In Bible classes with the Yanowamo, we often search for illustrations from their own way of life to explain a point we're trying to make. And one that we have often used to illustrate the difference between trying and trusting, is that of an old woman who needs to cross a swollen river.   It's an apt illustration, since the older women here don't know how to swim.  (Swimming is relatively new to them, since they traditionally avoided contact with big rivers, and had many frightening beliefs regarding all the things that could be lurking below the surface.)

Let's say that Grandma crosses the river one afternoon, on a fallen log that spans the stream and serves as a bridge. Grandma is in search of firewood for their campfire that evening. And let's suppose that a big, sudden storm comes up, and the stream floods its banks, and the log is swept downriver in the current. Grandma gets back to the river bank with her firewood, and discovers that the bridge she needs to cross to safety is gone. She can't get home. So she hollers until she's hoarse, and finally a few people hear her, and run to the river to see what's wrong.

Everyone follows the illustration easily. It's something that happens often. So we ask:  "Can you give her instructions and teach
grandma to swim, so she can swim across to safety?" Heads shake.  That won't work. "What if you speak gently to her, and try to quell her fears, and tell her a step at a time how to move her arms and her legs so that she'll be able to navigate the river?"

Heads are still shaking. "Maybe if you speak sternly, and tell her she absolutely HAS to do it...?"

But everyone knows it still won't work.

And then when we speak about the possibility of some young man who is strong and able, swimming across to the other side, and tying a vine across the river so that he can keep a firm hold on the vine and help Grandma get across on his back, heads begin to nod.  That's the only way it can happen.  And Grandma, who already knows that it's useless to throw herself into the current and "try" to swim, will quickly grasp onto the man who has come to her rescue, and trust herself to his expertise to get her across the river to safety.

"That's the way it is with us, too.  The Law tells us what to do. God gave us the Ten Commandments so we'd know how to please Him.  But knowing what we should do doesn't help if we can't do it, does it...?  The only One who has ever fulfilled the Law, was Jesus."

It's a good illustration for showing our own hopelessness, and explaining the provision God made for us in Christ.  And this week, the
people in Coyowa ought to be thinking of it again.  The rains are heavy and the river is high.

Rumour had it that there were lots of edible caterpillars across the river, so they borrowed Bobby's old canoe, and took four or five canoe loads of people to the other side to collect caterpillars.  (Yum!)  On their way back with the first canoe load of three ladies that couldn't swim, the canoe sunk in the swift, swollen waters, just as they were approaching shore, and the people barely made it to the bank.  The canoe was swept downstream, over the waterfalls, leaving some twenty people on the other side, who now had no
way across.

News of their plight quickly reached the missionaries, and everyone ran down to the river to see what could be done.  The illustration of trying versus trusting took shape before their eyes. They got a rope across the river, and Bobby and Greg helped all the women and small children across by hanging on to the rope and crossing with them on their backs. Three life jackets had been rounded up, so they put that on them for added safety, in case they got swept off the rope in the current. It was pretty scary for all those who couldn't swim at all. Perhaps more like hoping than trusting.

Solymar, a few months pregnant, had the hardest time.  She didn't want to cling with both hands to Greg, and trust herself to him.  She wanted to hold the rope with one hand, and hang on to Greg with the other. (That makes a good point in the illustration too.)  They soon discovered that that was a bad decision; but there was no way of changing it once they were half
way across, in the current.  She swallowed water, and almost let go. But she
made it, because Greg was strong, even though her trusting was weak.

After that experience, they made a new rule.  Either they had to hold on to Greg or Bobby with both hands, or they could hang on to the rope for themselves, and Greg or Bobby would go across beside them "just in case", because they didn't want anyone to follow the canoe over the waterfalls. And it didn't take long to prove that those who opted to hang on for dear life, wrapping their arms and legs around their rescuers, made the easiest crossings.

        And how are YOU planning to cross to the other side?  Are you going to try, or trust?

        Yours in His service,
Marg Jank
        New Tribes Mission, Venezuela