Checkmate- the point in chess when player A is in a position that can kill player B’s king: both where he is at the moment and anywhere the king could potentially move.
Checkmate is the end of a chess game.
I love to play games. Any games. If it’s something that I can be competitive at, I automatically love it.
I tend to go through phases with games. Right before I launched on the World Race, the phase that I was in was Settlers of Catan. On the race, my phase has become Chess. I bought a little travel board in Thailand and I am playing the heck out of it. I think that I played close to twenty games of chess during our debrief in Uganda. I loved it.
I taught one of the men at the resort, that we had debrief at, how to play chess. His name is Fred. After that, I played chess with him each night.
The last night that we were at the resort, Fred and I played a final time. When we were sitting there, he asked me what I was doing when I left the resort. I told him that I was going to Kampala to work with a church.
“Oh. To speak the word of God,” Fred said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Do you have your Bible right now?”
“Yeah, I do,” and I pulled my Bible out and opened it for him to see.
“You give me word from God?”
“Abolutely!” I was pretty shocked. I immediately started praying for God to show me what verse to share with Fred. I started flipping around in my Bible. After a few seconds, my finger landed on Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” I wrote it down on a piece of paper for him. Then I began to talk to him about the verse. About God creating our beautiful nature with His fingerprints all over it. Then Fred said, yeah and He created you and he created me. I looked at him and I said, yeah! Wow, Fred.
Then I asked him what he believes in. He told me that he believes in Christ. Christ is his Saviour. I talked to him about what that meant and how he believes he is saved. He said that he is saved because he was baptized and goes to church. I was able to share Titus 3:5 with him, “Not by works of righteousness…” and I talked about that for a minute and I was able to share the gospel. I asked if there was a time that he accepted the free gift of salvation and he said that he did that- just not in public… it was in private.
I looked at him and said that that was awesome. Then, I touched him on the shoulder and said, “Fred, do you know what this means? This means that, if you are truly saved and I am saved, we are going to see each other in heaven… maybe we could even play chess there!”
Then, we continued our final game.
My encounter with Fred was so encouraging! The next morning was the last time I saw him. It’s probably going to be the last time that I see him on this earth, but I truly believe that he is going to be in heaven. I wish that I had taken a picture with Fred, but the memory of him and our conversations is all that I have- and that is enough.
What a super encouraging start to month four!
God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good.
<3 Ash
