Post 5 Our first Encounters with the Priest

We had not seen the priest as he was out of town on a visit to Puerto Siles, just over thirty miles away on the Mamore River.

Early one morning we looked out from our balcony to the far corner of the plaza and noticed a procession entering the town. It was an ox-cart and in front of it danced a group of young Indian women with garlands of flowers, while seated regally in the cart was Don Tomas, the priest of San Joaquin! He was a Spaniard of the Franciscan order, and for the past twelve or more years he had ruled the town as its virtual "king." Before we left Cochabamba, our Mission director, Verne Roberts, had told us of his fanaticism and described him as a "real bull"!

On the morning of our departure for the Beni, our Bible reading had been from Isaiah 54, and we had felt particularly encouraged by verse 17: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgement thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord."

Within a few days of his arrival back in town, the priest had distributed handbills warning the population against the "wolves in sheep's clothing," the identifying mark being the Bible they carried in their hand. Immediately we noticed suspicious looks and evident avoidance of us, so instead of carrying his Bible, Jim put a New Testament in his pocket to pull out unexpectedly when needed!

As we commenced open-air meetings with the accordion and sketchboard in the cool of the evening, we found that the indigenous people on the edge of the town showed some interest in the message of the Gospel, but the ‘gente’ living around the plaza were mostly cold and indifferent. Later we found this to be particularly true of the ‘gente’ women who were fanatically Catholic, while the men were generally only religious on special feast days. Some of the men really had no time for the priest and resented him because of his power over their women in the confessional, where far too much of the men's private lives was revealed!