A Student Missionary's Letters Home
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Monday, June 7, 2004

Dear friends and family,

It's that time again! Another mass email from Tim the traveler. I've been in the states for about 5 weeks and it's time to head off again. I guess I just have adventure in my bones.

I've spent the last few weeks all over the place, but most of it has been spent at PUC doing various projects and preparing for this next trip. I am leaving with my good friend, Paul Kim and we will be traveling through Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil, Bolivia, and possibly Peru! Our goal is to produce 3 video documentaries in less than 2 months on the educational work happening in the countries's interior, the medical missionary avation, and the broadcasting networks (Adventist Spanish Television Network).

All in all, it's just an incredible story that is to be told and I will be telling you more of it as I write from the field. There are many many people working down there as volunteers and I can't wait to meet them and hear their stories. This time I hope to have more access to internet to keep in touch. I have been in touch with David Gates while I was in the Philippines, so this trip has been in the planning for about a year now. He is the one who helped start up all of these projects and oversees the work happening. He's an incredible man of faith and Paul and I are really looking forward to working with him some(he's kinda busy).

Anyways, God blessed so much on my last experience and I just know this one will be wonderful as well. We're getting all packed up, testing all of the equipment, and getting ready to roll. Remember, life is an adventure :) Really.

Thanks for all of your support,

With Love,
~Tim De La Torre

Tuesday, June 8, 2004

I'm somewhere in Cuidad Guyana, Venezuela this evening. Bob Norton, the pilot for Gospel Ministries International in Venezuela picked Paul & I up at the airport at around 9:20pm. We had traveled for 25 hours since leaving PUC Monday afternoon. Time for a break. Okay, so here's what happened.

Our flight got changed 3 days before we left and we got bumped to a different route, so we had to make 1 more stop and arrive 3 hours later than planned. After stopping in Las Vegas and Miami, we headed on to Maracaibo, Venezuela. Why??? I don't know. We got off the plane and were going through customs when one of the customs agents (I thought) picked up our bag and put it on the table to have the other officer examine it. The officer looked in one bag and waved us on and this man promptly took off with our stuff leading the way asking if we wanted to go to a taxi. Paul & I knew we were in trouble now. This guy wasn't a custom's agent, he was a porter. THAT was sneaky. So we explained in broken Spanish that we needed go continue on to Caracas. Upon arrival at the ticket agent, he asked for veinte dolares and I tried to explain I never wanted his help or asked for it but... ya, how can I explain that? So I offered him a dollar. I could tell he was angry. Then a man in military uniform came up and said something I couldn't understand. Then Paul was talking to the ticket agent and I overheard "You need to purchase a ticket to Caracas". Oh my goodness, it was just too much. Then thank God, a nice man who could translate came up and took care of the porter, "just give him $2 and he'll be fine", then he explained that the military uniform guy was a national guard who wanted us to go with him to examine our bags.

Well we must have been there 45 minutes trying to explain to the airline that Aero Postal had changed our flight and added an extra city to stop in, and that somewhere along the line one of the agents had not given us the ticket we needed. I turned on my computer 2 times to show them the email that said we had been switched to another flight. Eventually they worked it out and we were free to go to the interrogation.

"Politico? Journalist?" the questions came out too fast in Spanish for me to understand. The man was waving a newspaper around trying to explain himself with Paul and I only picking up 4% of what he was saying. The three men in the tiny room opened up every one of our bags and methodically went through them questioning everything. They took our wallets, searched our bodies, tried to make us guess how much $ we had in them before checking it themselves, and kept asking us why we were here and what we were doing. They didn't buy the explaination "tourismo", since we had 3 video cameras and 2 still cameras, one of which never made it out of the room I found out when I arrived in my hotel this evening. Thankfully they only stole my inexpensive camera. My leatherman is also missing, I'm just hoping somehow those things were left at home. I could kick myself for not paying better attention when they searched our luggage. At least it wasn't one of the $2000+ cameras.

It was a hectic ordeal that lasted over 30 minutes but they finally released us. Paul's headwrap kinda threw them off too, he had just shaved his head and it was kinda cold where we came from. They must have thought he had explosives hidden in there the way they looked at it. We were able to catch our flight to Caracas just in time and then when we arrived in Caracas, Paul and I ran around the airport trying to find our flight. Thankfully it still had 20 minutes before it left but we were getting worried for a second, because we couldn't find it.

All in all, it was a boring trip and we're EXHAUSTED and ready for some sleep. Bob Norton seems to be a friendly guy and I can't wait to talk to him more tomorrow.

*Wednesday, June 9

Wow. Today was somewhere between awesome and incredible. It started at 6am when Paul & I woke up and headed out to the plane. Paul had never been on a plane before besides the big commercial jets and boy was he excited. We taxied over to fill up the tanks for about $1.36/gal and that is high octane airplane fuel! Not bad. Bob Norton said it was $4-6/gal in Brazil.

We hit the runway and before we knew it, we had gracefully left the ground and were soaring with the birds. Speaking of birds, there were this weird eagles on the ground that looked like walking T-Rex's, it was kinda funy. Okay, so we were flying and spent a lot of time just getting to know Bob. The more we spoke, the more I liked the guy. He's just warm, friendly, and real down to earth but this guy knows what he's doing. He knows the whole terrain in his head, which is crazy considering the terrain. It's just gorgeous, dotted with lakes, rivers, jungle, and waterfalls. And let me tell you, this is a country of waterfalls. He said he originally had the intention of taking a picture of every waterfall but he soon realized there are literally thousands and it is impossible.

Soon we saw them for ourselves. Golden torrents of water rushing over the edge of the jungle in every place. Waterfalls that put yellowstone and yosemite to shame. The plane soon entered a sort of canyon with a shelf that must have been about 5,000-6,000ft, it was very large so we could fly inside of it. It was the most rugged, scarred, and yet beautiful scene I can think of. We floated around in the canyon for a bit and then our jaws dropped open. There before us was Angel Falls. Shooting out of the top of the canyon and falling to the bottom. It is a 1 kilometer drop, or approx. 3,200ft!!!! It's huge, stinking huge! And it's just beautiful. By the time the water hit's the bottom, it is just mist that settles all around the area. Bob said that people jump off from the top and pull a parachute somewhere along the way. That would be... wow, fun.

Sometimes the plane caught some thermals or drafts and threw us around a bit and then Bob would change elevation to smooth things out. Everytime we went through a little cloud, we could feel the drafts push the plane around. It was fun! Trying to film all of this stuff though made Paul a bit nauseated and I didn't feel all that well either after three hours of flying when we reached the village of Maurok where Bob lives. When I saw the runway, I said to myself, "yeah right!!" It was so tiny! No pavement, just grass and dirt. Bob just smiled at me and said, "I can land this thing and bring it to a stop without even hitting the brakes on this runway". He taught me a lot about flying that day, but I really respect his ability, especially after seeing him land that plane. It's a Cesna 172 with a STOL kit and I have ridden in small planes maybe 10 times in my life but have NEVER experienced a softer landing than that. It's not the softest runway either, he just knows what he's doing. He also has a GPS which is a very useful tool for calculating wind speed, air speed, and ground speed. It's an old plane but he keeps it in good shape, but there have been 2 times where he lost all electrical on the plane and had to land it without any instruments he says. He says if it's bad weather and he can't see, he can land it with only instruments... now that's just crazy considering the land and no tower control. The GPS helps but I think it's all in his mind so good he could land it with only an altimeter and 0 visibilty.

He explained a little bit about the program here. He provides support for transporting pastors, layworkers, missionaries, and sick patients in and out of about 12 villages anywhere for 20 minutes to an hour and a half flight away. After flying over this country, I realize how practical it is here. There are many planes and helicopters here owned by rich people, tourist or mining companies, because land travel can take days. The villages he flies to have no ground transportation except for walking. Using HAM radio, they can communicate their need to him. He flies people everyday, many are snakebite victims. He says when he is just exhausted and has to have a short vacation, it tears his heart out, because of the people who need him to fly. He explained to me how when Jesus was here, He didn't heal everybody who was sick, only those He came in contact with. Even Jesus had to go away to rest for a while. As missionaries, it can be a temptation to run oneselves ragged, because you see the need first hand, you are saving lives, making a difference everyday. How can you take a day off? But it must be done, so you can live to help more people. As a pilot, it is important to stay alert. I haven't seen the short runways yet but he tells me he has to empty the tanks to half full, and can only fly one person out, because of the weight requirements, and when he does that, sometimes he almost shaves the tops of the trees off during takeoff. It's that close. He says it's God who makes up the difference.

When we landed, we met his wonderful wife who is Venezuelan. He speaks perfect Spanish and she can speak English well enough to communicate on a good basis. We took off for town with a 275gallon tank in the back of their '91 Ford pickup truck to pick up gas for the plane. It was only a 15 minute drive to Santa Elena, where a long airstrip is being rebuilt but was never finished, so the planes have to take off and land on the dirt beside it which can be tricky in rainy season(which it is now). We purchased fuel there. We went and ate in town at a really nice buffet style restaurant, and then headed back. He stopped to get his starter fixed at a shop, because he said it's cheaper and faster to have someone do it for him. Labor here is very cheap, as is food, and GAS. Okay, okay, I want you all to guess how much a gallon of gas costs here for cars... come on, guess. 9cents!! It's only 9cents a gallon, and if you buy premium grade, it's 12cents a gallon! Can you believe that? Venezuela makes their own gas. Man, the hard thing to image is that they make a profit on that also. They also make airplane fuel, which is anywhere from $1.20-$2 depending on the exchange rate. Can you image how filthy rich someone is getting from us Americans paying $2.50/gal? sheeesh. He said that most planes have tested out to accept automobile gasoline but his engine will not accept that. The new plane he is hoping to get soon which will be donated by a doctor when he sells his house will be a Cesna 182 which will accept automobile fuel. Then instead of a fuel bill of $700-$1000 a month, it will be $70-$100 a month!!! INCREDIBLE.

