|
Friends United Meeting |
 |
September 1999
Prudent Recklessness
by Gordon and Ellen Hatcher
"I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly."
John 10:10, KJV
Ellen writing:
When we look for God's guidance in our decisions, the first question to arise is: has this great idea which just came to me come from a Divine Source, or is it just a small thing out of my own head that would enhance the old ego and give me something interesting to do? The prudence we refer to means serious, seeking prayer to try to discern God's plan for us. The recklessness refers to not counting the cost-not trying to make a deal with God to work things out on our terms. If God is leading you, you can't say, "This isn't really convenient now, God; how about later when the bank balance is better?when the car is paid for? when the daughters finish school?when the elderly parents don't need us any more?" You have to believe that God knows more than you do about the feeble bank balance, the feeble parents, and your feeble understanding of the situation.
At one time when we were due to take on a seemingly difficult overseas assignment, a worrisome health problem which had plagued me for a few years and puzzled doctors, who said that they had done all they could do, just disappeared so that we were able to go.
We can testify that, over and over again through the years, when money was needed, it came-sometimes from surprising or mysterious sources. Of course it's just our limited vision that sees the Source of the funds (that capital "S" is intentional) as mysterious.
Big things can start out small: fifty years ago Gordon took our sick cat to the vet and came back all excited, eyes shining, and announced, "I've always wanted to be a vet!" So I said "Well then be one." That well may be the ultimate over-simplification. Actually, we had been married for five years and that was the first time I'd ever heard him say that.
Gordon writing:
At that time there was no veterinary school in California, the nearest being in Washington State. So, I applied there, leaving wife and small daughter behind that first year while I was in the pre-veterinary curriculum, hoping to qualify for acceptance in the veterinary school. Being accepted wasn't just a matter of getting good grades: this called for Divine Intervention. There were several hundred applications for a class which accepts only 50 new students a year. And Washington State University would accept only two students from California. Talk about reckless!
After several years I did graduate with the DVM degree, thanks to the GI Bill and to a wife who supported the family. Following graduation I was in private practice for several years, but always there was the feeling that I should be using my know-how where it was really needed. There were already plenty of veterinarians in California.
I had heard about Heifer Project-a church-based organization which assists small farmers in developing countries by supplying them with quality livestock, as well as training in how to care for the animals. It was an exciting day when the Heifer Project director telephoned to say they had a job for me in Costa Rica. I sold my practice and our home in Calaveras County and we moved to Whittier temporarily. Actually, "temporarily" should be in quotation marks because years went by before we finally got the call for which we were waiting.
As you may already know, God's timing is entirely different from ours; and God's plan for the years we were waiting-so impatiently-was vastly better than we could ever have imagined.
It was prudent, for income tax reasons, to use the proceeds from the sale of our house to buy another house. So, being prudent, we told the realtor we were looking for an average type of house which would be easy to rent and to maintain while we were out of the country. Then we saw a beautiful big old Victorian fixer-upper. Naturally the realtor said, "This is not at all the type of place you said you were looking for." He was right, but no sooner had we stepped into the front hall of that wonderful house than we said, "We'll take it!" It must have been the Holy Spirit speaking because even reckless people would have known they should examine the nine rooms and estimate the cost of restoring them.
That house was a blessing and a complete delight for several years. We were able to turn it into a showplace, and, by means of house tours, made a lot of money for numerous good causes-two churches, a hospital, scholarships, meals-on-wheels and other community efforts. It provided rooms for students who would never have been able to attend college if they had not had a free place to live. That house was surely a God-given bonus.
We joined Whittier First Friends Church, a few blocks away-another blessing. It was there that we first heard Homer Sharpless, a Quaker agricultural missionary, tell of his work. I was greatly inspired to follow his example, and was fortunate in being able to visit him in Guatemala.
Not content to wait for government paper work to be processed, I decided to drive to Costa Rica to see things for myself, and was thankful to have the company of my brother-in-law. Our trip went well until we got to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, that part of Mexico which narrows down before you reach the Guatemalan border. This turned out to be a life-changing experience. We were driving on a straight stretch of the Pan-American Highway which was well-fenced, and with an unobstructed view, when a cow, seeming to come from nowhere, dashed straight in front of our car. If you know about cows, you know that dashing wildly is not their style. The cow was killed instantly and the car smashed; but thanks be to God we were not even slightly injured.
