Our very first event as a new team would be at the tail end of summer 2015 in Houston, TX at Templo Aposento Alto for the Texas Louisiana Hispanic District of the Assemblies of God. 
Those of you who are avid members of the Mary Beth fan club know I was called to missions in Latin America in Quito, Ecuador and then did my first longer term assignment with Castillo del Rey in El Salvador, porque los ninos necesitan conocer Jesus! So, I love me some hispanics, I even have several brown friends, but unfortunately my Thai language skills have intermixed with my Spanish language skills making even my English hard to understand and the rest of my team speaks easy languages like arabic or hindi so hurdle #2 (#1 is we're a brand new team!) is a bit of language and cultural barrier, but we were ready, we had bilingual monologists and ate a lot of the local cuisine that week to better connect with our new friends and because it was dang good!
So we have translators and pupusas and horchata AND we have a.... wait for it... hurricane. We'll call that hurdle #3-#10 because the flooding caused major highways to close and several attendees from near and far to be unable to come, including some cast members, but both the conference and the event moved floated forward.
I'll quit being silly and get to the good stuff. At the end of the event we ask those in attendance what God is speaking to their hearts, what is He telling them their part is in reaching those yet to hear, is it to pray, to give, to go, all three? Several people stood saying God was moving upon their hearts to GO, I watched as they began to stand, just a handful, like popcorn they popped up in the far corners of the room and one or two in the middle of the crowd. Each one of them was standing alone. Peer pressure is powerful, but evidently not so much in the "I'm going to pack my bags and move to India, because my friends are!" kind of way.
Where they were sitting is significant, not because the Holy Spirit is stronger on the east side of the room or anything weird like that but because of something else. The room was dark, the spotlights had been on the speakers, no one could really see who else was standing, plus friends and family typically get separated as they enter into this part of the experience because in most of our countries men and women would not sit together in religious gatherings and we want our attendees to experience this part of Eurasian cultures.
The handful of individuals made their way out of the crowd into an annex to talk with some of our team about their interests. A middle aged man, a single guy in his twenties, an older woman, middle aged woman, a young boy, a teenage boy, and a mother all walked alone from their seats to respond to God's call. I can't imagine what was going thru their minds. How on earth will this ever happen?How will I tell my family that I feel God is calling me or us to go and minister in Eurasia? With hearts pounding both with excitement and fear of how those they love would react to what God was asking of them, they weaved thru the dark crowd into the light. This is the cool part or rather the God part of the story. Fear and uncertainty subsided and was replaced with astonishment as the middle aged man saw his wife enter the room, followed shortly after by their teenager, and then their youngest child. In the dark, in the chaos, in a crowded room, thru language barriers and a hurricane God had spoken to 4 individual hearts, one family, the same message, His call to the nations. No hurdles are too big for God, not hurricanes, not finances, not speaking to the hearts of your whole family. When God calls us to crazy stuff like moving to Eurasia, He knows if we're single, or if we have kids, or health or financial hurdles, He also knows exactly how He's going to get us over the hurdles and into the adventure of His will.
I'll spare you photos of our sopping wet team heading to dinner after the trailer was loaded back up, mostly because I look significantly drier than my male team members, not at all sure how that happened!
No comments:
Post a Comment