Bob is just an awesome guy, with an incredible faith and trust in God. He said, "We just stepped out in faith, knowing God would provide. And He always has. Sometimes it gets really tight and we can't always eat what we want to but God has never failed us". The plane was purchased by David Gates's ministry Gospel Ministries International but Bob's fuel, maintenance, and all other money comes from some people in his local church at home which has supported him. Wow. If every church just sent off one missionary and supported them, imagine what could be done! Bob makes a great missionary, he has a wonderful attitude, speaks the language fluently, and has a plethora of amazing talents and abilities. He learns fast too, I taught him some audio/video editing on his computer.

He is the only Adventist pilot here in Venezeula performing a service to the people. I think he said there are some other planes up in another part of the country that work with New Tribes Mission. There is more work to do than can be done by one pilot, and I can tell he really needs help. There is a big need for another pilot to come down here and help share some of the load. Also with the new plane's arrival, much more work could be done and many more lives saved. His face was just radiant as he explained how it thrills his heart to be able to help save a life that otherwise would have died, who hasn't yet heard about or accepted Jesus. The Adventist church is involved here in sending out pastors and layworkers to teach and encourage the people. Before the plane was here, pastors could only visit once a year if things went well. Now there are 12 villages with fulltime Venezuelan missionaries living in them, plus several schools.

Unfortunately, school just ended last week and the student missionaries all went home, so we won't be able to video any of the college students teaching school, that is why we are going to Guyana tomorrow, because they still have 1 more week of school and Gary Roberts, the pilot in Gayana is going to take us around to the different schools there before summer vacation starts. That should be exciting.

This afternoon, after we returned from town, Bob grabbed his parasail and we all hiked almost 1000ft up to a mountain where he jumped off and we filmed him flying around. It's a good way for him to destress and have some fun where on some days, he's doing anywhere from 4-10 CRAZY takeoffs and landings with almost no margin for error with a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. So I'm happy to see he knows how to take a break and relax every once and a while. He doesn't do it enough, I know he pulled it out this time mainly because our cameras were here. Unfortunately, it had just rained on us and the wind had died down after the rain so that when he jumped, he didn't catch any good wind to take him up the mountain and he ended up only having about a 1 minute flight to the bottom. He hopes someday to get a motor powered parachut so he can enter villages with even shorter airstrips. He says he could take off in about 300ft with one of those. It takes a good pilot to fly out here though, because of rapidly changing weather conditions, no radio or tower communication unless you happen to catch another plane in the area, which means nobody to help if you get in trouble.

Anyways, I really have enjoyed getting to know Bob, he is an amazing guy with so many talents. God has really used him here, as I am sure Paul and I will be seeing a lot more of first hand when we return from Guyana. So as for now, our experience has been wonderful. All except for those punk government officers who stole my brand new still camera(not my SLR, thank you Jesus), my leatherman knife, and Paul's $180 cycling glasses. I'm thankful though, that they are things we can do without and still accomplish our purpose here. :) It's just part of the adventure, why cry about it? haha.

Paul and I are getting tore up by these little gnats or something that bite us and draw blood. No mosquitos yet, these things are worse. I hate them. arrrgh!

Thursdat, June 10, 2004

Hey everybody,

We've been here for 3 days now. Wow, talk about adventure! We're having an awesome time. Let's see if I can just highlight a few of the things.

Upon arriving in Maracaibo, our first stopover in Venezuela, we were thoroughly interrogated and searched by some national guards and while we were busy answering questions from one guy, the other guys made off with my new digital camera(not the expensive one, Thank you God), my leatherman, and Paul's expensive cycling glasses. Those punks. They even shook our hands afterwards, and we had no idea. Oh well, I guess we can do without them.

We met Bob Norton at the airport in Ciudad Guyana(AKA Porto Ordaz) after a short stopover in Caracas. All in all, we made 5 stops and traveled 25 hours from PUC to Porto Ordaz. Lets just say we were tired. Bob is the coolest guy. I really like him. He's got a Southern accent and speaks perfect Spanish, he grew up in Mexico. His father was a mission pilot. Anyways, he flies a Cessna 172 with a STOL kit which was purchased by Gospel Ministries International(David Gates's Ministry) and he came down on faith, with some financial support from his home church. He says sometimes the money gets really tight but God ALWAYS provides and the operation continues. "Sometimes we don't always eat what we want but God is always faithful".

Flying over the land is indescribable. It's just beautiful. You need to go to www.timdelatorre.com and go to my travel section and look under South America. I also have a more thorough description of our adventures there.

We tried to go to Guyana today but immigration is bottlenecking us, so we had to pay $90 to get visas for Brazil which last 5 years, and get stamped our of Venezuela. So we are going on Friday. We will fly to a town at the border of Guyana and cross on a boat and then Gary Roberts who is the pilot there will fly us to Georgetown. We will officially start our video work there in Guyana although we have had some work here.

Please pray for our video camera, the one Paul brought from the departments seems to have given up the ghost. That will leave us with only 1 good camera and we really might need to split up to get some stories.

All I can say is mission flying is incredible. I've never experienced a softer landing before, and it's not because of the grass runway. You have to be good to be a mission pilot and God has definately called the right people for the right job. Amen!

Thanks for all of your prayers and support, God is good ALL THE TIME.

We are having a blast.

From Venezuela, South America,
Your friend,
~Tim De La Torre

Saturday, June 12, 2004

We just got out of church, so I have a bit to sit down and write. Yesterday morning we woke up around 5:30am to fly with Bob Norton and all of our stuff to the border. We landed on a small grass and sand runway and unloaded all of our stuff. Some soldiers came up to check us out, they seem to patrol all of the border areas. I was a bit nervous, because we had checked out of Venezuela the day before and we were still inside of Venezuela(in the process of crossing over), so it would be hard to explain. Thankfully Bob speaks fluent Spanish and answered their questions. Soon Bob took off and left us there with a local who is a missionary in the nearby village across the river in Guyana. We were a tad bit hungry but excited for adventure, so we were eager to be off. After 15 minutes of carrying my backpack and a 5gallon jug of gasoline for the boat engine, I was about beat. These other guys carried our huge suitcases and it made us feel... weak. Soon we arrived at the location on the river where the boat was coming to pick us up. We learned that our guide's name is Anselmo. He had a loud voice and spoke good English. We climbed in a wooden boat with an outboard motor that soon came up. It wasn't too tipsy, so Paul stood up and videoed some while we skimmed down the beautiful river. Iridescent blue butterflies danced along the edge and birds swarmed all around gulping down the flies that swarmed right above the water.

In 45 minutes, we arrived in the village of Kaikan. It was a lot of work hauling our luggage up the steep embankment to the airstrip. The village was amazingly spread out. It took us a good 20 minutes to reach the airstrip at the top. There was a big elementary school I passed on the way up, all of the children came to look at Paul & I and were just so happy looking. There was a huge fence enclosing the school which made it look like a prison. We later learned it was there to keep the soldiers from harassing the young girls. As I crested the summit, I saw the blue Cesna 182 that Gary Roberts flew. Upon arrival, I was kind of shocked at his young age. He is only 26 years old and stands a few inches over 6 feet. He had a great smile and Paul & I soon became good friends with him. We talked for a bit and then strapped the extra video camera we had brought to the wing. We've been trying to get some cool aerial videography. So far we've gotten some really cool shots.

Gary took off with us and took us to the village of Araw, where an Indian Bible worker family lives. The strip we landed on was tiny and we were pretty loaded down, but we landed with just enough space. He pulled out a big car battery and some other boxes of supplies for the missionaries. A few weeks before, an Indian that graduated from the Industrial College in the village of Pariuma which we would later visit had helped install the solar panels and wire the whole house with lights. Night is an ideal time for teaching and studying with the people, and now that they have lights, they are looking forward to even more work. They have lived in that village for 3 and a half years and over 70 people have been brought to Christ as a result of their dedication and commitment to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with another Amerindian tribe.

After Gary worked for a while on setting up the battery and fixing some of the lights which had been wired incorrectly, we took off, and let me tell you, Magic Mountain is nothing compared to taking off seconds before running into stumps or hitting the trees right beyond. Wow, talk about exciting. These pilots we have flown with know their planes as an extension of their bodies and fly with little or no margin for error. It is exciting, yes, but there is a huge responsibility on their shoulders and it is just incredible to see a young person committed to the Lord with such a huge level of responsibility. There are 25 planes total in the country of Guyana. Gary is the only link that all of these villages, Bible workers, teachers, and missionaries have to the outside world. Yes, they have HI-frequency radio but it doesn't do any good when you are a month walk from town. The only real city in this country is Georgetown, which is a 2 hour flight from some of these villages near the middle where we are at.

After we returned, Gary ran another flight delivering a pregnant lady and her family to a clinic 30 minutes flying away. When he came back, we loaded all of our things into the plane, and took off with 4 adults and one child. Talk about loaded down. It was one of the most beautiful flights and soon we were circling over the village of Paruima, home of the DIIC(David Indian Industrial College) which had been restarted by David Gates about 6years ago. It is the most beautiful village I had ever seen. The grass airstrip was on the other side of a river which ran alongside the town. So when we take the final approach for landing, we fly right over the river and the land just suddenly appears and the the wheels touch down. It took us over 20 minutes to drag all of our supplies down the runway, load them into the dugout canoe, and then run up the river (thankfully there was an engine in the canoe) past the whole village to the college. When we got out, we had a daunting hill to climb but we made it, and boy were we glad we did. The building are just magnificent. What's even harder to imagine is that there is no outside contact with the world besides this little airplane. Beautifully painted buildings, constructed professionally were set up. A dormitory, a library/religion center, and several other multistory classrooms. All of the boards cut by chainsaw, all of the cement imported by air. The sounds of the jungle permeated the campus. This village, like the others was very well spread out.

