The Guianas: South America Complete!
This was it—the final stretch of the continent. We would end our time in the Guianas—a group of barely-known countries on the northern coast of South America. Though considered one entity, the Guianas are actually comprised of three countries: Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Technically considered part of the Caribbean, the Guianas exude an Afro-Caribe vibe as well as cultural flavors from the countries that colonized them—England (Guyana), Holland (Suriname), and France (French Guiana).
Prior
to the Guianas, our team had split into small groups, and we each made our way
to Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, to reunite for a “family reunion” and team
debrief. Several of the girls had
decided to fly home early for the holidays, and many teammates were unsure about
returning to the Caribbean after the holidays for the final leg of the
trip. This meant our time in Georgetown
as a full team would probably be our last.
My
small group made our way to Guyana from Venezuela. Because there is no legal Venezuela/Guyana
border crossing, we had to travel from Venezuela back to Brazil, then to
Guyana--hitting a record three countries in one day. From the border of Guyana and Brazil, we made
our way to northern Georgetown, only around 260 miles away, but a nightmarishly
long journey due to abysmal infrastructure.
Upon
our arrival at the Guyana border, we were bombarded by mini-bus drivers who
offered to transport us to Georgetown, claiming the best rates. Unaccustomed to bargaining in English, we
happily negotiated prices in our native language after over a year of Spanish
and Portuguese.
At
around 2 p.m., our driver informed us that we would be in Georgetown by around
10 or 11 o’clock that evening. After a
couple hours of bumping along terrible dirt roads, our bus driver informed us
that if we didn’t reach a certain “checkpoint” by 6 p.m. we would have to rest
somewhere for the night and continue traveling the following morning. Though the driver acted unsure as to whether
we would reach the checkpoint or not, we later found out that it had never been
a feasible option to cross and make it to Georgetown the same evening. Turns out, the lies of arriving by 10 or 11
were not only absurd on such poor roads, but legally impossible to
boot.
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| Iris Latin America team boys; Breck Boyd, Taylor McClendon, Taylor Lindsey, Brent Lough, Kurt Weller, Ben Cuyler, and Stephen Reams |
Just
before 6 p.m., we were forced to pull over on the side of the road where we
found a random hut and shack where two local men sat staring at us. I reluctantly set up my sleeping mat on the
floor of the hut, already getting eaten alive by bugs. Throughout the next few
hours, the hut filled with hammocks and random men from other buses that had
also failed to reach the 6 p.m. checkpoint.
We were instructed to sleep until 3 a.m., when we would get up and drive
for a few more hours to arrive at the checkpoint by 6
a.m.
After
a few hours of attempted sleep, we reloaded our mini-buses and drove to the
infamous checkpoint. Upon arrival, I
realized why its closing would have presented problems for us. The “checkpoint” was actually a river that
divided the road, and the only way to cross was by taking a crickety old ferry
that only made trips between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day. The decrepit little boat looked like it was
about to fall apart, and watching several mini-buses awkwardly drive on and off
didn’t inspire much confidence.
We
safely made it to the other side nonetheless and continued our drive towards
Georgetown. Other than frequently being
stopped at random passport checks, our journey otherwise consisted of
frighteningly fast driving. It was clear
that our driver’s priority was getting to Georgetown as quickly as possible; but
as he wildly maneuvered dangerous curves and unstable potholes, my priority
quickly became arriving as alive as possible.
Meanwhile,
dust poured from the roads into our vehicle and covered us from head to
toe. We rotated between opening the
windows in an attempt to not sweat to death and closing them to avoid choking on
large clouds of dust. Almost twenty-four
hours after leaving the border, we arrived in Georgetown with aching backs from
the jarring ride, skin and hair covered in dirt, and luggage that had barely
survived. My suitcase, which had been on
its last legs for a while, realized its death along the way. When it was unloaded from atop the mini-bus,
the inside frame was smashed in, holes had ripped in the sides of the bag, and
my clothes and belongings inside were wet, muddy, and
damaged.
