“How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?”
– Psalm 137:4
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever been lonesome? How would you feel if you could not see your dad and ma every day? Would you like to be in a boarding school right now? What do you think that it is like for a kid while he or she is staying at a boarding school? Ask your dad what it was like for him to stay at a boarding school. After your dad spent his first school year in Bolivia going to Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center, your dad asks your grandmaa and grandpaa if he can go to school at Tambo. Tambo is New Tribes mission’s boarding school in Bolivia. It was at least a four hour drive – on a road that at times edged deep ravines, to get to Tambo from where your grandmaa and grandpaa lived in Santa Cruz. Your dad spent his ninth, tenth and eleventh grades at Tambo. After your Aunt Lynn went for her first three school years in Bolivia to Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center, went to Tambo for her fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades. Your Aunt Lynn says that nights were the hardest time for her to be away from your grandmaa and grandpaa. How do you feel about a kid’s dad and/or ma sending his/her/their kid(s) away to study in a boarding school or in a school in another town? When May Mayer graduated from grade school from the Christian School that is in Volga, South Dakota, May’s dad and ma had May go to the Christian High School that is in Edgerton, Minnesota. Your grandpaa graduated from the Christian School that is in Volga the same year that May did. There were five girls in your grandpaa’s class in the Christian School that is in Volga – and one boy with that boy being your grandpaa. May would stay all week in Edgerton as well as over many weekends. Your grandmaa and grandpaa – about three weeks ago, spent a night with May and her husband Peter. May and Peter live near Tyler, Texas. May’s dad and ma still live in the same house where May lived in when she was a kid. May’s ma and dad – Len and Gladys Mayer, are living less than a half a mile from where your grandpaa lived when he was a kid. May and Peter – since January of 1978, have been giving your grandmaa and grandpaa a monthly support gift. A year or so after your grandmaa and grandpaa arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia – which was late August of 1978, to join the South America Mission’s field missionary team that was in Bolivia, your grandpaa began to make extensive rural trips through eastern Bolivia – with one of these trips lasting almost four weeks, with the Presidents of A.I.E.O. (Asociación de las Iglesias Evangélicas del Oriente) to visit the rural churches in eastern Bolivia that are affiliated with South America Mission. Your grandpaa – on one of the trips, met a young guy who was staying in and going to a school that is in San Ignacio de Velasco. The young guy would ride a horse from a small community that is located near Zapacó – which is what the land area is called that South America Mission purchased to be a reservation for an indigenous tribal clan of Ayoréo guys, gals and kids, to San Ignacio de Velasco – where the young guy would stay through the school year – except for extended school breaks when he would ride back to his home, in a communal house with other young guys who have gone on a horse or walked to San Ignacio de Velasco from other outlying communities to go to school. When your grandmaa and grandpaa joined OC International’s field missionary team in Guatemala – which is called Equipo SEPAL, your grandpaa was with Hector Pivaral’s help were able to – after a dozen times of presenting the program in various communities and settings, a Bible education program in Xalbal – a community that is located in the Ixcan region of Guatemala. Artemio was the pastor of the church that hosted the first (Programa de Educación Bíblica) Bible education program in Guatemala. When each one of their kids finished the highest grade that was taught in the school in Xalbal, Artemio and his wife would send their kid to Playa Grande. Playa Grande – which is Ixcan’s central community, where their kids could finish their high school studies so that they could get more education in Guatemala City if they wanted to.
How do you think that an Israelite people group kid felt when he or she was carried away – along with his or her dad and/or ma as exiles by the Babylonian army to the country of Babylonia? Psalm 137 is a plaintive psalm song that was scribed by an Israelite people group exile who may have just returned to the city of Jerusalem. Even though the guy possibly had never spent a day in the city of Jerusalem, the guy’s soul was still filled with bitter, lingering memories – possibly through what his dad and ma told him when he was a kid living in city of Babylon, about what life had once been like in the city of Jerusalem. The guy remembers the days when he and others sat crying alongside the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers – two rivers that ran through the city of Babylon, remembering the awful, horrifying events that led to their enforced stay in the city of Babylon. The guy and his buddies – while they were abused, tormented Babylonian exiles, could not find it in their hearts to write joy filled songs. Verse 4 has the guy scribing in his psalm song, “How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?”
Your grandpaa thinks that the absolute ideal always is for a kid to grow up being around a dad and a ma who can teach and be an example for their kid how to live life but there may be at time extenuating circumstances that will result in a kid having to survive outside the ideal of growing up in the security of a home with a dad and ma.
Psalm 137 (1025)