Paul & I cleaned up, then headed over to the Gary and Wendy's house for dinner. His wife is a good cook and our first meal that day tasted like a peice of heaven. We were exhausted, but the river was calling me and the bed was calling Paul, so we each headed off to our own destination. There was a mild current and the water felt wonderful. Apparently there are some Caiman that inhabit some of the waters in the area but we didn't happen on any. In the waters in one of the other villages Gary services, a girl had 3 toes bitten off by a Piranha. That didn't sound too fun, but Gary assured me we had nothing to worry about. That evening was spent in a wonderful conversation as we learned more about Gary and Wendy. They are such an incredible young couple. They are both graduates of Southern Adventist University with B.S.N. degrees. Gary's father is a mission pilot in Papua New Guinea, he is the last General Conference mission pilot. He's been flying since he can remember and got his license in Highschool and kept advancing his licenses into his college years. His wife helps in some of the clinics here and is the main secretary for all of the villages of Guyana, working the radio and contacting her husband who is often in the air. They have some incredible stories, they should write a book someday.

Almost everyone in Guyana speaks English, but most of these villages also have their own local dialect which is being forgotten by the new generation. In the village of Paruima where I am staying at the time I am writing this letter, very few people use the old dialect. The college here is for older students who didn't have a chance at an education before the government schools were built out here in the interior. The DIIC college here accepts students from all over the interior and in addition to an academic program, teaches them practical hands on skills such as agriculture, electro-mechanics, home economics, carpentry, and health sciences.

Today, on Sabbath, we went to church. It was just the most beautiful church, it's indescribable. I just can't believe it was built completely from the stuff here, by chainsaw. It's an elegant white and sits atop a small hill. It's very large, has a balcony, and must seat over 200 people when it's full. It was maybe half full. It was a pretty nice service, which was spoken in English and translated to the local dialect for some of the older people. The speaker used some big words and after talking with Gary, came to the conclusion that he had found a good sermon he liked and copied the majority of it into his talk. It was a good sermon, I'll be truthful, but one observation I've seen lacking from my experience in the Philippines and just the 'little' I've seen here is the self-assurance that the native needs to be able to say, "I can do it too", without having to copy from others.

It rained 3 times today, and we could just see the big cloud rolling in and were running for cover but we got drenched one time on the 12 minute walk back from church. The next time, we were going to do some interviews outside or go for a hike but a huge rain cloud hit us and within 10 minutes, transferred all the walkways into rivers. So our day was spent talking and relaxing.

Monday, June 14, 2004

At the moment I am writing this, I am flying with Gary over the jungles of Guyana. He woke up me at 4:40am this morning and we slipped out of Paruima unnoticed by the majority of the town. Some early risers were up as we skimmed down the river in the dugout canoe but I still think most of the people were asleep. We spent an hour and a half fueling up and transferring supplies to take to an indiginous missionary couple in the village of Wax Creek which we had visited yesterday. As we took off this morning, we had to punch through a layer of fog covering the whole valley and when we came out, the whole valley was blanketed in white with some beautiful lush green mountain peaks sticking out of the fog. Paul is still in bed sleeping I think back in Paruima, he's going to climb the mountain when we start to return so he can get some cool shots of the plane coming in.

Yesterday we also left early but not this early. We went with 5 people, Gary & Wendy Roberts, Paul & I and an indiginous student who graduated from DIIC. He's a pretty smart guy, and his job was to set up the solar panels, batteries, and antennae for the radio communications of this missionary couple. Before, if there was an emergancy or they needed something, they had to take a canoe many hours down the river and then walk several hours to the closest village. You can imagine how happy they are now.

Our morning started off with a pre-flight check but before we could get off the ground, several patients had come by. Gary & Wendy are both nurses and checked all of the patients out and decided to take a baby to the regional clinic about 20 minutes flying away, because it was having a hard time breathing.

We landed there and they left me with the mother and baby while they went to pick up the DIIC graduate, because we couldn't take off from Paruima with 5 people, but the airstrip at the regional health center was paved and very long, so it wouldn't be a problem there. Gary can usually land in most strips with big loads but taking off, he sometimes has to taxi 2 people at a time to a larger runway before we can really load the plane down and make it out.

We headed to Wax Creek next which was about a 30minute flight away. We flew over several waterfalls and I saw a couple parrots flying over the jungle canopy below. When we arrived, I couldn't believe where we were landing. The plane would have to make a final approach over a river to land on an airstip heading steeply uphill which crested about halfway into a flat runway. It was a pretty tough landing but Gary pulled it off fine. He dropped all of us off while he continued on to make some other flights.

This village is by far the village of the poorest conditions here, and reminds me a lot of where I was in the Philippines. Many of the children had big bellies from intestinal worms. A donor in the state bought enough worm medicine so that all of the village could be treated and Wendy set up in the school to give out the medicine. The place was packed, and the children were soo cute. They were not afraid, but a little shy when spoken to. They taught me some of their Akuwayu language but most of them speak a little English. Wendy took down the names and ages of everyone and had the teacher instruct them on the correct dosages.

After taking many pictures and talking with the children, and one obnoxious drunk man in the village, I took a nap. Oh, they often make a kind of beer out of Cassava, the chew it up, spit it out, let it ferment, and then make a drink out of it. Often the children will go to school with only a bottle of that stuff, it's pretty terrible. I sure would like to see Christian education for these little ones some day, there is such a need for more people to be missionaries and teachers.

After I woke up, only a few kids were left who were watching me sleep. They started shouting, "Airyplane, Airyplane" and I went out just in time to see Gary circling overhead. I had been asleep for a few hours I think. I got my still camera out and snapped some shots of him coming in to land. We spent the next hour helping to finalize the electricity for the missionary couple and setting up their radio. By the time we finished with that, it was late, and we all knew we wouldn't make it back in time before dark.

Gary rushed Wendy & I off to the nearest airstrip about 7 minutes away and came back for Paul and the DIIC student. We loaded up together there and made the flight to Paruima and there was still enough light to see well to make a safe landing. Talk about living life on the edge for God.

We made the 15 minute journey by dugout canoe to the school compound where we were staying. Gary & Wendy cooked a delicious meal of rice and beans and Paul & I were exhausted and hit the sack. And now it's a new day.

Monday, June 14, 2004

Dear Friends and Family,

Yo, I'm now in Guyana, Georgetown to be exact being bitten by mosquitoes as I write this. In fact, I have to stop typing every few seconds to slap 'em.

Updates: check the webpage www.timdelatorre.com for the new pictures & stories. Praise God the camera started working again, it was caused from humidity, we had been through a rainshower the day before and we had left it in the case that night all zipped up. It wasn't good :)

Paul & I are low on sleep. These mission pilots are incredible. They start each morning at 4:30... and so do we...

I'm coming down with something. Pray it doesn't get worse than the 'common cold' symptoms I'm having.

Beyond that, we've traveled all the interior of Guyana filming all sorts of things. We've crossed the border into Guyana without officially being stamped into any country and some guards came over to check us out but they didn't ask for our passports thank God. We've flown into and out of some CRAZY runways where the wheels take air about 1 second before.... ya, let your mind do the imagination.

Paul was on camera with Gary Roberts, the pilot in Guyana out in the interior when some U.S. BlackHawks flew overhead. Gary knew what to say for the camera, "Here in Guyana, you can see the new GAMAS(Guyana Adventist Medical Aviation Service) aircraft flying in behind me..."

We've really had a great time getting to know Gary & Wendy Roberts, the directors of the GMA(Gospel Ministries International) work here in Guyana. They are 26 and carry a lot of responsibility for their age. His father is a mission pilot in Indonesia and he is naturally really good. I've really seen first hand how a missionary is the fullest embodiment of one's life education. Gary and Wendy are really using everything they have learned to make a difference here. He helps set up and install native missionaries in new villages with solar panels, batteries, and radio communication. He does everything thoroughly and well. He handles village politics, administration of outreach programs, squabbles between natives and student missionaries, and everything in between. Both of them graduated with Nursing and take a special interest in the people's wellbeing. We just finished de-worming an entire village(well, almost, at least all the children), thanks to the medicine donated from someone in the states.

Tomorrow, we fly out with Gary to check out a new runway that is being built or is finished, we don't know yet as there is no communication with this village. After that, we are traveling to the only Adventist secondary school in the country named Kambia where the McWilliams from the United States are missionaries. We will stay the night there and then investigate the possible opening of a television rebroadcasting station for transmitting Seventh-day Adventist Christian broadcasting from either Spanish A.D. Venir(from Bolivia) or the new English network soon to open in Grenada. I'm not sure on all the details, but it would seem to make sense to be the English network since that's what the people speak here.

We have about a week to complete our work documenting the mission aviation taking place in Venezuela and Guyana and will be heading down through Brazil to Bolivia to continue filming more for the educational work and television broadcasting work that is happening. I'm learning as I go too.

I will fill you more in as I learn more. I should have internet access again when I get into Venezuela sometime Thursday or Friday.

Thanks for all of your prayers! The more I see people living their lives in commitment to Jesus Christ, the more it reminds me of how God uses them to change the world and how badly more workers are needed. Please, if you feel the tug on your heart to do mission work, don't ignore it any longer. Jesus wants to come back soon but He's waiting for us to do what He told us to do! There are people out here who have never even heard of Jesus. There are a couple Wycliff Bible translators living in a village with no airstrip that we flew over a few times. They have been there for 8 years and are translating the Bible into one of the languages of the indigenous tribes here. Can you just imagine what that will do for the people here? Yes some of them can speak English but there is nothing like having the Word of God in your own language.

Whatever your talents are, God can use them here if it is where He has called you. So consider if it's where He's calling you.

I know it's been long and give yourself a pinch if you made it through.

