Not quite two years after my parents came to live in the jungle town in the country of these posts, my brother Joel joined our family. \u00a0My Mother had chosen not to make the trip down river to where there was a doctor and at least a semblance of a hospital. \u00a0There were midwives in town and there were other missionary wives on hand to help. \u00a0The birth went well and now we were a family of six. \u00a0Bob, Peg and we four boys Dan, Mike, John and Joel. \u00a0Philip and Sara wouldn’t join the family till later.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to the summer of 1958. \u00a0My Father had just moved his family several days travel further up river \u00a0deeper into the jungle nearer to where most of the missionaries were working. \u00a0As field director he wanted to be closer to their tribal locations so as to be of more direct help to them. \u00a0A small school for missionaries children had been established out there as well as a fuel depot of sorts for the tribal workers. It was near the end of July just weeks after our move when my Father left on a supply run to another jungle location hundreds of river miles away. He was to be gone for several weeks. \u00a0It was a difficult time for my Mother. \u00a0We were by now six kids, the youngest Sara only three months old, all crowded into a very small jungle home that had been built to house a single lady missionary. \u00a0The area was new to Mother and she was barely oriented to her new surroundings and the potential dangers.<\/p>\n
That day July 25, 1958 I was gone on an overnight with the handful of high schoolers at a neighboring Indian village. \u00a0My brothers Mike and John were down at the river fishing. The river was still pretty much at maximum height and was very swift. \u00a0There was a kind of backwash at the spot where they were fishing and the water literally boiled up from below before swirling off downstream. The bank at that place was rock and dropped off immediately to a great depth. \u00a0Joel had slipped out of the house unnoticed \u00a0and made his way down the narrow path to the river in order to watch his brothers fish. \u00a0Somehow he lost his footing and slipped into the swift moving water. \u00a0He had not yet learned to swim and Mike and John knew they couldn’t help him. \u00a0They shouted for my Mother who came running down the path and without hesitation jumped in. \u00a0The current had pulled Joel away from the shore and by the time my Mother jumped in he had come to the surface and gone back under for the third and final time. \u00a0She tried to dive down to find him but between the swift current and the river being at least 30 feet deep finding him was an impossibility.<\/p>\n
As Mother in her own pain and sorrow comforted Mike, John and Philip (Sara was only three months) word was sent to the Indian village where I was and another missionary took word to my Father. \u00a0I was able to get home the next day but it would be several days before my Father made it back.<\/p>\n
It was times like this that built and reinforced the sense of community we came to feel out there in the jungle. I referred to that reality in my first post “The Beginning”. \u00a0Everyone came together and rallied around anyone who was in need or hurting. \u00a0One of our jungle neighbors, a man who lived downriver a few hours found Joel’s body caught in some brush. He without hesitation used some of his precious gasoline to bring him back to our family. The Piranha’s had been at his face and it was not a pretty sight. \u00a0In fact the tribal neighbors and missionaries who made his little coffin didn’t even want the family members to see his face. \u00a0Several of us dug the grave and the simple service was the model for others both tribal folks and missionaries who would be buried there. \u00a0Joel was the first of the many who will rise together at the rapture of the saints from that little jungle village.<\/p>\n
Why didn’t God spare my Mother and Father the loss of their child when they had already given Him everything including their own lives? \u00a0Only God Himself knows the complete and full answer but I’m convinced part of the answer lies in the help and comfort they were able to give others who passed through similar difficult times. \u00a0Indeed within a little over a decade my father succumbed to hepatitis and lies buried beside Joel. \u00a0Before the Lord called my Mother home she buried Philip and Sara, both deaths being tied directly or indirectly to their having lived in the jungle.<\/p>\n
Mother has been with the Lord for five years now and wherever she has lived, folks still speak of the encouragement and blessing her life was to them. \u00a0Her life was a living example of 11 Cor. 1:3,4. \u00a0“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not quite two years after my parents came to live in the jungle town in the country of these posts, my brother Joel joined our family. \u00a0My Mother had chosen not to make the trip down river to where there was a doctor and at least a semblance of a hospital. \u00a0There were midwives in […]<\/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-244","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\/244","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=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}