Clean Living

This evangelist is in the back, looking up into the distance, as his wife sits on
the end of the bench, reading her Bible.

One of my favorite stories from our week of intense CHE training with pastors in our region comes from the pastor who came the farthest, from a village deep in the bush. He’s a tall, middle-aged man, who didn’t strike me as sharpest learner, but he was clearly a hard worker. When we talked about the witness that you give from the way you take care of your household and your health, he brought forward the story of his family arriving in their new place two years ago. He described how they way they arrived at a parcel of land the church had rented, but they had nowhere to sleep. So, they got right to work cleaning up the area from brush and refuse, and then went out to the fields and brought wood and stalks to put together some kind of shelter. Their new neighbors, who had gathered around to watch, were heard saying, “wow, these people know how to work.”

Later, some health workers came to the village, who went around checking on families and children. When they got to the evangelist’s house, they commented that this family is the one they need to use as the example for the rest of the village because of their clean living space and practices. This is exactly the kind of example that can start a strong witness to the community about how they can prevent costly sicknesses and learn about having “fuller” health. I was also fascinated that this was the only pastor who brought his wife to the training. I never heard the story behind it, but it was a nice side benefit to have her voice and let her also hear the ideas to help her husband and family use CHE practices at home.  We chose this couple as one of the evangelists that we will be mentoring in CHE this year.

On another side note, I was intrigued to hear many of the pastors bring up the problem of dirtiness or lack of sanitation in their villages. Many times we hear it portrayed as just normal and accepted that people are going to go out to the edge of the wilderness to relieve themselves, but the pastors were bringing up the problems of people doing it in the streets (so common in our neighborhood too). The result is so much garbage and refuse along the edges of the roads, which is a major health threat. Even worse is the news that, in at least one of the villages, the area around the church building is almost exclusively used as the “toilet” and then waste is periodically thrown over the church walls as a form of disrespect/intimidation.

-- El Padre