Your friend,
~Tim De La Torre

Wednesday, June 16

Yesterday, we finally made it out of Paruima after making some more runs to other villages to drop off supplies. The plane was pretty full and it was a long two hour flight, so you can imagine that it felt good to be on solid ground again. I was feeling a bit sick, so after arriving at the Roberts's house in Georgetown, I stayed in town to do some things while Paul went with Gary on one of the other planes, the Cessna 150/150 to go give some supplies to a Bible worker in a different village.

That evening, we had a great dinner and great conversations. The Roberts's are such an inspiration to me. They live in faith and trust in God to supply all their needs, and they work hard for God. We woke up at 4:30am the next morning to make some flights. Gary took us to a village about an hour away to look for a runway that they were building but we couldn't find it, so they haven't made much progress yet. After that, we loaded all of our things and went to Kimbia, a village where two American missionary families are living. When we arrived at the airstrip, Gilbert Sissons was there to pick us up. We hauled our luggage accross muddy fields and my stupid slippers kept getting stuck in the mud and flinging it up on my back when I'd walk. I even fell down and got covered in it. Ugh. Then we had a long boat ride down the river and we moved fast, let me tell you. It had a little 40hp outboard motor. There are pirana in the river here, caiman, and anacondas. AWESOME. I wanted to see them sooo bad. I saw a pair of toucans flying overhead, now that was cool. Oh, and somebody had a pet macaw. Talk about living in the zoo!

We arrived at Kimbia Mission Academy about an hour later after making some stops along the river to visit people. Here, Warren & Jodi McDaniels, an African American couple are running the secondary school. He came down on a mission trip to help build the school about 5 years ago and felt the call of God to stay here and teach. He called his wife and soon, they sold their home and cars, left corporate America, and came down to teach and administrate the school here. Talking with them was so wonderful, it was just energizing. Here is a family that has caught God's vision for their life. God, through them, has transformed an entire river community. The children attending the boarding academy here have caught the ideals of true education. Here, the Bible comes first. The classroom instruction is coupled with hands on work as well. Everyday for two hours, the children work on the farm, on the buildings, and various other projects to keep the school neat and to learn the value of working with their hands. This school runs entirely on faith, and sometimes, they don't know where the next meal is coming from, but they have never gone hungry.

One day during dry season, the McDaniels had only 1 gallon of water left(they can't drink the river water like the people here can), there wasn't a cloud in the sky. So they started praying. Pray is an integral part of their lives here, all of the children pray. Each class has it's own officers, and some of the officers came to the teacher saying the class wanted to take time each day to pray more. Praise God! So when this crises hit, that's what they did. And during class that day, all of a sudden from across the valley they could hear the rain coming and it rained so hard that it filled up all of their containers so they had water for 3 weeks until the next shower came.

They told us time and time again of how God has provided for them just when they had nothing else. God always provides for their needs, not always their wants. Being a minority, Paul spoke with them a bit about their mutual desire to see American minorities move out more in the mission field. Missionaries are dominantly seen as 'white' and the best missionaries are those who can go back to their own home countries.

What is so exciting about the school here and the lives of these young people is that they have caught the vision! When asked what they want to become, most of the say something about missions. "Sir, I want to a mission Pilot", a mission nurse, mission teacher, etc... These kids are being brought up with true education: practical, hands on, with the Bible as the core curriculum. Oh yes, they learn Algebra, Biology, Chemistry, English, and History but they are not an ends in themselves. They really follow the advice and wisdom written by Ellen White in the book "Education", and are seeing the wonderful results of following God's plane for true education.

They have such a need for student missionaries here, and I feel such a tug to come and work in a place like this, especially after my experience in the Philippines for a year. I'm realizing that the needs are so similar in every country all over the world. God doesn't need our money, He needs US. He owns everything and will pay for everything, it's about having people to follow the call and go. The McDaniel's believe we don't have a choice as to whether or not to become a missionary, God is coming soon and has called all of us to fight the battle. The question is to what battlepost is He calling us? The church is to work as a body and everyone is to get to work. Not everyone is to go off and live in a village as a mission teacher, but the more I see of the work happening here in South America through Gospel Ministries International, the more I appreciate the Biblical concept of the body. With mission pilots, teachers, Bible works, computer and broadcasting technicians, the work is happening here like part of a body and it is making a huge difference. So whatever God is calling you to in His army, it's time to lose our life for the sake of the Gospel.

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Today was our last day in Guyana. I'm writing this on the bus on the way through northern Brazil back to Venezuela. It's a nice bus, let me tell you. It's practically empty too. We just hope our luggage is still there below and the little luggage goons haven't taken off with it somehow without us knowing.

Yesterday, Gary took Paul & I to Kaieteur Falls, the largest single-drop waterfall in the world... whatever that means. I think it has the largest volume of water in one drop, not multiple ones like most waterfalls. Anyways, it was gargantuan and looked just ethereal while we flew over it with the camera strapped to the wing. Let me tell you, we have some National Geographic quality shots (they were shot on a 1CCD camera but they still kick butt) after this trip. After that, we got to hike to the falls. There is an airstrip right there at the falls, it's the only way to get to them, as it is to get to most places in Guyana. We pulled out the good camera to go down and get some shots of the falls. Gary told us there is also a frog found here that is found nowhere else in the world, called the Golden Frog or something like that. They were pretty tiny but we saw a few of them.

When we reached the falls, Paul & I were just amazed and realized we had left the still camera in the plane. So they sent me back to get it while they proceeded to get some shots. Well, a big storm was coming in and by the time I reached the place they had been, it was starting to rain. So they were gone. They said they would head to a house which was "just down that trail" and so I headed down that trail. It started raining harder and harder and I must have walked half a kilometer and still found nothing. By this time I was in the middle of a tropical downpour with a $1,500 camera in a flimsy case pretty much unprotected. DOH! So you know what I did.... I put the camera inside my shirt, stuck my butt up in the air, and protected it with my body while I got drenched. So there I was, in a humiliating position soaking wet protecting this stupid camera. I would have loved to get soaked and run through the jungle or something but to be stuck for over 20 minutes in that position was not cool, especially not knowing how long I would be stuck there. When it FINALLY passed, I ventured out and found Gary and Paul. The house was right next to me that whole time! Needless to say I received a good laughing at. After that, we got the most incredible shots... so ya I could make my own postcard and send it to you all. The fog crept in through the valley after about 45 minutes and we didn't know what the weather would be like at the runway and we didn't want to get stuck at Kaieteur for the night, so we headed back. What an adventure.... oh, we forgot that the other camera had been left on the wing. Oops, it worked for a few more minutes but we haven't been able to revive it since. Thanks to Jon Wood for letting us borrow his personal camera which was eaten by the rain gods. Perhaps we can do CPR on it when we arrive in Venezuela.

We made the 20 minute hop to Kopinan, a village where a church had just recently been built by graduates from DIIC and we met up with Rich Beckermeyer, a student from Andrews University who will be our travel companion and co-videographer co-editor for the rest of this documentary excursion. He's a really cool guy. He's been stuck there for 17 days with not much to do, the poor guy, while we've been traipsing all over Venezuela and Guyana. Now we're all together and we're going to have a great time.

This morning, I woke up at 4:30am again to go with Gary and all of our supplies to Lethem, and stay with Dr. Shelia, a 79 year old volunteer for GAMAS who had a medical practice in the states for 15 years, served in Mexico, and all over Africa as a missionary doctor. She now trains Bible workers from Lethem (a small town) that she hopes will go out and train others. So I got to stay with her for about 4 hours and hear her wonderful stories of adventure and excitement while Paul & Rich got to throw parachutes of stuff out of the plane and film it and interview Gary. Oh, I forgot to say on the way over to Lethem, it was just Gary and I but the plane was loaded. There wasn't an inch of space left. Stuff was always falling down against our necks. It wasn't overweighted, he just had about 8 empty 3gallon and 5gallon gasoline drums which took up most of the space. It was loaded to the ceiling ALL the way. Let me tell you, it felt good to take off and get that over with!

I met Elizebeth Parada, daughter of Remberto Parada, the director of A.D. Venir Spanish Television Network down in Bolivia. She is Bolivian and came up to Guyana to volunteer. She was hoping to teach at the DIIC school in Paruima but school doesn't start there until September this year, because Gary will be out of the country doing things and going to OshKosh, and there is no transportation in or out of Paruima except by plane. So she's just helping out with Dr. Shelia and enrolled as a student in the Bible course. I went to town with her and was able to get on the internet for a bit and check my emails, then later that day we found some Mangos in somebody's yard that were just littering the place, so we offered to 'clean their yard' for them and they accepted our kind offer :) WOOHOO, we got Mangos baby!!! YEAH!

So just after that, Gary's plane landed and Paul and Rich arrived with him. We loaded up our stuff, said our good-byes to Gary and headed out in a taxi that looked more like a troop transport vehicle to go to somebody's house to stamp out of the country. Then we crossed a river, and I started trying to speak with some guys in Spanish and realized they were speaking Portuguese. We were in Brazil. We got a taxi, stamped in at immigration, and headed the hour and a half trip to Boa Vista. It was tough trying to negotiate with the driver and understand what each other was saying. We are now on a 3.5 hour bus ride for Boa Vista to Santa Elena (we hope), and from there, it's only 10 minutes to Bob Norton's house, the director of the work there.

It was really hard to say good-bye to Gary. I've really come to admire and respect that 26 year old guy, who carries the responsibility and workload of a seasoned veteran. He really inspires me to be more like Jesus and give my all for the sake of the Gospel, and I hope that will come out in the video we produce. That other's will be motivated to get in gear and get to work for God. So, from somewhere on a highway in Brazil, this is Tim signing out.

