GMTM 16 -1973(3) - When God Slammed the Door Shut

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In my previous blog, I described a trip when I didn’t know where I was going. And that was true on various levels. On that 500-mile trip through the wild Brazilian west, I really didn’t know where I was going, or even where I was, for that matter. I was along for the ride, and I trusted Francisco to drive us from place to place. I was in no position to make suggestions on which way to turn on those largely unimproved back roads. That’s a very real example of our walk of faith in God throughout life. God has informed us of our final eternal destination, and we must trust Him to choose the roads He wants us to take on the way there. He knows where all the stops are, and all the muddy ruts we will need to deal with along the road of life. When we travel by plane, we trust the pilot and his navigator to get us where we’re going. Have we learned to trust God to get us to the right eternal destination? If the terrain below doesn’t look right, or we fly into turbulence, do we decide to just get off where we are? If we’re not pleased with the circumstances in our lives, do we say to God “Thanks, but I think I need to take over now”?

FINALLY AN OPEN DOOR

I made that trip in February, but that door was not open for us in God’s plan. I thought about other options after that, but none of them worked out. It was mid-October and Jeff was not yet two months old when I saw a door opening up. Bro. Clovis,

Bro. Clovis and family in Canoas, RGS

who worked as an airline mechanic for the Brazilian airline VARIG, was transferred to Porto Alegre, about 750 miles further south, in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. He wanted to organize a church down there, so Steve and I made a trip to see him. I was attracted by the opportunity to interact with the community of German immigrants that predominate in the southern states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. I was so impressed that I decided to take our family down there to check out the field. Steve agreed to fly our family down at the end of November, and we would look for a place to live. That was at that same time we were informed by the owner of the house we were renting in Santa Cruz that he was going to sell the house, and we would have to find somewhere else to live at the end of the year, in any case. That was another indication that God was going to move us.

December 1973, Rachel (6), Rick (almost 5) and Jeff (4 mos.) I was 27 and Abbie 26.

Our family, now with 3 kids, got on the Cessna and took off on Nov. 27 as planned, but the weather did not go according to our plans. An hour and a half into the flight, clouds forced us to turn back. Change of plans. I put two new tires on the car, sold $50 to Steve and borrowed another Cr$100 ($15) from him, and we left the next morning by car for the 750-mile, 2-day trip to Porto Alegre.

Clovis was living in Canoas, in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, and we searched the surrounding towns, but the prices were too high and we thought the houses were too primitive. In São Paulo state, where we lived, houses were made of brick and mortar. Here in the south, most of the houses were built of wood.

We found this house and paid two months' rent for it. We never saw it again.

We finally came across a house near the center of Canoas that had 3 bedrooms, a large yard and garage. It was made of wood, but because of its size and arrangement, we agreed to pay a deposit of two months’ rent to hold the house for us until we could make the move in January. I paid a part of the deposit and promised to send the remainder by Dec. 15, when I could exchange more money in SP. At one point in driving around, I went to put gas in the car and realized I had only Cr$2 in cash…USD 0.30. We were still over 10 miles from Clovis’s house. By coasting downhill and praying uphill, we made it back to his house. But we were also 750 miles from SCRP, with a lot of uphill and downhill in between. I didn’t make a note of how we got the money or how much, but we did arrange enough to get home. It couldn’t have been very much, because we slept in our VW Squareback at a service station on the way back home instead of finding a hotel, like we had done on the trip down.

Our VW Squareback (Port: = Variante)

The car was small, with seating similar to a VW Beetle, but then our family was still small enough to manage somehow. This was one of the many occasions over the years when we had to put into practice one of the apostle Paul’s instructions to Timothy: “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” 2 Timothy 2.3. KJV  Other translations say,“suffer hardship”, but in those times, we never felt we were suffering a hardship, we were simply doing whatever had to be done and putting up with whatever it took. That’s what soldiers do.

  Abbie and the three kids slept in the back seat, and I in the front until about 4:00 a.m. before driving the rest of the way home, where we arrived about noon. It was December 4, and I began making arrangements with a man in SCRP who regularly sent trucks to RGS to pick up onions. He was willing to take our boxes and barrels of household goods down there for us, and we scheduled the move for January 2, after Christmas and New Year’s.

We started packing up the few things we had in preparation for the move. On Dec. 8, my 27^th birthday, I had Cr$12…USD 2 and I had one week to arrange $140 to complete the payment of the deposit on our house in Porto Alegre. The birthday gifts I got that day reflected our financial status at the time: Abbie made me a couple of handkerchiefs; Rachel (almost 6) wrapped up a 10-centavo coin (less than $0.02); and Rick (almost 5) wrapped up an old billfold and filled it with scraps of paper, which he said were his documents. It’s times like that when you realize it has to be the thought that counts, because the monetary value of the gifts are negligible. On a grander scale, Steve loaned me Cr$100 ($16) for us to get by on, something he and I were used to doing back and forth as the need arose. I was able to get to SP on Dec. 17 and send a check in Cr$ for the deposit. Another milestone reached. We were about to move!  