We were in shock, of course, and had to have it explained to us later that we had been ambushed by bandits who frequented this stretch of highway. We were supposed to have been injured, or preferably killed, in the mishap so that the bandits could take our valuables. I stayed with the car while my brother-in-law hitched a ride to locate a tow truck. So, to this dazed Gringo standing by the road, unaware that he was in some peril, the Lord sent a guardian angel. Guardian angels can come in many forms; mine came in the form of a Mexican Army Captain named Schultz. El capitan Schultz spoke excellent English, having been educated at Brigham Young University. The captain towed our car to the Army post a few miles away and then assigned a soldier to wait with me by the side of the road to intercept my brother-in-law with the tow truck-who obviously had no way of knowing where I was, and by this time it was dark.
When the car was eventually towed to the nearest town, we met a group of Wycliffe missionaries who were holding revival services. Their kindness greatly blessed us. They marveled at our escape from disaster and told us horror stories of missionaries who even then were in jail because of an accident. In Mexico it is a crime to have an accident, no matter who is at fault. (This dilemma can be solved, of course, by paying a large bribe.)
It was from talking with these missionaries that I got the idea of how important it is to be able to help people with their animals. Later they invited me to give a short course on animal care at their jungle training camp in Chiapas. We remained friends and supporters of those people for years.
In many parts of the world animal health is closely related to human welfare. In Cambodia a pair of oxen or water buffalo can cultivate enough rice to feed 100 people. Approximately half of their draft animals died in the war years. If you saw "The Visionaries" segment about AFSC on PBS recently you heard the Vietnamese woman tell how owning one pig had greatly improved the life of her entire family.
We never did go to Costa Rica, but instead to Bolivia, a country which is beautiful as well as fascinating with its large Indian population. We were there almost two years and I was able to help with several livestock projects, including dairy animals and poultry in various parts of the country.
After we returned home, there was a call from the National Council of Churches of the U.S. to go to Peru to help in the aftermath of a major earthquake which had destroyed many Andean towns and killed 65,000 people. I was thankful for the stamina necessary to hike at 14-15,000 feet in the beautiful, cold, remote areas of the Andes where the people needed and appreciated help from the outside world.
After we had been home a couple of years, there was a call to go to Honduras to help village agriculture in efforts to recover from a devastat-ing hurricane. It seemed we were going from one disaster to another. We set up milk goat projects in poor villages, thus helping to solve problems of malnutrition and poverty. These projects were so successful that the idea eventually spread to hundreds of villages, and continues to this day.
Ellen:
Each time we returned from a foreign assignment, broke and unemployed, Gordon had two veterinarian friends in Whittier who seemed glad to use his services in their hospitals when he was available, and they didn't seem to hold it against him when he picked up and left. They were sent by God, although they probably didn't realize it then.
From Honduras, Gordon was asked to serve as program director for Heifer Project International at their headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. I worked in the office. We have to say that to these Californians there were times when Arkansas seemed like yet another foreign land. I had been teaching English in Honduras and Peru, and when we arrived in Arkansas I observed, "They don't speak English here either!" This observation was confirmed when we drove to the nearby self-serve lumber yard which had on the top of the building a large billboard which said: "Hep yo seff!"
Gordon:
It was a wonderful experience to follow up Heifer Project programs in many parts of the world. During those years I visited livestock projects in about 30 countries. Heifer Project asked me to make a fact-finding trip to Cambodia early in 1985. The country had just then opened up to the outside world and given that world a glimpse of the horrors which had taken place. I greatly admired the work that AFSC was doing there, and we were pleased to be able to go there ourselves as volunteers. There were only eight Americans allowed into the country then and we lived a very restricted life in the capital for those first years. We worked with the animal health program in Cambodia until 1994, as I returned year after year to follow up on the AFSC projects.
When we look back we can't help but consider what a mess we could have made of it all if we had been following our own small plans with our very limited vision. In Luke 12:29ff we are reassured: Do not keep worryingyour Father knows what things you need. Seek for His Kingdom and these things shall be added to you.
Last summer, Ellen and Gordon were asked by Berkeley Friends, to give their "testimony" in place of the regular sermon. This article is based on that talk.
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting
Return to September Contents page