Friday, June 18, 2004

Hey everyone,

I'm back in Venezuela. I just wanted to let everyone know I'm trying to get an email list figured out and well, as you've seen, I still am a bit confused about it :) I think I've got it figured out this time so you shouldn't be getting anymore strange emails. Here is how it works, if you know anybody who wants to be on the email list who isn't, have them email

timd-subscribe@missiontrust.org
If you want to stop receiving these emails, just email timd-unsubscribe@missiontrust.org and it will take you off the list. Okay?

Sunday, June 20, 2004

We're on the bus again. Today was pretty hectic. We had a wonderful breakfast at the Norton's house and then we were going to shoot his interview with the plane when everyone kinda disappeared to do their own thing and I was locked out of the other house we were staying in, because Paul had the keys and I needed to get the camera & stuff to set up. Eventually I found out he was waiting for us to do the interview, because he had another flight he had to make soon. A pastor and doctor had come up and he was going to fly them to a village somewhere. Anyways, when I finally rounded the guys up, much time had passed and I could tell Bob was hurried and not in the best condition for an interview. You want someone to be relaxed for that ya know! Also the two guys waiting on us were visibly in a hurry. So we shot the interview and it went pretty good. I'm not really good at this aspect of stuff, I was the one asking the questions. Paul and Rich had helped me the night before prepare the interview and it went pretty well except for the fact that we all knew we had to hurry. We finished in about 20 minutes and we said our last goodbyes as he headed off.

We threw our stuff in the truck and Bob's wife drove us to town to stamp out of Venezuela. She thought the place was closing in 20 minutes but it was closing an hour later, so we made it in time. Then we proceeded to the border and the Venezuelan's wouldn't let us out without searching through our bags. Friends, I'll be honest, I lost my temper and it was visible. We had gone in and out of Venezuela many times with no problems, these punks had already used the 'we need to search your bags' excuse to steal some of our things before(in a different city), and I just didn't want to go through with it that day. I grumbled, didn't say nice things about the guards, and was argumentative... of course that makes the guards all the more friendly. After going through every single item in my box methodically and as painfully slow as possible, he started to warm up. He had me put our things back away in that box and I was acting plain hostile at that point, Paul told me to chill out a bit and I guess it helped. Anyways, he started going through Rich's bag which was full of dirty clothes and I guess it smelled real bad, because he wrinkled up his nose and we all kinda laughed. Things got better from then on, and after going through that smelly bag, he pointed at the next suitcase and asked, "clothes?" and we said "yes", and he said "no problem, finished". So I guess he eventually figured out we weren't doing anything illegal. He kept demanding our papers the whole time for our video equipment and we just couldn't understand why. Bob's wife had already left us with some of our stuff in her truck to make the 30 minute round trip back to her home to get the captain of the village to explain what we were doing. When she finally came back, we had been finished with inspection and waiting for 20 minutes. The guy that went through our stuff really warmed up at the end and was joking with us. He even gave each of us some chocolate and after we had been waiting out for a while, he came and gave us something sweet to drink. What a nice guy.. I hope I don't discover something else missing when I get the time to go through my stuff.

I learned a lesson though... I felt kinda humbled that even after being a jerk, the guy was just going through standard procedure(even though we had passed through 4 times before at that point) and he really was nice. Thank goodness God doesn't write us off when we screw up. He uses experiences like these to help us see how far we really are from being sanctified. Ahhh!

Getting a taxi was kind of tricky. After stamping in at the Brazilian border a few hundred yards down the road, I walked about a kilometer in search of our next transportation. Negotiating the price was difficult but I think I knew he wanted 70 Reais and I wanted to pay 60(about $25). We drove back to where I had left the guys and our baggage and after we loaded it all up and were ready to go, we initiated the negotiating again as a team. This time, the guy had already invested time and energy into us and when he wouldn't budge from 70, we just started getting out of the car. "Fine! Fine!" he said. We had won. That's how you do it folks. You gotta learn to bargain, he was still getting a good deal on us. He was just trying to charge us extra for the baggage. He ended up being a nice guy and we got to our destination fine.

We had to wait at the bus stop in Boa Vista for 2 and a half hours, during which time a fight broke out. A little guy was getting pummuled by a huge guy. The cops ended up coming in and handcuffing the little guy and taking him out quite roughly. I don't know what he did but he must have broken the law. We also had a large quantity of mosquitos following our luggage everywhere it went. Paul & I think they were after Rich's dirty clothesbag. We spent all of our Reais on food which was quite good. We got an egg sandwhich w/o the meat, some cheese, tomatoes, and the mayo/ketchup for like $1 each. We now have no more Brazilian money and the ATM's don't seem to accept my card here. I talked to someone who spoke English and said when we arrive in Manaus, go to the bank and it should work there. Or maybe it will work in the airport. Otherwise we have to find someone to exchange cash with, which will work fine I guess. We should be arriving around 6:30 am. It's 8:30pm right now.

I met guy who seems a little crazy in the row across from me. He says he holds the guiness book record for speed reading in Brazil. He's playing his music loud and driving me nuts. He's just a real jolly fellow. This bus is packed, not an empty seat. Most everybody is trying to go to sleep already I think. The seats REALLY recline on this thing, I hope I can sleep well. I have quiet chap sitting beside me, he made it in last second before the bus left. Oh, and we have all of our big suitcases down below. I used 2 padlocks on my pelican case and then used a big fat bikecable to keep all of our bags together, and then I ran it through the steel support bar in the luggage compartment. So all of our bags are attached and stuck to the bus, so even if it stops somewhere at night, they shouldn't be going anywhere. I hope... if someone steals it all, they must want it reallllly bad.

Goodnight all.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Guayara Mirim(spelling?), Bolivia. We've been all the way from Southern Venezuela and through Western Brazil in the last two days..

Lets continue from the bus experience on the way to Manaus. The bus was full, so lots of bodies helped keep the temperature about right with the airconditioner going on full blast but after 6 hours, the airconditioner started to win and we started freezing. On top of that, the airconditioner started spewing out water onto us in bursts, drenching our clothes and traveling bags near us. What a mess! Paul & Rich were the ones who got hit, so I gave them my rain jacket and they put it up against the vents. I never really got wet but I sure did get cold. We all had a miserable night :) We arrived in Manaus, Brazil around 6:30 am. We found a taxi to take us to the airport and fit all our stuff in and were on our jolly way. We found out later that the driver wanted to charge us a not so jolly price though, 42 reais!!! That's approx $14. What a rip off! We argued, we bargained, but to no avail. We found out he was just charging us the going price. Ugh. We pulled $ out of an ATM and got some food finally. We found a little place that sold bread and jam, and Rich had some peanut butter that he had made when he was in the jungle. So we were set for a messy breakfast.

We waited 7 hours at the airport to catch our flight from Manaus to Porto Velho Brazil, flying over the Amazon and Brazilian rain forest. Of course things didn't go as planned, and the plane had flap problems right before takeoff which wasted us another hour. We arrived in Porto Velho around 4pm and found a bus leaving at 6pm. We got some young coconuts there and let me tell you it tasted OOOOHH so good. We met a neat woman there who spoke to us in Spanish for over an hour as we learned about each other. She was a missionary with some Pentacostal group. I got some food from some interesting places and let me just say it's a miracle we aren't all sick or dead yet after all the places we have eaten... it's been surprisingly delicious too.

After that, it was another 5 hour bus ride. It wasn't too pleasent, the bus was so full there was standing room only and I dozed in and out of consciousness. Ugh. Thankfully all of our big boxes were chained down in the luggage compartment. So we didn't have to get out and check our stuff each time. After midnight, we arrived in Guajara-Mirim, the town on the boarder of Brazil and Bolivia. We found a hotel which ripped us off at $20 a night. It might sound cheap to you guys but operating on a tight budget and when traveling in countries where you can stay for $3/per person per night, $20/night sounds expensive. It was a blessed sleep and was over way too fast. We went to town to change our money so we could pay for our hotel and then found a taxi to the river where we would cross the border.

It's quite hectic to move between countries. You have to go stamp into a country or stamp out of another one, sometimes go through random baggage search, changing money over, and dragging luggage everywhere. A feeling of relaxation covered us as we stamped into Bolivia. We dragged our luggage around town for 15 minutes and found a nice restaurante. We got some egg sandwhiches, and empinadas, sodas, and icecream all for $7!!! We were excited. Then Rich and I took off to go find a taxi.

I have to go now, so long story short. We found Brad Mills, the guy who helps run the school down here. Actually, he found us. So now we are set!

Friday, June 25, 2004

Hello Everybody,

It's hard to believe we've already traveled through four very different and distinct countries in the last few weeks, and in reality, only seen a tiny bit of what constitutes them. God has been teaching us a lot through observation of missionaries in action, seeing changed lives, and first hand testimonies of things you only read about in books.

A little update on our travels:

We traveled from Southern Venezuela through Brazil by bus and plane for a day and a half and arrived in south-west Brazil late Thursday night. The next morning, we crossed the border into Bolivia without a clue how to get to the school we were visiting and not knowing anyone in the city. Praise God he sent one of the teachers from the school and he found us! We found out we couldn't buy our airplane tickets to Santa Cruz without cash(they don't take the VISA dealio here), and we had very little, so he let us borrow cash he had so we could get the tickets. We visited the school for 3 days, and then headed back to the border to get on an airplane to fly to Santa Cruz, one of the largest cities in Bolivia where the Adventist Television Network A.D. Venir is located and where we will be working for the next month as we finish up these documentaries. We'll be arriving there tonight.
We are tore up by mosquitoes and all kinds of biting bugs, the ants here are the size of my little finger, and our bodies are all fighting off some kind of sickness we feel coming on.

About the school here in northern Bolivia, I've had the chance to see again how very far I am from reaching the mark of what God has called me to be. Sometimes it is only in observing other's selfless behavior that I have seen how selfish indeed I really am.

We are at a secondary school here in Bolivia near the border of Brazil where all of the staff are volunteers and there is not enough room to accept more students. The workers rely totally on God to supply their needs, and He always does. The school has been operating for four months and has many hopes to grow and offer more and more for the young people as they enroll a new class each year.

