This is Justin... Friends, thank you for your prayers. The Lord IS answering them and IS moving among us as we come in contact with people and minister.
The past two days I have been preaching my heart out and I´m a little wore out by now. But that´s a good thing! On Saturday we had a conference with leaders on "How to Help Those Struggling with Sexual Sin" and it was very well received. I was a little nervous, given that this subject is very rarely talked about in churches in this culture. But the pastors and leaders opened their hearts and the Lord really blessed our time together.
I have a wonderful translator named Hector. He is a retired US Airforce man who married a Nicaraguan and moved to Somoto. He is a native of Puerto Rico but lived most of his childhood in Brooklyn, NY. So he has this great NYC / Latino accent that makes me smile when I hear him talk. The Lord is knitting our hearts together and that is making speaking with him very easy.
On Saturday night it was "Kid´s Night" at a church we visited out in the mountains. I´d tell you where it was, but it was so far out there that it doesn´t really matter! We arrived and there were kids everywhere - but we didn´t know that they would be staying in the service. Imagine trying to preach in a small church with about 50 kids under the age of 7... I was all ready to share this teaching on sanctification, and when we arrived I thought, "OK, what´s plan B!"
But the Lord is SO good! He reminded me of a time in Romania when I simply told the three stories in Luke 15 to a group of Gypsies. So, I looked around and thought, "Well, we have outhouses here, chickens everywhere, a few pigs hanging around outside, a mountain village and a church full of children and simple people... seems pretty close to a Gypsie village to me!"
So, by the grace of God, I told those three wonderful stories that show the love of Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father for people. I can´t tell you properly in words how great it is to be able to simply tell some stories right out of the word - no adding to them, no explaining them, just telling them - and then see people´s hearts open up... so wonderful.
That night we went back to Cascabel (the orphanage) and had a nice long meal with Carlos, his wife and Hector. Chuck asked Carlos to tell us some of his testimony and we were all blown away to hear what God has done in this man´s life. To see where he brought him from - a father with three wives living in the same house, one of 19 children, being forced out of his home at age 12, serving in the military by age 15, diagnosed with lung cancer at about 30 years of age - and then to see what God is doing through him now is such a testimony to the power of the grace of God!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment