In my previous blog I wrote about a little accident I had at
the waterfall. This is the second half of that experience, as I detail Pastor
Ivan’s reaction to my injuries and his interesting methods of treating me.
When I arrived back from the river, Pastor Ivan was the
first person to see me. As we explained what had happened, he immediately went
to work. First he asked if I needed to see the doctor. I said no, it was just
some scrapes and bruises. Ivan told me to sit down and wait for him. While Ivan
was gone the other girls on my team helped clean up the cuts and bandage them.
Thinking we were all done, I started to eat dinner. But then Ivan came down the
stairs, his hands full of strange remedies. Aside from his concern for me, he
seemed really excited about having someone to use them on.
mindset as a team. There have been some things that Ivan does that are
different from what we are used to and maybe even a bit strange, but we have
done everything we can to honor our hosts. For example, although we may feel
like the church is a bit conservative and that there is little room for freedom
or seemingly little joy in the rigid,
structured services, we know that it is not our place to come in and try and
change the way they do things. We are here to serve them and to honor them, and
if that means following a strict schedule of “song, verse, song, testimony,
song, song, song, message, etc” than that’s what we will do. It has been a bit
of a learning experience. I was about to experience another moment where I had
to take the mindset, sit back, and honor Pastor Ivan as he went to work.
looked clean and secure, and he began to blot them all with iodine. This stuff
had to be iodine at its most natural form, and it literally was just a brown
goo that really seemed unnecessary. Ivan completely covered all of my cuts with
them, including the one on my face. He even saw a slight red mark on my stomach
and made me rub a generous portion there as well. The whole time I’m sitting
there thinking, “what good is this? It is just making a mess and I’m going to
be covered in brown goo for the next few days!” My teammates were also
wondering if this was really necessary. I had to step back and just let him do
his thing and not question his methods, as much as I may have thought mine were
better.
that he said was from some tree in the forest. He told me to rub it around the
wounds to help reduce swelling. Not really having a choice, I once again obeyed
Ivan and let him put some on my knees. The sensation was similar to icy-hot,
which I used to use for sore arms when I played baseball. It was basically a
hot/cold sensation that helped to reduce the pain and swelling. I was impressed
at how good it worked, and almost immediately too!
and Ivan then all prayed for healing over me and left me to relax. I couldn’t
help but thinking how much I thought knew about treating wounds, but once again
a local knew more. Our methods from back home probably would have been fine,
but this was a chance for us to honor Ivan and to trust him and allow him to
serve us. As much as I really didn’t want to have dried brown goo on my face
and legs, I realized that this really wasn’t a big deal in the long run.
Our squad leader visited us last
week and encouraged us to have the mindset that we did come to Huaticocha just
so that Ivan could set us up with opportunities to serve in the community, but
rather that we there to seek out opportunities to serve Ivan and his family
aside from the opportunities presented us.
It all starts with honoring, and this was one of those times when we were
able to honor Ivan but letting him use his “weird” methods on me. I think I can
suffer a few days of feeling ridiculous and covered in gooey iodine!
