Jack Voelkel
Steve Hawthorne: a medical missionary accepts his limitations
Missionaries to the Highland Quechua Indians, Bolivia
You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it… (1 Corinthians 12:27).
(This guest article, the fifth we have excerpted from prayer letters written by Steve Hawthorne, M.D., was written in September 07. Steve and his wife, Mary, have been serving with the Highland Quechua Indians in Bolivia for 17 years with SIM. They have three children.)
Sometimes I catch myself brooding on the suitability of my personality for missionary work. I am not particularly outgoing, spontaneous, amiable, or entertaining. My kids tell me I’m too serious. I’d much rather be left alone to work at my desk than have to go out and talk to people. Sometimes I think the only appropriate epitaph for me will be “He died with his papers in order.”
I yearn for the coming of the Kingdom of God to Yawisla [a small Quechua-speaking town in Bolivia]. I long to see people healed, forgiven, reconciled to God and each other, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. I want to see justice practiced, truth told, God’s will obeyed, Jesus’ name honored, and peace established. But I wonder whether God shouldn’t have sent a more adequate person for the job. (Except that Mary comes with me, and her gifts of mercy and hospitality are the real keys to our ministry.) Reassurance came to me recently in the development and aftermath of a conference hosted by our Quechua church. It is a story with roots that stretch back a long way…
Cochabamba, July 1989
Mary and I have only been in Bolivia a week. Our heads are spinning from language school and all the new people we are meeting. Our two-year-old son hasn’t adjusted to the food and is throwing up everything he eats. So we are a bit distracted when an SIM friend introduces us to Gastón, the pastor of a new church called La Comunidad. However, later we visit his church and Gastón and his wife, Bea, take us out for ice cream. They have a boy, Juan Bablo, with hemophilia and over the next year we meet together to form an Association to facilitate importation of the scarce clotting Factor 8.
Potosí, October 2006
I’m driving into Potosí one evening to pick up Mary. She’s been away four days teaching at a women’s conference and I’m anxious to see her. We pick up some supplies at the market and are about to start the two-hour drive back to Yawisla when I think, “Here’s a rare treat—we are in the big city on a Saturday night—let’s have a date!” So we step into a café on the plaza for coffee. The couple at the next table is staring at us, and we stare back—it is Gastón and Bea! After 16 years, we meet again! They have a weekend off their pastoral work at La Comunidad and are visiting Potosí for the first time in their lives. We join them at their table and catch each other up on our lives. We share the struggles of our rural Quechua church and the burden we feel for the young people. They say they night like to visit sometime! Months later, when our church begins to plan our annual conference, I send them an invitation.
Yawisla, June 2007
A nearly-full moon casts razor shadows into the quiet streets of town on the eve of our church conference. For weeks we stockpiled firewood, corn, potatoes, sugar, flour, and blankets for visitors. Wisps of smoke rise from the clay oven in the church patio to blur the stars. We baked thousands of round loaves of bread here today and butchered five goats that hang in the storeroom.
A bus pulls in at midnight. Gastón gets off, followed by 26 college students he brought from La Comunidad church on an 18-hour ride. His son Juan Pablo is among them: still taking Factor 8 for bleeding emergencies, he is now the drummer for the team’s music group. For the next three days, these Spirit-filled young Bolivian Christians do some of the best missionary work I’ve ever seen. While the adults meet with our invited speakers (on Marriage Enrichment and Forgiveness & Reconciliation), the team from Cochabamba runs a program for the Quechua children of all ages. They have workshops, indoor and outdoor activities, music and theater; but I like best seeing how frequently they stop to pray and counsel with individual Yawisla kids. There is a palpable spirit of joy in the packed church—some give their lives to Christ, others are reconciled, and everyone feels challenged to live for Jesus and reflect his love in our community.
Since the conference, 15 Yawisla young people meet together weekly to learn more about the Christian faith. We look forward to some baptisms soon. Transformation has been especially evident in the life of Sara (a girl I mentioned in my April letter who attempted suicide)1 who is now helping Mary teach the children on Sundays.
The sum of it all
What I lacked in being able to reach out to the Quechua youth in Yawisla, God supplied in the form of this group of students who were extroverted, funny, and everything I’m not. God brought it about through a “chance” meeting in a café with an old friend. All I supplied was my ability to hang in a place for a long time, and the desire to take my wife out for coffee!
Reflection Questions
1. Do you sometimes share Steve’s perceived sense of inadequacy?
2. What did he learn through the experience he relates?
3. What are the gifts God has given you? How are you using them for Him?
Note: Steve Hawthorne has four other articles published in “Great Cloud of Witnesses”:
- Christian Subversives (Aug 13, 2007)
- Family Medicine (Jan 15, 2007)
- A Missionary’s Struggle with Issues of Power (June 19, 2006)
- Come Ride with Me (May 16)
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