Within
days, the rest of the team arrived in Georgetown with similar horror
stories. We laughed and caught up on our
time apart. And sadly, we began our
official debriefing of our time in South America. We spent time encouraging each person and
sharing what good we saw in one another.
As we spoke, I realized how much all of us had changed in the past
fourteen months. We’d shared obstacles
and victories together, and every moment (whether good or bad) had been well
worth it. Though we’d worked with
ministries throughout an entire continent, our most important mission had been
the same in every country—our love for God and our love for one
another.
On
November 5th, we began a series of tearful goodbyes when the first
group flew home from Guyana. The
remaining eleven went on to finish the last two countries, Suriname and French
Guiana. We first traveled to Paramaribo,
the capital of Suriname, via mini-bus, ferry, and another mini-bus. Though Georgetown’s English-speaking
Caribbean flair seemed out of place in South America, Suriname’s culture felt
even more bizarre. Suriname possessed a wild clash of cultures including Dutch,
Indian, Chinese, and Indonesian.
We
found a small hostel and met together to pray for God’s vision for
Suriname. Elizabeth had felt a special
tug in her heart for the country and believed our time would be marked by random
encounters that only God could set up for us.
Our
first day, I went to the grocery store with Taylor M. who approached a stranger
on crutches and offered to pray for his leg.
The man shut down Taylor immediately.
Pure and cold rejection. I wondered if all hearts in this country were
so closed. A few hours later, we walked
to a local church just minutes from our hostel to attend their evening service
and ask the pastor if we could serve his church. When we entered the church, there appeared to
be only two congregants, and the pastor was too proud to step down from his
stage to even acknowledge the presence of several clearly-foreign visitors. We tried to speak to him, but we once again
felt harsh rejection and ended up leaving the church building.
Admittedly,
my spirits were low. I was physically
exhausted. I’d been suffering from a
horrible ear infection that began in Brazil and was causing pain all the way
down to my jaw. I could barely hear when
people spoke to me, and I was growing frustrated by the rejection from the
Surinamese people. And on top of this, I
was still trying to recover from the trauma of losing over half of our team
before finishing the trip. My heart was
heavy, and my motivation was severely lacking.
I knew most of my teammates were already enjoying the luxury of proper
beds, nice toilets, and pampering from their moms and dads. I reminded myself that the remaining eleven
still had weeks ahead of us. I wanted to
end in victory, not simply limp along at the end. But how could I do
this?
After
being rejected by the pastor, we decided to check out the city square and see if
we could find some food or anything interesting going on. We noticed a large sign advertising a gospel
concert and stopped under it for a moment.
Two young Surinamese men approached us and explained that they ran a
national Christian radio show for youth.
We told them a bit about our journey, and they invited us to speak on
their show in two days. We excitedly
agreed, and my spirit began to come alive again as I saw God’s faithfulness in
bringing forth random and unexpected encounters.
The
young men asked us if we’d like to see the radio station right then, so we
followed them a couple blocks to the station where their friend was already in
the middle of a broadcast. He introduced
himself and invited us to sit and listen to the music he was playing. Yet suddenly, he told us to be silent. He was switching from music to talking, and
we were live. Before I could even
register that we were not in fact waiting for two more days to go on air, a
microphone was in my face, and I was live on a broadcast being aired throughout
the entire nation. Flustered and
slightly miffed that I just-so-happened to be the one sitting closest to the
radio man, I gulped and coyly spoke into the microphone. “Hello Suriname…”
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| Camping our at a Church in Fortaleza Brazil |
Feeling
more hopeful, we headed to the hospital the next morning to pray for
patients. We had such a great time
talking and praying for people that we ended up returning the following day to
pray some more. Some of the people whom
we’d prayed for the first day seemed to be better physically and emotionally on
the second.
As
we asked to pray for people, we realized the large mixture of religions in
Suriname including Christianity, Buddhism, Hindu, and Islam. Yet, no matter what religion people were, all
of them told us that we were welcome to pray to Jesus. Despite my original impression of a cold and
closed people, I started to feel an authentic warmth from the culture. I was fascinated by the way the different
religious and cultural groups genuinely loved and respected each other and lived
in peace and harmony.
