Reaching Cochico

See that zig-zag near the middle of the photo?  That's part

of the crazy road to Cochico.  Being at the end of a dead end 

road, no one goes there unless they live there.

Loving InDeed is expanding!  Cochico has been heavy on my heart for the past few months, and I've been thinking and praying about how God would have me help there.  For those of you who have forgotten or are new friends, Cochico is a village I found way up in the mountains at the end of a dead end road about five years ago. At that time their church building was a tiny, crude room made out of sheets of metal roofing.  It was flattened by a rockslide soon after I found it.  Since then, a much larger building has been erected out of cement block and Carlos has been through seminary. Cochico is a very spiritually dark place.  Of the roughly 600 families that make up the village, there are fewer than 10 professing Christians. The others practice witchcraft or worship idols and are very opposed to the gospel.  I foolishly thought that once they had a solid structure in which to worship and their leaders had good training that the work of the ministry there would go smoothly.  I honestly don't know what I was thinking.  Chalk it up to being a newbie here; I was only 3 years in.  We have since realized that Satan has had a stronghold in that community since its existence, and he's not going to give it up without a fight. Carlos and Aracely have worked hard and endured much including life-threatening illnesses, constant ridicule, extreme poverty, damage to their home from the big earthquake we had last year, the loss of their best friends when they divorced, moved, and fell away from the faith, and much, much more.  Their faithfulness to be there for others when their own lives are so difficult tells me that they truly have shepherd's hearts.  It would be so much simpler for them to just move, but they know that God has called them to Cochico, so they stay even though on the outside it looks like very little spiritual progress has been made at all. 

My role in Cochico has mostly been to be a sounding board for them. They have no one to talk to or pray with and need to vent sometimes.  Recently though, I have begun to feel like I should make time to be more involved there--carefully, and in a behind-the-scenes kind of way since they are truly quite capable.  To that end, we have decided to bring a modified form of Loving InDeed to the village.  Instead of having specific people receive help on a regular basis, I will deliver large sacks of dry goods to Carlos and Aracely every month and let them divvy it up into gift baskets that they can share when they make home visits.  This might not sound like much to you and me, but to starving people, it means a lot.  When people live in extreme poverty, the tendency is to hoard, guarding what you have for you and your own.  Sharing is rare.  We all know that actions speak louder than words.  When a pastor who lives there and experiences the same poverty as everyone else starts sharing what he has been given with others, it will speak loudly that they are different...that Jesus is different. The thing I really love about this plan is that Carlos and Aracely can be trusted to not just speak with their actions, but with actual words.   I don't believe all the nonsense about preaching the gospel only with our good works.  Words are necessary.  The gospel has to be explained, and Carlos and Aracely are great at it.  I've heard them.  I've watched them pray passionately and tenderly with sick people and with unbelievers.  I've heard them tell the good news.  This will not be solely a humanitarian effort, but it will be a small means of getting their foot in the door.

Carlos is not that far ahead of his son, but you 

can barely see him at the top of the hill.  Making

home visits in Cochico is HARD work

The monthly cost of adding Cochico to LI will be about $100.  For that we can make 9-10 food baskets with 5 lbs. each of beans and rice, 2 1/2 lbs. each of oatmeal and sugar, and 3 bags of incaparina, a fortified drink made specifically for malnourished people.  Those baskets will last about a month as they typically make about 2-3 home visits a week.  It takes so long to get from home to home in that steep, rugged terrain and time to recuperate between trips.  I walked around some of the village with them last week and it nearly killed me.  My calves are still screaming days later! The other benefit to this is that a tithe portion of the food will stay with the pastoral couple themselves, which will help take a smidgen of the financial pressure off.  I saw their church records when I was there last week.  One month's worth of offerings totaled just under $7.  Of that, $.70 had to be sent in to the denomination's main office and the church electric bill had to be paid.  That means that Carlos and Aracely lived on literally pennies a day.  

Carlos (bottom row third from the right) graduated in

November 2015; Aracely will graduate in two months.  

The  other way I plan to be involved up there is in helping to plan activities to draw people in.  Things like maybe a weekend kids' Bible club or a conference or weekly Bible study for women.  Those things are hard to come up with out of thin air.  Imagine having to host VBS with no theme or guide book!  So I will help them with outreach ideas, the planning of lessons for those types of events, and buying materials like balls, balloons, and snacks for the kids. This part of the plan still has to be fleshed out some, but I'm sure it will get clearer as time goes on.  The majority of my work will still be in Santa Barbara.  I don't have time to go up to Cochico every week, but I can do something.  And I should.  Please pray that God gives us direction and stamina, and that Carlos and Aracely don't get discouraged in the face of all the difficulties they're experiencing.

Thanks for listening!  And thank you most of all for your faithful support, both in prayers and donations, for the work of Loving InDeed.  May God bless your socks off for your kindness!