The school is out in the jungle of the Amazon basin and is home to Armadillos, Jaguars, poisonous snakes, toucans, macaws, big insects that laugh in the face of repellent, and lots of bats. The children are all from the nearby city, and all of them are poor. Brad & Lena Mills are the administrators of the school, not so much by choice as by circumstances. They are both 22 years old, and she is the daughter of David Gates. So living in these conditions is nothing new. When we did her interview, we couldn't help but notice many of the similarities she has in common with her father.

We learned some neat facts. The school costs are approximately $600 a month, $200 of that being food for 30 people. There are many needed projects and each month if there is money left over after the needs are taken care of, the rest of the money goes towards the next goals. Right now all the girls are sleeping in a tiny inadequate house, while a girls dorm is being constructed. They are really just a big family, and know how to sacrifice together to achieve the end results.
After seeing these kids, who really have so little yet are so excited about life, and these volunteers who left behind the security of a paying job to come out here and live with a bunch of crazy kids to give them a education unlike anything they could receive in a public school, I just felt so humbled. Here I am, deciding what toppings I want on my pizza, how hot or cool I want the water during my shower, complaining when the air condition is turned up too high, and all of the other little issues that pervade my life when these people have a purpose, determination, and goal in life: To bring these children to the foot of the cross and give them a good education, no-matter the sacrifice. Yes, there are mosquitoes out in the morning, I'm sure the teacher's bodies tempt them to just relax and sleep in, sometimes they want to quit, but they get on their knees day after day and submit to God's will and in front of their eyes, their children's lives are changing and so are theirs!

Praise God for people willing to go out in the world to do what God has called them to do. To go places where nobody is willing to pay a salary, but to believe that God does what He says He'll do, and to see Him provide every time.

What are we doing with our talents?
~Tim De La Torre

Thursday, July 8, 2004

I'm stuck in a rainstorm right now. I know I haven't written in a while, so I figured now is a good time to. We've been here in Santa Cruz, Bolivia for about two weeks.

When we arrived, we met Scott and Susan Grady who work at the television station Red A.D. Venir, or ASTN(Adventist Spanish Television Network) as it's also called. They put us in their house, have been feeding us, and are just such an incredible couple.

Let me tell you a little of their story. Scott worked for 3ABN for 10 years doing production and traveled 5 of those years as the director for the production truck that went all over the U.S. Last year, many things started happening to prepare the way for them to come down here and work as volunteers, something they had never even considered before.

They have two kids, ages 10 and 12 and Susan also had a job as an accountant for a law firm. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into, traveling to a foreign country with their children to live there. Many people said they were crazy and irresponsible to do such a thing and to drag their kids along, all without any gurantee of financial support. They've been here since ****** and have really transitioned well. Scott heads up production here in their studio and Susan homeschools the boys and helps out with the station's finances, which runs on donations.

We have learned so much from this couple. Their hospitality, their faith and trust in God, and their incredible humor and good story telling. Scott is a professional and knows what he's doing, and has been very willing to pass on helpful information and suggestions to us as to how to do things better. I really appreciate him.

The incredible thing about A.D. Venir is that it's reaching all over the world, accessable in virtually every country, and receives so much viewer appreciation and support, yet it runs almost entirely on prosumer level equipment. They use what they have to the max, because they don't have anything else! They are using camcorders for their studio productions, walkie talkies for an intercomm, florescent lights for lighting, and a lot of archaic stuff, yet the programming they are putting out is changing lives.

The station has received a lot of criticism from within the church, which is used to higher standards of production.... which I just don't understand. Why in the world would you want to critize and discredit something like this that has such a potential for helping to bring people to Christ? No other Spanish Adventist station reaches all over the world like this one with even close the amount of downlinks this one has.

What this place needs is encouragement, support, and a lot financial support to buy much needed equipment. As it is now, the bare minimum monthly operating expenses are somewhere around $13,000.

There is also a HUGE need for volunteers to come down and help. Many of the people working here now have no clue what they are doing, and show little desire to learn a new way of doing things. I don't want to be negative about people or the culture but they view this station here as a "Bolivian" station, and it meets their standards of production... but they don't realize this station broadcasts all over the world. It can be very frustrating for Scott, who has so much he would love to do yet
hindered by the lack of personel and equipment. So please, pray for this little station here. Pray for the support it needs, the personel it needs, and the finances to expand the work and continue fulfilling the Gospel commission.

As for us, we have been working long days editing our videos. As of now, our aviation and education documentaries are 95% finished. We are in a quandry as to our next move, whether we will stay here and continue to work on them and the documentary on this station or whether we should go to Machu Picchu (about 30+ hours away) for 4-5 days... it's going to be expensive and eat up much precious time but the opportunity... being this close to something like that. It's tough. We'll see what happens.

Paul leaves in one week for Africa again to do some shooting for another organization. I might see him again for a day at Oshkosh in Wisconsin next month but who knows. It's been good working together, hard but good. I've learned a lot from him and even from myself. You can't help but learn on a project like this.

So for all of you who have been keeping us in your prayers, many thanks and praise God it looks like things will come together.

~Tim De La Torre

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Time goes by fast. It seems like just yesterday when we were traveling down to Venezuela. We met Bob and he flew us over Angel Falls. Him and his wife took care of us, fed us, helped us get our passport information taken care of(which was quite a hassle), and flew us all over to get different video shots.

Then there was Gary and Wendy Roberts. Only 26 years old, yet so skilled and so mature to handle the ministry in Guyana. In fact, they are the two who hold all of the Adventist church's mission work together in that country. Paul explained it as, "He owns the skies". They service so many villages, keeping missionaries deep in the interior supplied with food, and installing solar panels, batteries, & radios so these remote villages can have communication. His wife helps conduct
clinics while he is flying, and he shuttles student missionaries into and out of the interior when they come and leave. Not to mention all the emergency medical calls he flies, all free of charge.

It's the same for Bob. Everything completely volunteer, yet they always have just enough money to take care of their needs and those in their care.

Wow, I guess I can admit we got our share of adventure coming down here to take this project on. I hope the film does it justice, I'm sure it will inspire kids. That's the object.

Our next big prayer request is that this film will be able to be shown at Oshkosh in front of all the Pathfinders. Think about it, 30,000+ kids at the same time listening to a message in the medium that reaches them the most effectively. It's exciting, inspirational, and made just for them. We will be mass distributing it on DVD to them, but my real hope it to play it for them when they are all there at the same time. It's much more powerful on the big screen(and they will have some big screens). So please pray that the person we need to get permission from and talk to about this issue will make it possible.

Back onto our experience that has flown by... we met some incredible missionary teachers, which will be shown in a video highlighting the education work being done by volunteers from the U.S. Rich Beckermeyer has been the main editor on that video and it's really come together nicely. We hope it will be especially inspiring to college students and encourage them to go give a year volunteering somewhere as a student missionary.

Then we came down to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and met Scott & Susan Grady.

They are just an incredible couple, and their two kids Devin & TJ are a blast. They seem like such a happy family and they are all enjoying the excitement of living here - but not without the challenges and problems.

It's the same for Richard and Katia Carrera, other volunteers from the U.S.. Coming down here to do a story on this little TV station, Red A.D. venir has really taught us a lot and opened our eyes.

We've been here long enough that we see how it really runs, the challenges, the problems, the stories of people opposed to it and trying to shut it down, and the stories of those who's lives have been changed by it.

Interesting enough, it's not the Catholics or Protestants opposing the station, it's the... you guessed it.

The lessons learned here have been pretty concrete. We often over-emphasize the planning and preparation stages in our outreach but here is a television station doing so much with so little. They didn't wait until they had their wish list fulfilled to go on the air. They went on with what they had. The technical quality is not up to par with American standards in many ways but the programming is interesting and people like it. So the station works with what it has and God blesses.

They don't fund raise, yet they are reaching an estimated 100 million potential viewers in South America alone, not counting Europe and North America, with the Gospel and a variety of great Christian programming.

They always have enough money to just barely meet their expenses, and when money is tight, they get on their knees, not on the phone.

The fact is: media is powerful. It can preach a message into people's minds in ways pastors never can, and it does. Satan has enough sermons in the theater, movie stores, and our homes. Why are we supporting them with our finances while God's work remains underfunded and under supported? Most of us live our lives purposefully blinded to the truth that we are not fulfilling the Gospel commission as a church, as a people. More people are being born everyday than are being reached with the gospel. We sometimes fool ourselves and say we are finishing the work, yet how involved are we really in missions? In keeping our missionaries on the front lines in our prayers? How many of us really even know about more than 5 missionaries currently in the field?

To those of you who are living 100% for God, this isn't for you. But I know it counts for me, because I've seen a lot of things about myself that aren't pretty. I realize how selfish I am and how far I really am from living 100% for God. I'm sure there are more of you out there that can identify with me than not. I don't want this to come out condescending or negative, but let's be realistic, most of us in America are asleep and it's hard for me to accept that. For the last year I've lived with people daily who are sacrificing to bring the truth about Jesus to people who have never even been able to hear the gospel or see it lived out while the rest of the church criticizes, probably because they are too afraid to go out themselves.

Ahh, but being out of America has been a breath of fresh air for me, and the people I've met here I will never forget. I hope somehow to show people back home the joy and fullness of life that I've seen and experienced, I guess that's why I enjoy this technology so much, because what I lack in speech and writing, I can show through image and sound.

I just pray that God blesses and helps develop those talents so that they can be used to inspire and encourage more people to take the leap and come see for themselves firsthand.

May God bless all of you as you consider how you personally can store up all of your treasure in heaven where moth & rust don't corrupt and where thieves cannot break in and steal.