Taylor
M., Ben, and I prayed for a woman named Gloria who had lost all feeling in her
leg out of nowhere. She said the doctors
were unable to figure out the cause, and she was waiting for a diagnosis.
Meanwhile, she struggled to walk on this leg and hoped the feeling would somehow
return.
We
laid hands on her leg and began to pray.
As we spoke, her leg started to shake beneath our hands, and she
excitedly reported that the feeling had come back. Gloria looked shocked. We asked her to try to walk, and she got out
of bed and paced around the room. She
smiled in awe. Ben declared, “Jesus just
healed your leg.” The other women in the
room, Buddhist and Hindu, watched and clapped in celebration. This was wild.
The
random divine appointments continued when Ben walked to a nearby park to have
some time alone with the Lord. A woman
named Sandra approached him and asked for help.
She explained that her boyfriend had just broken up with her, and she was
overwhelmed and heartbroken. She was
afraid to face her children back home and was waiting in Paramaribo, unsure of
what to do. Ben counseled her a bit and
prayed for her, as she began to cry. He
asked if she’d be willing to meet him later at the park, and she agreed to
return at 5 o’clock. Ben walked to our
hostel and asked if any of the girls would like to come back with him to
minister to her.
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| the amazing women of our south america team |
A
few hours later, I accompanied Ben to the park and met Sandra. She seemed an open woman, seeking love and
wisdom, yet slightly uncomfortable in her own skin. As we talked, she slowly revealed pieces of
her story to us, explaining that she had three children from three different
men, and now her most recent boyfriend had left her. She had no job and no way to provide for her
kids. She felt
lost.
Her
eldest daughter, aged fourteen, repeatedly criticized her for her poor choices
and constantly declared that she would never be like her. Her other children were angry that their
fathers were not around. Sandra kept
saying, “I never wanted my life to be like this. I never planned this. I wanted one husband and father for my
kids. I never wanted my life to go like
this.”
I
realized that more importantly than forgiving the men who’d mistreated her or
forgiving her children for their anger, she needed to forgive herself. I prayed for Sandra, and then asked her to
repeat these words: “I forgive
myself. I am free from the words of my
daughter. I am loved. I am free.”
After this, she seemed lighter.
Sandra said she was ready to face her family now and more equipped to
love her daughter. When Ben and I left
Sandra, she was a smiling woman.
Days
later, we continued on to our last country in South America—French Guiana. This final trek included another three-hour
mini-bus ride to the border and a motorized canoe ride from one side of customs
to the other. When we arrived on the
French Guiana side of the border, we noticed a large sign that read,
“France.” We found out that French
Guiana is still a department of France, not a fully independent country. So technically, we were in France, South
America, and the Caribbean all at once.
What a way to end!
The
drawback of being in “France” was French prices. We’d heard rumors that French Guiana was
ridiculously expensive and decided to only stay for a few days to avoid going
broke. We’d been warned we would need to
spend at least forty euros a night just for a hostel and weren’t sure how we’d
swing these prices. We prayed that God
would provide some type of miraculous accommodation, but rumor said no cheap
hotels existed in the country. By the
grace of God, an angel in a pick-up truck appeared at the border and asked us if
we needed a cheap place to stay. For no
cost, just simply for the sake of being kind, he led us to a cheap hotel near
the border where we each paid around six U.S. dollars a night. Praise the Lord!
We’d
heard that there were indigenous villages all along the river and decided to go
for a visit. I told God I would be
satisfied if He sent us even one person to affect with an encounter of
love. Just one person would be
enough.
