As the heavily loaded supply boats labored against the swift current hour after hour and day after day you could almost reach out and feel the excitement on the other end as the folks anxiously waited for their arrival. \u00a0This was the era when river transportation was the only way to get people, mail and supplies out to the villages. The supply boats (several boats tied together) made the trip about 5 times a year. \u00a0That meant the missionaries could look forward to getting fresh supplies and mail at best every two months or so.<\/p>\n
Imagine the anticipation of the folks on shore as the boats finally after made their way into port. \u00a0 Their would be fresh flour to bake bread and other goodies. \u00a0By now the flour from last trip would be almost gone. And the little that was left, well you could sift (the ladies had been doing it for weeks) the weevils out but you could not get rid of the characteristic weevil taste in the bread. \u00a0Many would go ahead and sift the new flour to begin with because, you guessed right, it often came from the store with weevils. Folks taped cotton doused with something (dare I say formaldehyde) \u00a0inside the flour containers but even that didn’t stop the little critters. \u00a0I should add that the formaldehyde didn’t actually touch the flour.<\/p>\n
And the mail, yes the mail! \u00a0In this day of instant communication it’s hard to imagine going for months without hearing from home.<\/p>\n
People had been running out of literally everything that didn’t originate there in the jungle. Some foods did of course come from the jungle and all missionaries at some point did live on that food and it was good food even if there was no salt, sugar or cooking oil. \u00a0In this day and age we’re taught to cast a baleful eye at these ingredients but try and live without them for awhile. \u00a0Speaking of salt. \u00a0At times a missionary family would order a hundred pound sack of rock salt complete with seashells and other “things”. \u00a0The rock salt would be ground by a hand grinder as it was needed. \u00a0One supply trip a sack of this rock was left by mistake in an area of the boat not under a roof or canvas tarp. \u00a0On that trip it rained almost constantly. Not good for rock salt. When the sack was unloaded at the destination all that was left of the hundred pounds were the seashells. \u00a0If the chaps bailing that particular boat had tasted the bilge water it would have been very, very salty.<\/p>\n
In those beginning days trade goods were more valuable than money to the tribal folks so the missionaries planned to always keep a supply of the most common items on hand. Fishing line, fish hooks, knives, machetes, files, cooking pots, matches, red cloth for making loincloths etc. were all greatly needed and desired.<\/p>\n
But probably the most important items the missionaries would be running low on would be medical supplies. And hopefully on those boats pulling into port would be quantities of penicillin, eye salve for pink eye, worm treatments, antiseptics, suture material, \u00a0pain medication, alcohol, cotton and of course the list went on and on.<\/p>\n
To put the importance of these medical supplies in perspective, think of this: \u00a0There were no doctors or clinics within hundreds of river miles. \u00a0But each of \u00a0the missionaries had at least some medical training and at times there were missionaries who were actual trained nurses working in some locations there in the villages. \u00a0Of course this fact was known far and wide. Later we actually had a dentist out there in the jungle. So the combination of loving, caring missionaries with medical training, having at last some medical supplies available, drew the jungle folks like a magnet. \u00a0Many patients went home well but there were too many we were unable to help. I think of the girl who died giving birth. Her people had left her not knowing all was not well. It would have taken days just to get to her people so we had no choice but to bury her along with her baby who died as well Another time a sick man was left by his friends who planned to come back for him when he got better. \u00a0He thought he’d been poisoned by an enemy who’d slipped something into a cup of coffee. \u00a0It was plain to us however he was in the last stages of tuberculosis. We buried him as well. We grieved when in spite of our best efforts we were not able to help some of the folks. \u00a0It was occasion for great joy when someone we’d been able to help placed their faith in the Lord Jesus.<\/p>\n
Life however wasn’t all work and sickness and serious stuff. \u00a0At one jungle location because of \u00a0the bend in the river and if the wind was blowing just right you could hear the supply boats for an hour before they pulled into port. \u00a0So one day when all ears were straining to hear the first faint noise of the supply boat’s engines, several teenage boys (don’t ask for names) decided to trick everyone into thinking they heard the boats coming. By rigging the exhaust sound of a little outboard motor to sound like the much bigger engines, and by simulating the slow progress of the much bigger boats, these mischievous boys were responsible for making the whole village wind their way down to the port to welcome what they thought was the arrival of the supply boats. As they wound their way down the trail one might be thinking, “wow tonight I get to take a bath with real soap”, another could hardly wait to get her hands on mail from home and of course everyone was thinking of something good on that cargo. \u00a0What they saw however was those boys trying to keep their sides from splitting with laughter. \u00a0They had succeeded against all odds because everyone knows it’s not easy to trick missionaries. Fortunately however most missionaries have a, well let’s say, a decent sense of humor. \u00a0In the end everyone had a good laugh and the real boats and the real goodies soon arrived. Now you understand how totally important the “supply boats” were.<\/p>\n
Life howev<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the heavily loaded supply boats labored against the swift current hour after hour and day after day you could almost reach out and feel the excitement on the other end as the folks anxiously waited for their arrival. \u00a0This was the era when river transportation was the only way to get people, mail and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}