Most times in life, things do not turn out the way you expected. Not always a good thing but on the other hand is also not always bad either. I would not be surprised if half the time God is chuckling to Himself and thinking “You have no idea what I am sending your way next”.
Today is exactly two weeks since I stepped foot on Colombian soil and I have to say it has been far from what I expected, what a blessing. Because I could never have dared to expect the beauty I have seen in just 14 days. My first two weekends as you already know were spent ministering to children at the boy/girl retreats. Since then I have been spending most of my days attending different reunions the church holds daily, the attendance ranges from small children to elderly adults, somehow or another the ministry has some sort of ministry for all ages. The subjects of these meetings differ depending on the day or the need. They usually go from children’s Bible studies and music classes to adult prayer meetings and ministry preparation. To give you an idea of my general days I will give you a quick rundown. I have been waking up at 4am every morning for an hour of prayer with my new friend and co-worker Sayira.. We pray every morning from 4am to 5am for everything possible under the sun. Prayers for family, friends, ministry, power, presence you name it. I have not quite been able to stay up after our prayers end and usually pass out for a few more hours of sleep. I usually leave the place where I sleep and go straight to the pastor’s house to spend the morning in more prayer and outdoor activities. After lunch we head to the church together to start work. There are generally 4 or 5 reunions a day, I don’t attend all of them mostly the Bible studies, prayer meetings and ministry planning meetings. I work with Sayi most of the day when I am not in reunions and at about 6-7pm we hit the streets. The ministry is very passionate about bringing the lost sheep back to the flock. One of the branches of this ministry is staying in contact with past and present church attendees. This is where Sayi and I come in, at night we go and visit numerous women and young girls at their house to share the word with them, pray over them and encourage them to pursue their relationship with God, always assuring them that we are near if they should need anything. I love to be a part of these visits, these women and girls are usually going through extremely difficult times financially, emotionally and sometimes physically. My first visit was with a girl named Laura. She is 20 years old and 8 months pregnant with her first child. Her entire family has rejected her and she lives in a tiny room in a strangers apartment. She has no money for medicine or doctors visits, she has absolutely no idea whether her child is a boy or a girl. As she unfolded her story to me it was difficult to hold back the tears. I was able to struggle through my Spanish and try to encourage her in that all things pass good and bad. We prayed over her and have her contact information should she need anything at all that we can help with. I have been a part of several of these visits and I usually leave wishing I could do more, but God softly reminds me that, as my good friend Oscar Useche always says, it is usually in the little things we do that God works mightily. The highlight of my last two weeks was last night, since we did not have any visits on Wednesday night we went instead door to door inviting some teenage girls to a Bible study. I was concerned that none would come at first because judging by the coldness and hate I could feel from their family I wasn’t sure that they would allow the girls to attend. But God is always faithful and low and behold on Thursday night we had a total of 8 people. Not huge but a miracle none the less. The girls were so sweet and despite their obvious distaste of religion gave us their undivided attention. Sayi and I thought it best to share Matthew 14:22. Peter walking on the water. There are so many open doors to share about in this passage but we felt these girls needed to hear about faith and pursuit of Jesus. The girls listened in silence as Sayi shared about how Peter followed the call and stepped out on the water instead of waiting for Jesus to come to him. He stepped out on total faith and of course not perfectly but still made the choice to trust and keep walking forward. It is always a struggle for me to share in these meetings because of the language barrier, but I am determined to always try. God has given me a lot of love for these children and no amount of struggling through word after word is going to stop me from encouraging these beautiful people. I was able to share a bit of my testimony with them and also some words from the story of Peter also. At the end, with their permission, I went from head to head praying for each of them individually. It was a beautiful night and I can hardly wait for next Thursday to see what God is going to do at the next one.
Please continue to pray. Prayer is priceless to me and this ministry. I pray that God would bless all the readers and their families. Don’t ever forget, God has a purpose for your life and you do not want to miss out on the countless blessings He has for you and others through you.
“Que para esta hora he llegado, para este tiempo nací. En sus propósitos eternos yo me vi, Para esta hora he llegado aunque me ha costado creer, entre sus planes para hoy me encontré”