From Santa Cruz Bolivia,
~Tim De La Torre

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Dear Friends & Family,

It's exciting times here in Bolivia for many reasons. Today is my last day here and we leave with David tomorrow on his twin engine 6 seater plane all the way to Illinois, something like 40 hours of flying. I'm looking forward to being crammed into that plane like a sardine... woohoo!

On a more serious note though, David Gates just made another $60,000 purchase of much needed equipment on faith that the funds would come in before the check bounces! Times are exciting as we see God's work growing. The television network has grown in South America to the point where it is in the homes of over 100 million viewers, that means they can just turn on their TV set and get it, no satellite necessary because of the rebroadcasting stations all over the continent. It's incredible, all in less than 2 years, with programming 24hours a day. What's even more amazing is for me coming down here with the little background I have in television and seeing the equipment this station is using, it's pathetic. They are using the same model pro sumer camera I own in the studios, florescent lighting, a Video Toaster system for their master control, and all sorts of other less than professional level equipment yet the station is reaching all over the Americas and even into Europe and is changing people's lives. There are so many stories of people who's lives have been changed by the beautiful message of God's love and warning for them in these last days.

Working here with Scott Grady, I've seen the struggles and challenges they fight through each day, because of the quality of equipment they have and the experience of the studio personel. Thankfully, the studio personel can learn, but as for the equipment.... Scott has been praying for new studio cameras for a long time, as well as other much badly needed stuff.

Okay, so here's the scoop. After examining the current standing of the station and talking with Scott and the local director, Pastor Remberto Parada, David Gates was convicted that the station badly needed new cameras, editing systems, and to repair some down links in other cities that had gone off the air because of equipment failure.

The total of the bills add up to $62,000. He doesn't have a penny in the bank for these expenses, and doesn't know where it's coming from, but before the check clears, the funds must be there. This just happened YESTERDAY. God has never failed in providing the funds as David steps out in faith. God paid the entire $1.5 million balance owed on this television network 24 hours before the deadline and the previous owners would repossess it last December. So right now, all of us here are just so awed and excited to be a part of something so great, where God provides our needs.

I don't even know where the money is going to come from to mass duplicate our DVD's that Paul, Rich & I came down here to produce and which are almost finished. The goal is to make 3,000 of them and distribute them at Oshkosh to the Pathfinder leaders there and give them out to churches to play for Sabbath school mission reports.

In fact, in all the places we visited on this entire trip, nobody knows how the money keeps coming in. There is always just enough money to keep everyone fed, the airplanes in the air, the schools open, and the broadcast network running. And every time a big expense comes up, God somehow always pay for it. It gives me chills.

So, I invite all of you receiving this email to become a part of this great work by getting on your knees right now and praying for this situation. The equipment is so badly needed, it's just a miracle that the station has made it this far with the equipment they have. It's not a time to be sitting on the sidelines watching, jump in, take what God has given you, your talents, your resources, and put them into God's
work. I just met a student from Southern University, she has come down here to volunteer in one of the mission schools for 1 month, maybe more if she can. God needs people like that, people who can come down for short times, people who can come down for long times, everyone has a job to do.

To me, the Bible seems to make it pretty clear that God wants to reach the whole world with the message of His soon return and to get people ready. God could use the angels to do all this but He chooses to use people like you and me. How? We can be a part of the warfare only by sacrifice. All the people I've met down here have sacrificed to come here, but they are on the front lines experiencing miracles almost every day! How exciting! In reality, it's not a sacrifice to work for God, because He gives you so much more! So please consider if God is calling you to come and be a part of front line warfare in His kingdom Physically. To me it's pretty simple, God calls us to give all for His work. Our time, our money, our talents, and our prayers. Put it all on the line for Him, he's coming soon! We don't have time to waste on ourselves. I see that so clearly here, where people have left all to follow God and where all of the volunteers rely daily on God's providence to provide for their needs.

Oh friends, It's just an exciting work doing God's work. I'm having the time of my life, I look forward in faith to giving this video out and seeing it spread, because I know God provided the means for us to come down here and film and edit it, and I know He will provide the means to distribute it.

Your friend from Bolivia,
~Tim De La Tore

For more information about Gospel Ministries International and how you can get involved, go to http://www.gospelministriesinternational.org/ or send an email to David Gates at gates@andrews.edu or call (618) 833-7344.

Wednesday, August 4, 2004

We were exhausted, Rich and I. We had worked many late nights trying to pull this project together. There were still a few things we had to do that couldn't happen until David Gates arrived, yet we were apprehensive at the same time of his arrival. Would he like the product? Would he judge them from a narrow viewpoint of what he wanted them to say or would he appreciate the artistic design and what it spoke without using words?

Paul briefed us before he left for Africa a week before our previous planned departure. He was going with a different organization to do some shooting in different cities in the world and was headed on one last tour before starting his work at the Adventist Communication Network in Maryland. AHHH, so now it's just Rich and I!

Monday the 19 of July came. We were expecting David that evening. We would be flying out with him Thursday morning, so we had only a few days left to do the astronomical amount of work before us. As of yet, the Broadcast piece we were doing had no narration, we hadn't interview David for his parts in the 3 pieces, and we had barely started the DVD with all of it's menus, layers, and the final encoding of all our work. We quickly realized it would be impossible to finish before we left for America.

Sometimes I was tempted to doubt, could we really put this thing together in the time needed to get it to the dupicators and have 3,000 copies made in time for August 4? We didn't even have the DVD Authoring program we needed, Rich had left his copy at home and his parents were shipping it down but it was already several days late. We worked all afternoon... well, kinda. We took off to town with Scott looking for a hammock and some local style Bolivian blankets as souvenirs. We didn't find any. It would have come in handy to be sleeping in a hammock the other night, because an earthquake hit our city with the magnitude of 4.4, not enough to scare us but enough for me to say, "Hey, Rich, is that you?".... the whole apartment complex was shaking, it was kinda fun. A hammock would have fixed all that.

It must have been about 6pm when Rich was working with Scott Grady on the color correction of his Education video when the UPS driver arrived with a package. I summoned Rich and at about the same time, David Gates pulled up in Pastor Parada's car. A lot happen in those few short minutes but it ended up that the UPS man wanted $40 for import duties on the stupid package that we were taking right back up with us in 2 days. We didn't have any money on us, and thankfully David was able to cover that expense. We were able to talk with David for a short bit and schedule an appointment with him the next day to see our videos. The next day we worked hard on some technical issues of our videos and in the afternoon were able to show David the two videos that were 99% finished. I watched his face in trepidation wondering how he would take it. Would he see what we saw? Of course it's impossible to get David alone for a minute and many other noisy and abnoxious people had somehow found their way to our showing place so that my ideal for a first showing was ruined, but David was able to pull out the message and what each one was saying quite accurately. After talking with him about them, we came up with some more ideas for things that should be conveyed in the video that weren't and we thought those would be perfect things for David to say in his interview.

to be continued....

The next day was a big day. We had to record Susan(Scott's wife) for our voiceover narration for the Broadcast video and we needed to go over all of our videos with David and record his interviews for the three videos we were doing. Somehow we finished it all, but it wouldn't have been possible without the incredible help of Scott. Nabil also put in many hours staying up until midnight trying to help me with some technical problems and helping us with the sound. He's the station's sound engineer. As it happens, my laptop totally crashed the day David arrived and no amount of any magic Nabil or I could do would revive it without a format and reinstall. It seems like Satan has used every opportunity possible to attack us, stress us out, tell us it's not possible, and frustrate the work. Thank God we decided to edit the project on MAC and not on my PC, because Rich had a nice 12" MAC Powerbook which was a life saver. MAC's aren't all that great though, I've been able to crash almost every MAC I've laid hands on, and it was no exception on this trip. Sometimes I lost up to two hours of work.

As we worked hard late into the last night of our stay, I regreted how cloistered we had been. I wished I had spent more time with the people getting to know them better, learning more Spanish. At this point, the project looked overwhelming and I wasn't quite sure how it would all turn out. Would it really be worth it? All the time I had chosen to work on the project or edit instead of hanging out with the guys or spend more time with the Gradys. I've had a hard time thinking positvely about this whole thing. I often fail to realize how powerful media can be in shaping our thoughts and perceptions of something, and I far too often underestimate the impact that what I'm working on can do in someone's life. Looking back on it now, after the project has only been finished a few days, I'm already realizing the tremendous potential for good this thing is and I'm so glad I spent the time doing what I needed to do to make it come together.

We stayed up until at least 2am packing our things. I had to leave my huge Pelican case that I kept all of our equipment in at the Grady's house, because there would be no room for it in David's little plane. Scott said he would bring it back with him when he came to Oshkosh in a few weeks. We woke up at 6am and got ready to go to the airport. When we arrived, Scott helped us film David's closing comments on our Aviation project while he was pre-flighting his plane. Before we knew it, we were crammed in like sardines into David's plane and flying off to pick up Brad & Lina, David's daughter and son-in-law in northern Bolivia. Thankfully most of the cargo load was coming from one student missionary we were transporting and all of her things which stayed with her when she got off in Guayaramerin.

We arrived around 1pm which gave us time to get some food and track down Brad and Lina. Soon everybody disappeared leaving Rich and I at an internet cafe. I wasted no time in running to a local market and buying a hammock. All during the flight up there, I had worked on my computer designing a graphic to be printed on the DVD and when I arrived at the internet cafe, I was able to upload it to the video place and make a quick call to get their feedback, make a few more changes and upload it a second time before heading back to the plane. I set up my hammock and took a good 10 minute rest in it before David showed up and everyone piled in the plane and got ready to take off. We had to leave before sunset and sunset was about 15 minutes away. We waited for the guys to come and fuel the plane and we waited and waited for the Customs Officers to come and check us off. Praise God they came just in time and we took off just as the sun was setting.

