Most people do not realize that when you
send a family to the mission field, you are not sending a couple… you are
sending, well, in our case five missionaries.
At the close of a youth camp, our son, Tim,
15 years old and his friend, Raul, had accompanied the pickup with barrels of
garbage to the city dump. They were
overcome with compassion for the little children that lived at the dump, climbing
around on the piles of garbage, now anxious to see what they were dumping, dig
through it and look for something of value or something to eat. They determined that God wanted them to do
something for children like this.
We lived far away from that city dump, but
only 30 minutes by train and bus from our house was one of many huge
shanty-towns that surround Buenos Aires.
This one was called “La Cava” (meaning “The Pit”). Here thousands of families lived in shacks
made out of cardboard, pieces of plywood or a bedspring or whatever. It was inadvisable, even dangerous, for
non-residents to enter there. But sometimes
you can’t keep track of your teenagers.
Cell phones hadn’t been invented yet. So, without our knowledge, Tim and Raul
visited La Cava. They wanted to do
something for these people to bring them to Christ.
This is a low area with no drainage system,
so rain water and sewage stand just below ground level. They passed many shacks and came to a “lake”
of stale water. A makeshift wooden
bridge took them to a little flat island and they finally came to the end. They could walk no further. A lady was standing nearby and they started
talking to her about Jesus. She told
them that her husband was a heavy drinker, couldn’t find a job and neither
could her grown son. So the boys said, “Can
we pray about that?” And right there the
two teenagers prayed for two miracles, a job for the husband and another for
the son.
The next day they went back. The lady was waiting for them. She was very excited and called out something
like, “Here come the sons of God!” She told
how both her husband and son had miraculously found work. She offered them to use her tiny space in
front of her shack to do anything they wished.
So on Saturdays they started a Bible class for children in her little
space. Over time they built up a team of
about 5 teenagers, boys and girls from their church as coworkers.
One day Tim called me from a phone booth in
a service station near La Cava. He had
forgotten some Bible class materials and asked me to take them to him. I had never entered this place before. He told me how to find them. I had not been advised as to what they used
for toilets in La Cava. They would dig a
hole about three or four feet deep and place some boards or a piece of plywood
over it with a hole in the middle. Then
they would place some corrugated metal or cardboard walls about 4 feet high surrounding
it. So, on foot I found the island,
crossed the bridge and was walking down the path to the Bible class. I noticed a lady in a tiny enclosure right in
my path ahead. As I passed her I greeted
her with “Buenas tardes.” (“Good
afternoon.”) Then after passing, I
realized that I had just greeted a lady that was squatting on the toilet! When one cesspool would get full they would
just toss in some dirt, dig another hole and move the little enclosure.
Then came the rainy weather and the water
in the “lake” rose and flooded the little flat island. Not to be stopped by rain, the teenage team
went back that Saturday. But several
inches of water covered the trail. Tim
was in the lead as the group walked single file through almost ankle deep ugly
water. But Tim, who could not see the
trail below the water, had strayed slightly from the hidden path and stepped
right into an open cesspool and splash, he was waste deep in sewage. I got an urgent call from the phone booth in
the service station. “Dad, please come
get me and bring a lot of newspapers to cover the back seat of the car. I can’t ride the bus and train home like
this!”
They kept this work up for two or three
years, and even found an empty spot between shacks on the island and built a
little shelter out of poles and raised the money to buy corrugated metal for a
roof and a couple of walls for their “church”.
(Rare photos. there were no digital cameras back then):
Tim teaching the children inside the 3 walls of the "church".
And Tim, with Raul at his right hand... and their congre-gation.
That pole is holding up the roof.
Several whole families had been saved now including the man with the
drinking problem. When Tim graduated
from high school and had to leave for Bible College, he led their little church
group to an “Open Bible” church that was about 8 blocks from La Cava and
introduced them to their new pastor, Brother Castro.
About 10 years later Brother Castro asked
me to preach in his church. After church
several people came to hug my neck. They
had been saved through Tim’s ministry. Way to go, God!
Leap ahead 40 years:
Rev. Tim Hiatt has served on the pastoral staff at Neighborhood Church in Modesto for 15 years. Here he is, two weeks ago, along with his teen-age daughter, Michelle, as they minister in worship at H Street, Neighborhood Church's outreach to the homeless and needy.
Ralph