We
bargained with a man on the river to take us on his canoe to a nearby indigenous
community. I had no idea if this would
be awkward or awesome. We boated just
fifteen minutes upriver and were dropped off for a couple hours in a beautiful
and quiet village. We cautiously entered
the village and said hello to some people watching us, hoping they would receive
our presence warmly. We asked someone if
the chief was around in order to get his blessing to walk around the community
and pray for people. We were quickly
welcomed with open hearts and given permission to do as we pleased. While passing by a porch where a few people
sat, we struck up a conversation with one of the women, who soon asked us to
pray for her sick brother who was lying in a hammock just feet away from
her.
We
prayed for the man and the other women on the porch, and word of our visit
quickly spread. Within minutes, other
people from the community appeared at the porch to see what we were doing and
soon lined up for prayer. I had asked
God for just one person, but it seemed He had given us a whole village. For the next two hours, we talked and prayed
with several of the villagers. One young
man pointed to his ears, and it appeared that he couldn’t hear or speak. While we prayed, he began to shake by the
presence of God, and his face lit up with a brilliant smile. He still spoke no words, but gave us the
thumbs up signal, indicating that some type of healing had been received.
We
then prayed for another woman with ear problems. From what I understood, her ears were
clogged, and her hearing was affected. Still dealing with my own ear infection, I
laid hands on the woman’s ears, hoping both of us would get healed. As I prayed for her, my ear opened! The woman began to lift her hands and praise
God. Again, she didn’t explain what was
happening, but from her reaction, I assume her ears were also healed. Oddly, when I took my hands off of her, my
ear closed back up. (I ended up getting
completely healed a few days later, but I found it interesting that my own ear
opened and closed while praying for someone with the same condition). Afterwards, we were asked to visit another
woman’s house where we prayed for a few others until our boat came back to the
village to pick us up. On our canoe ride home, we were amazed at how quickly and
beautifully God had arranged this time for us.
We
left French Guiana on November 14th and later received news that
Tanya’s baby boy, Zion, was born that same day.
Just as we were leaving the very last country of the continent and
completing the vision for South America, new life came forth. It was a sweet reminder that every end means
a new beginning.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to fly home from French Guiana, which meant backtracking through Suriname and Guyana and flying from Georgetown. We stayed in Suriname for two nights en route and noticed a homeless man begging for change the first. Breck stopped to talk with him for a few minutes, and a couple people offered him coins and food. We walked back to our hostel, thinking very little of this encounter. The following night, we passed by the same man and decided to talk to him. His name was Theo. He remembered Breck from the night before and thanked him for speaking to him instead of passing him by like everyone else. Theo explained that people normally ignored him or treated him like an animal, having no value for him because he lived on the streets. We spent time praying for Theo and simply chatting about his life and family. We quickly discerned that Theo was a far cry from the stereotypical addict on the streets begging for change to pay for drugs. His heart was genuine and pure, and the only thing he craved was love. I’ll never forget his words. “You stopped for me. You talked to me. You treated me like a person. I feel better inside now.” What had originally meant very little to us had meant the world to Theo. An encounter with love, no matter how big or small, changes people.
After
a while, we headed back to our hostel, sobered by our encounter with Theo. Holding back tears, it hit me—LOVE. This was what our journey was all about. We’d traveled for over fourteen months and in
twenty-one different nations. We’d seen
miracles, watched amazing prophecies realized, and rubbed shoulders with great
leaders. But in the end, I realized
every adventure, every snapshot taken in a foreign country, every skill learned,
and even every healing miracle would have meant nothing without love. To be honest, the greatest miracle is the
simple love of the gospel, and that will never change. We can pray for healings,
visit ministries around the whole world, and prophesy until our faces turn blue,
but without simple, genuine love, it’s all worthless. When people ask me the greatest thing I’ve
learned on this trip, I think they may be expecting something more profound, but
this is the deepest thing I have to offer:
Love
God. Love people.
That
simple combination will never fail you.
1
Corinthians 13:
If
I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a
resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of
prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith
that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I
give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may
boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
8
Love
never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are
tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
13
And
now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is
love.
Friends, this will probably be my last blog until January or February. When the team begins working in the Caribbean, I will resume writing. Thanks for reading, praying, and celebrating what God is doing. Love you all.
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