We were looking at 7 hours of flying over the Amazon jungle until we arrived in Boa Vista, northern Brazil in time to catch a little rest for our next leg of the journey. I worked far into the night designing the DVD and editing some of the projects. I would talk with David to help make sure all my information for the DVD was right but he would fall asleep sometimes in the middle of a conversation. Thankfully we had autopilot. He never fell asleep for more than 10 minutes. One time he forgot to switch tanks in time on one of the engines and the rpm's dropped as the engine started sucking air and it made the plane veer off sharply to the left. My heart jumped to my throat and I thought we were gonna die there for a minute and then I started laughing, because I knew it was okay and it was actually kind of fun. It happened two more times on various flights with David and it doesn't scare me anymore. Finally sometime around 11pm, I just couldn't work anymore, so I closed the computer down and tried to sleep unsuccessfully. We landed an hour later, and just at the wrong time! A commercial flight was taking off and all the customs officials and airport personell were there and instead of the normal treatment for David, they subjected us to an hour and a half of baggage checks, filing paper work, and going out to the plane and physically going through some of the bags even though we were just trying to catch a few hours of sleep before proceeding on. Oh that was a little frustrating, but we made it through fine. I got to sleep on a nice hard floor without any padding which reminded me a lot of the Philippines.

The next morning all too early, we got off the floor and found our way back to the plane. We were running a little late already and the gas guys weren't coming out to fill us up. You would think they'd jump at an opportunity to help fuel us up at $5 a gallon!

We left Boa Vista around 10am and continued heading North to Porto Ordaz, Venezuela. On the way there, we were able to pass by Angel Falls one more time and film it again. This time it turned out much better. We had the big studio camera with us and were able to shoot out the window with it and get some quite good shots. The wind was also calmer than the time Paul and I had been with Bob when we flew over and I got some much steadier shots. It was incredible, 3,000 feet of sheer drop. There was a helicopter in the region and a couple of other planes that we had to keep track of so we didn't hit each other. It's quite a busy place for air traffic.

We landed in Porto Ordaz a few hours later and took advantage of the great fuel price in Venezuela. For foreign planes, it's only $1.80 something for Aviation fuel... not bad compared to Brazil! Soon we were heading out over the Caribbean towards Puerto Rico, 4 and a half hours away. I used this time to complete the rough editing of the broadcast video and work on several of the details for the DVD. Soon it was Friday night and we were landing.

I found out that we had arrived in America. U.S. Customs officials were very friendly and professional and checked us back into the country without a problem. I never knew Puerto Rico was really a part of the U.S.. A friendly man picked us up at the airport, his name was Fred Hernandez. When we arrived at his beautiful house, it was a welcomed site. We slept SOOO good that night, and his wife, Alba cooked some of the most delicious food we'd had for a long time. It was the avacado that was the best of all. It turns out that they are some distant family of David's and while we were talking, I soon learned that they were related to me also! What a surprise that was. The next morning, we headed to the Bella Vista SDA church, the Hospital church where many of the Doctors and Dentists attend. I was able to play the Aviation video and it was a good feeling to see the little kids out after church acting like they were airplanes with their arms. David preached a powerful, stirring message, and after potluck, spoke again for many hours. My Spanish isn't very good but that Sabbath, I really understood more than I ever had before. The audience's response was the most amazing, most of them were so interested their whole bodies showed it! David talked about the short time we have now while we are free to do whatever we want as a window of opportunity God has given us to put everything we have into mission to help reach the world before it becomes impossible to do that which it is now possible to do. He encouraged the Puerto Ricans to build their own TV station, to be responsible for reaching the people of Puerto Rico. Not to leave that important job up to others, but to take responsibility. He asked how much the church cost, and how many churches there were on the island. When they did a rough estimate of how much money there were invested in just churches alone on the island, the number came to $100 million. David mentioned what that kind of money converted to liquid assets to be put on the front lines could do. All our houses & cars will all burn someday and we might as well use them in God's work while we still can.

It was an incredible time, people's lives were changed. Almost everyone in the church came to the front to dedicate their lives and resources to be used in God's work. One lady turned to me and told me in English, "A spiritual earthquake happened here today." I knew it, and I witnessed it. The congregation asked for Rich and I to come up front with David, Brad & Lina and they prayed over asking God for protection for us and for the little plane as we traveled to Miami that night.

One of the church members who is actually a relative invited us over to his house and fed us fresh Puerto Rican fruit and juice before we headed out. We loaded up the airplane again, said goodbye to Fred and Alba and took off. David was dead tired after preaching all day long and soon he was dozing on and off every 5 minutes again.

I worked most of the night on our project making considerable progress. Just as I started falling asleep, the orange hue of sunrise came in through the right window and then I could see the Florida keys out the left window. We were almost there! We spent the next 5 hours in a pilot's lounge in Fort Lauderdale trying to get some rest before continuing our flight north to Collegedale, Tennessee. That flight was the worst, because we were so tired of flying, so cramped up, and just ready to be out on solid ground and finished with it all. We were finally able to drop Brad & Lina and their things off which gave us a lot more room for the last two hours. By this time the DVD was coming together quite well and I was almost finished with the Broadcast video.

After two long hours and dodging a couple of storms using the storm scope, we circled around the family farm which has a grass airstrip and landed like we do in the mission field. It was pretty cool. This plane flies differently and it seems like your just going to drop like a rock and crash until last second it levels off to a picture perfect landing (most of the time). It's a lot of fun. We climbed out into cold weather and were greeting by Becky, David's wife. One thing I've admired is how a couple can be married for over 20 years and how they still treat each other as best friends and King and Queen.

Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Dear friends and family,

A lot has happened since last time I wrote. We successfully traveled all the way from Bolivia to Illinois in a little 6 seater Piper twin-Comanche that David Gates flies to deliver supplies and a lot of evangelistic work. I have written all about my experiences and put them on my website as this email will be long enough!

In short, it has been an incredible last two weeks with David and his family, seeing God come through every time at the last possible minute.

I don't remember the amount of money I told you that David needed last time I sent the email but it ended up being a whole lot more. We were with David each day as the ministry seemed at the brink of a financial disaster but each day, God provided just the money needed to keep it afloat. You'll read more of it below in David's newsletter. The $800,000 due on the Brazil network last week has been extended for another short bit as the owners told David they trusted him and that God would work things out just right, but each day is a whole new battle of faith and finances!

The thing that is even more incredible is that the people selling the network to David are pretty much offering him the whole country of Brazil, almost every cable network and satellite company in the country
will carry the signal and downlinks are being made nationwide, all before the station is officially broadcasting. It just completed it's test broadcast the other day, so it is up and running.

Working day and almost all night before the deadline, our DVD's were successfully sent off in time to the duplicators and I talked with them today and they are being shipped to ASi (A big Adventist convention) in Ohio where we will start distributing them. David ordered 5,000 and we are currently in the process of translating them into other languages for subtitling on the next batch that will be duplicated. Spanish is almost finished but we need many more, especially Portuguese. If anybody speaks another language and would like to help in this project, all 4 videos comprise about 15 pages to be translated. We're all pretty excited to see this whole thing come to be.

At the moment there is no success in playing our video for Oshkosh. I'm sick & tired of calling people about it, we're just going to show up and pray God works a miracle. The only way someone will give us a chance is if they see it, so we hope to show it to someone there and pray something happens. If not, we'll be distributing the DVDs but it's just not the same thing.

For all of you, I just want to encourage you to read David Gates's newsletter that I have attached to the bottom of this email. It gives a lot of information as to what has been happening in the last few weeks
behind the scenes, things I've experienced also. I want to vouch that I have seen first hand God provide when it seems there are no answers, and I want to encourage you to prayerfully step out more in faith each day, trusting in God and not to ourselves. I pray this email will be a blessing to you.

God's love to all of you,
~Tim De La Torre

Friday, August 6,2004

Rich & I were exhausted, so we went to sleep soon after arriving at the house. The next morning, it was up early and working on the videos. David had a speaking engagement in Texas and we thought there might be a chance we could get our hands on some equipment to help expedite the editing process, because we were just working on Rich's laptop.

We worked all morning and on the flight over. We arrived at Southwestern Adventist University at night and promptly got to work. The dormitories are just as nice as hotel rooms, a lot nicer than what I am used to at PUC. We worked almost the whole night, got some sleep, some breakfast, and continued all day. The project had gotten to the painfully slow and monotonous part of fixing gramatical editorial errors involved in the graphics layout of the DVD and in the ending credits of the DVD. We strained our eyes to catch all the errors but they were just so tired. We missed our deadline and couldn't get them mailed the day we wanted. David called the DVD duplicators and they said, “No problem! We can do it still, just get them off to us tomorrow. Anything for David Gates, we get so much trash through here that David's material is a breath of fresh air”. David had some DVDs duplicated last year and I guess they impressed the duplicators. They decided to even give us a bigger pricebreak than we had imagined, just because they like David! Praise God!

Working hard, we were finally able to get a master that we were happy with considering the time constraints and we sent it off to the duplicators overnight. All this time, I just knew there was a major error, something I didn't catch. We were so tired by the last DVD we made that we only looked through it minimally. Definitely a bad move for such a big project but we just couldn't help it. On looking back now, I am happy that God helped everything to come together like it should and there are no major errors or problems with the DVD. What a huge load off my shoulders.

From now on, it's a cruise... sorta. We flew back with David to Illinois, landing at the airstrip in his farm. It reminded me of landing in the jungle with Gary and Bob, the only difference was that this plane was a lot scarier to land! I'm getting used to it now, I think. The ground just rushes up at you so fast you think your going to smash into tiny pieces but just at the last minute it all seems to level off smoothly and the landing is usually just as smooth as a commercial flight.

The weekend was coming up and David had some things he needed to do with the family, so Rich & I decided to go to Michigan and visit his family. It was an 8 hour drive in Carlos (David's son) little Honda CRX and we made it Thursday evening in time to totally surprise Rich's parents, they had no clue he was coming. That was fun. They are a very warm and friendly family. I was able to visit some friends and family up in