Hard Pressed….
Eliki and Lavenia Drodrolagi spent 16 years church planting in Chad. We asked them about their experience….
Looking back, what were your greatest challenges?
Eliki: Streets full of soldiers, extreme heat, our house being stoned, my wife harassed, and two occasions of serious illness, one in which I just wanted to die.
Lavenia: The constant tension of living on the edge in this difficult physical and spiritual climate. Whenever the plane takes off out of Chad I physically feel a weight lift off me. There are military with guns making their presence felt wherever you drive, intimidation from police hoping to get bribes, and overwhelming numbers of beggars, “How should I respond?” Besides that, we had little electricity to help cool us down and often we had to get up at 2am to fill all the barrels with water when it came on.
What about your best moments?
Eliki: The difficulties do not compare with the joy in seeing people believe and attending their baptisms. Fun with the WEC team! There is such a sense of oneness and support in this very international team. Also personally for me coming from Fiji, I felt small and insignificant, but the team did not see that and elected us as leaders.
Lavenia: Best moments are the sunsets and the stars! Going back to Adre to say goodbye, it was such a joy seeing the believers continuing in their faith having not given up.
What kinds of things has God been teaching you in Chad?
Eliki: Learning the sovereignty of God in working things out. I learnt to relax. One time rebels attacked Adre and we could not get word to Mutupo who was on his way to us. He turned up on foot. The car he and others were in had rolled 20 minutes out of town. No one was hurt. Actually the hole in the road they had hit was so small we wondered how the car could have possibly rolled. Yet, had they driven into town they would have been shot at.
Lavenia: I learnt living by God’s grace and faithfulness. One time I took a car to go and find Eliki. Unknown to me it had flooded in another area of the country. Eliki was camping by a big wadi waiting for the water to subside. I got to the first small wadi and my passengers reassured me it was ok to cross. The car got stuck midstream, water rising. We had to walk in the dark 3km back to Adre. Meanwhile rumour had got back to our team in Adre that ‘the car had been eaten’. The next morning a tractor appeared in town and was able to pull the car out. Never before or since has a tractor been seen in that remote part of the world!
How would you sum up your years of service in Chad?
By this poem, author unknown…..
Pressed out of measure and pressed to all lengths,
Pressed so intensely it seems beyond strength,
Pressed in the body and pressed in the soul,
Presses in the mind till the dark surges roll,
Pressed by foes and a pressure from friends,
Pressure on pressure till life nearly ends,
Pressed into knowing no helper but God,
Pressed into loving the staff and the rod,
Pressed into liberty where nothing clings,
Pressed into faith for impossible things,
Pressed into living a life in the Lord,
Pressed into living a Christ life out-poured.