Eldwyn Rogers and his family. long-time missionaries in Brazil, Paraguay and Chile. Their eldest son, Mike, was married and living in the US.

The last half of December was a blur. On Dec. 12, we got a letter from the

Rogers family in Paraguay saying they would be arriving that day to stay 10 days or so. They would be leaving from SP for the US around Christmas. They and their letter arrived almost simultaneously.

The Birthday Party

The Rogers, Montgomery and Potter missionary-Kid gathering

Philip Rogers, age 5 years and 364 days Rachel Potter, age 6

On the 18^th, we had a joint 6^th birthday party for our eldest, Rachel, and for Philip, the youngest of the Rogers clan. Philip would go on to be a missionary in Chile for many years. He now lives in Mississippi, and whenever we run into each other we always talk about that birthday party. He insists he is still traumatized, having been left emotionally scarred by the fact that he had to share Rachel’s birthday party, and he didn’t get one on his birthday. She was born one day before him and there was no party on the 19^th. But there was a surprise that day.

KNOCK, KNOCK, WHO’S THERE?

Without warning, more visitors arrived to stay with the Montgomerys and us. Bill and Betty W. showed up unannounced. I remember them as bringing a teenage daughter and a younger son with them. They were related to a pastor we knew in the States, and they had just been in Peru with missionaries of their denomination. Wanting to “escape the evils of America”, they were looking into moving to Brazil. Bill had sold his construction business, but he had to give away his ’68 Cadillac. Due to the gas shortage in 1973, the most he could get for his gas guzzling car was $250.

Now, suddenly, there were 25 people staying in two houses. There were four families with 17 kids, so the girls stayed with us and the boys and the two visiting couples slept next door with Steve and Jeannie. Then, on the same day they arrived, the 19^th, Bro. José, the 93-year-old member of our church died. His funeral was on the 21^st.

Bro. José, 93 ---- The church didn't have a sound system, so he got to sit next to the pulpit. Bro. José was baptized in the flowing waters of the Rio Pardo at the age of 83. Hecklers among the bystanders shouted, "You're going to kill the old man!" He told Pastor Steve, who was baptizing him, "They're wrong. The old man already died", a reference to His conversion to Christ (Rom. 6.6-8)

Then, on the day of his funeral, the 4-year-old granddaughter of a church member was badly burned, playing with alcohol and matches. She died the next morning, on Dec. 22, and she was buried on Sunday, the 23^rd. Just a day or two earlier, she had been heard singing to herself, “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I’ll be there.” 

Who said, “Merry Christmas”? Being in the southern hemisphere in the summer, we knew better than to even dream of a “White Christmas”, but we would have enjoyed happier circumstances.

WHAT NONE OF US KNEW WAS AWAITING US JUST AHEAD

The Rogers went on to SP on Saturday, the 22^nd, to stay with the Rosses, and in the meantime, Bill and Betty had decided it would be a mistake to move to Brazil. He went around checking into the possibility of buying land for raising cattle and discovered he would be competing with men who owned 700,000 head of cattle and bought land in parcels of 1.2 million acres. That was out of his league.

Betty came over to our house and was shocked at the bare-necessity level of our existence. Of course, almost everything was in boxes and barrels in anticipation of our move in two weeks, and that made an even bigger impression on her. The fact remained that our Christmas dinner that year was limited to a bowl of soup, but for us, that was not a hardship.

Bill and Betty could not resist asking us why we were in Brazil, living in those conditions. Their denomination teaches that those who profess Christ as Savior can lose their salvation if they don’t hold out faithful until the end. I explained that we weren’t on the mission field in order to earn our salvation. We were there because we knew we were already saved. We were simply obeying God’s call in joyful response to His grace. As I said before, we had been bought and our lives were not our own. We had enlisted as soldiers, and we simply obeyed His leading.

After Christmas, on Thursday the 27^th, Steve took Bill and Betty’s family to SP and we took their luggage in our car. Steve turned around and went back to Santa Cruz the same day, but we stayed on in SP to see Bill and Betty’s family off at the airport on Saturday, the 29^th. As soon as they took off, we headed back home because we were going to be moving 4 days later, on Wednesday, January 2.  

When we got to SCRP that Saturday afternoon, we learned that Steve had never made it home on Thursday. He had fallen asleep at the wheel and had run into the back of a truck slowly climbing a hill on the highway. We had driven right by the scene of the accident and the town where he lay in a hospital. I entered this in my diary that day, “We might have to put off the move for a day or two.”

I went to see Steve on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 30, and on Monday we learned from the nurses that, although Steve might go home Wednesday (the day of our scheduled move), Steve would have to be taken lying down in an ambulance, wearing a neck brace. Instead of us moving 750 miles on Jan. 2, Steve would be moved 125 miles to a hospital nearer us for further tests to determine the extent of the injury to his neck

Had God just slammed the door shut in our face; the door we were convinced had finally been opened to us?

On Dec. 31, 1973, all we knew for sure was that we wouldn’t be moving on January 2. Whether we moved at all would depend on Steve’s condition in the next few days.

And we had already agreed to give up the house we were living in.