Post 15 Christmas 1949 and New Year 1950 San Joaquin style

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Christmas day fell on Sunday and our evening meeting was quite good, two young soldiers who were believers took part. We gave an imitation lantern lecture with the power lantern behind coloured drawings.  

For each fulfilled prophecy of the Old Testament, concerning the birth of Christ, a star appeared in the darkness surrounding the drawing of the world, until finally the darkness disappeared and the world was lit up by the Cross.

Christmas day in the town was a very low-key affair to what we had expected. Starting from the Catholic Church, the native folk danced around the streets with their drums, going from house to house waving flags and drinking alcohol.  

On Monday they danced around the streets wearing headdresses and faces blackened. With a paddle in hand, they went through the motion of paddling a canoe, but nobody could tell us what this had to do with Christmas, they said it was just custom.  

Real feasting commenced on New Year's Day and five days later the drums were still beating, with the consequent abnormal amount of drunkenness. An old native woman, who was caretaker of the priest's house, paid us a gushingly friendly visit under the influence of alcohol while he was away in Cochabamba.  We took the opportunity to explain to her the "Two Ways" using the picture chart.

With the return of the priest, the work became difficult again; he seemed to have a spell over the people, demanding implicit obedience almost like a witch doctor. However, we thanked the Lord for the few faithful ones, but we noticed that the carpenter was not attending meetings as before, and appeared to have had some pressure put on him. 

Editor's comment:

Lantern Lecture: A kerosene pressure lantern provided stronger light than the usual kerosene light. In a world where there was no electricity, only candles and kerosene lamps this was a novel presentation. This brighter light was placed behind the various paper drawings of the scene of the Christmas story. The characters and animals in silhouetted shapes moved behind the paper and in front of the lantern thus casting shadows onto the paper as the story was told.

Chalk talks in which drawings illustrated the story being told were Jim’s primary means of telling Bible stories. He often drew a mark on a large blank sheet of butcher’s paper set up on an easel. He could draw a crowd by turning the first mark he made into any animal then gradually weave this figure into the whole scene as he told the story. His theme was always a simple Bible story. He wanted folks to know the wonderful and simple historical yet transformational stories from the Bible.

1950: San Joaquín El Beni Bolivia

New Year Festivities

The five days of continuous feasting at New Year was apparently working up to the occasion which had more significance than Christmas in the calendar of the Catholic Church.  

Looking out our front door on the 6th January we were amazed to see a procession coming down the road headed by a man with his face blackened, a big artificial beard, wearing a dark suit, a fur turban, and strangest of all for a native man - a pair of glasses!  

We asked the carpenter who lived opposite our house what it was all about and were told that this person was one of the wise men coming to visit the little image of the child Jesus in the church. Soon all the native population were gathered around the church to celebrate the advent of the wise men.  

This ceremony finished with a rope being stretched across the street in front of the church and one by one folk perched fowls on the rope. The rope was then pulled and the fowl catapulted into the air followed by a mad scramble to catch it, the catcher thus receiving the fowl as a gift.  Nobody could tell us what this had to do with the wise men!