this that has me laughing on the inside, because this family was telling everyone that several different activities, such as watching soccer games at the stadium or on the television, was sinful. What made me laugh is that this condemned all of our ministers. Pedro and Milton are some of the most addicted soccer fans that I know. What is even more humorous about this is that both support two of the most unsuccessful teams in Chile. So in their case, watching soccer probably is sinful.
On a spiritual level, the position that watching soccer games is sinful is troubling because it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the nature of sin. So on Friday evening, I worked with several characteristics of sin. I emphasized the universality of sin, because I thought this family could use a bit more humility. The truth of the matter is that religious life is susceptible to misunderstandings, extremism, and disagreements for many different reasons. One reason is that some people are not very well centered. As an example, some believe that if a little bit of something is good, then a lot of the same is better. This is not always true. I believe that the Christian life is the healthiest life that one can live. After all, if God is our creator, he certainly knows better than anyone else what is the healthiest lifestyle. Yet many take this beautiful Christian life and make it something it was never intended to be. This is why I talked about wisdom previously. Knowing how to live the Christian life is important.
The reason that I talked about the universality of sin is that some people are willing to accuse and condemn others, while forgetting that they have been sinful themselves. The proper response for the Christian is to confess his sinfulness, repent, and ask for forgiveness, which I try to live out. After all, we all do things that we wish we had not done. Remember what the apostle Paul said in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. (RSV)” That statement should help all of us to be a bit more humble in the face of our shortcomings.
In the end, my read on the tension in the group on this theme is that it is not resolved. Undoubtedly it will re surface. The end result is that the congregation is better prepared to face these difficulties in the future.

Day Twelve, Saturday, December 10, 2005

Saturday was a bit slower than the rest of the week had been. We did not go to the prison, because we had not received permission to go. All of the Chileans had to go to the police station and sign a form explaining that they would be unable to vote on Sunday. As I mentioned, I played chess with Jaime. I have to admit that it was probably a waste of time for him, because there is no way that I am going to offer him any competition. As you can see, I was humiliated. I also helped Jaime install Windows XP on his computer.
In the evening, we held our last series of the conferences. I continued speaking about the nature of sin. I offered some strategies for resisting sin. I reminded the Christians that Jesus is our model that we follow in living the Christian life. While the theme of sin is not the most positive theme, it is a necessary one, because we accommodate sin too much. The conferences ended on a positive note. We shared an once together with the church.

Day Thirteen, Sunday, December 11, 2005

As I waited for church to start, I noticed that the voting station was around the corner from Jaime´s house. In Chile, the police always shut down the street of the voting location. In addition, cars were beginning to occupy all of the parking spots in the street. Since we were planning on leaving after church services, I suggested to Milton that he needed to get his car out on the street or we would get blocked in.
The church service was pretty good. Milton did the class on I Thess. I preached on Ephesians 1 during the worship service. Henry led the congregation in the Lord’s Supper. We had a good meeting.
Afterward, we all ate a quick lunch together of empanadas and soft drinks. Then we spent an inordinate amount of time taking pictures of everybody. I think that digital cameras have created a nightmare. Now that it costs nothing to take photos, everybody has to get their picture taken. We took pictures of every single combination possible: Milton with Jaime and Eliana, Pedro with Jaime and Eliana, Milton with Sebastian, Pedro with Sebastian, and so on. We took group photos and everybody had to take pictures with his own camera (seven or eight cameras). I thought this whole process was endless, especially considering that I wanted to get on the road as soon as possible.
Well, we loaded up and got going fairly quickly. We always take the ocean highway between Iquique and Antofagasta, because it is more scenic than driving the desert route. We drove for hours with the desert on one side and the deep blue ocean on the other. Our original idea was to go to Antofagasta on Sunday, Vicuña on Monday and arrive in Santiago on Tuesday. When we arrived in Antofagasta, the first thing that we noticed is that the beaches were absolutely packed. On voting Sundays, the day is always a holiday. People generally try to vote as early as possible, so that they can enjoy the day. Elizabeth, the sister who cleans my house, had to serve on the voting booths in Santiago, which means she was obligated to be there for the entire day. The people in Antofagasta obviously used this day to go to the beach. We had reservations in a residencial but we cancelled because Milton wanted to continue driving. This was a strong indication that he was ready to get back to his wife. The only problem with continuing the drive was figuring out where we would stay. When you leave Antofagasta, you have to climb up to the Pan American highway and drive through the desert. There is no other road. Between Antofagasta and Chañaral, there is only one gas station. There is a handful of posadas where you can stop and eat. There is about four of them, and two are located at the place where the gas station is. We drove on through the desert. We made one stop at a giant sculpture of a hand in the middle of the desert. Who did it and why, I do not know. We took some pictures. The whole time I was there I had this mental image of an earthquake shaking the hand over and it falling down on top of us and squashing us like a flyswatter swatting a bunch of flies. That sounds like something out of the Far Side comic strip.
We stopped at the posada for supper about ten p.m. The TV was on and the election returns were coming out. This election is interesting for many reasons. One, it is interesting because the political power of the various parties is determined by their showing in the elections. Thus, the elections often demonstrate if there is a major shift in public opinion. Poll indications were that the Chilean public opinion is moving away from the left toward some more conservative stances. Second, the candidate for the leftist socialist coalition is a woman. No woman has ever been elected President of any Latin American country before. Will it happen here? Who knows? I predict that this woman will have a difficult time overcoming the traditional machismo of Latin America. The other factor that makes this more difficult is that she is not too personable. She really struggles to make herself likable, and she comes across sometimes as trying too hard. Third, as it turns out, the results of the election demonstrated that no one won a clear majority, so the elections move to a runoff on Jan. 15. The candidate on the left won less support than was thought likely. The Communists did not do as well as they thought they would do, although they won the vote in Antartica, which is a military vote. Could it be that some military personnel have decided that they have been there long enough? The runoff will be between the lady on the left and the owner of one of the TV stations in Santiago. They are neck and neck. Internationally speaking, this election is important for Latin America, because Latin America is splitting into two camps between those on the hard left such as Chavez, FARC, the president in Brazil, the recently elected president to be in Bolivia, and perhaps others and those who are centrists or slightly oriented towards the left, such as Fox and the current president of Chile, Lagos. The best thing that could happen for the region is if Chile elected a moderate President.
Continuing with the trip, we arrived in Chañaral about midnight. We asked around and found a moderate residencial where we spent the night. It actually worked out better because it was cheaper than the residencial in Antofagasta. Also, we were closer to home.

Day Twelve, Monday, December 12, 2005

We got on the road early Monday morning. We drove directly from Chañaral to Rolando’s house in Vicuña, where his wife served us a delicious lunch. After resting for a little bit, we climbed back into the car and started for Santiago.
As we got into Santiago, we were all ready to get into our homes. After we dropped Pedro and Henry off at their homes, Milton dropped me by my house. I arrived home at 1:30 a.m. It was great to be back home after a 3000 mile/5000 kilometer trip.