One of our ministry objectives this month has been to find
men and women of peace. We go door to door in different communities meeting the
people, spending time in their houses, praying for them, and trying to find
true Christians who might be able to help in the future church planting efforts
that Amanece Dominicano plans. The inspiration for our ministry comes from Luke
10:
“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of
him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, ‘The
harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest,
therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out
like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not
greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this
house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them;
if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they
give you, for the worker deserves his wages.'”
In our visits we have encountered everything from love and hospitality
to opposition and witchcraft. We have found many people who are open enough to
listen to us and hear what we believe, but until Tuesday we had not been
positive that we had found a true man of peace.
On Tuesday we continued through the village of Canafistol where we had
been the previous day. Team Kaleo was split into two groups, and I was with
Brent, Hailey, and Tiffany to translate for them. After going to a few houses
we stopped to take a break and have a snack. A woman came up to us and insisted
that because we were missionaries we needed to go to the pastor’s house and
meet her. We walked across the street, knocked on the door, and entered the
pastor’s patio. She came over from the church where she was cleaning to talk to
us.
We assumed that this interaction would be much like most of the others
we had had. We would get to know her a little, ask about her church, ask if
there was anything she needed prayer for, and pray for her. Wrong. The pastora
took one look at us and proceeded to tell us all the reasons why we were unfit
to be out spreading God’s love to others. She told us our doctrine was wrong,
that the women in our group were dressed like men (because we had on pants),
that we should not wear earrings, and that we were hiding our light under our
worldly clothing choices. She explained that Jesus had come to earth to live a
simple life, and that we were doing the opposite. I tried to explain the
concept of freedom in Christ to her, but she insisted that we should live by
Old Testament standards. We tried to explain to her that we had in fact
abandoned our lives back home to bring truth to the world, but she simply did
not want to hear it. She misquoted a few scriptures, told us that we were unfit
to be missionaries, and that it was a good thing that Jesus was merciful
because we would need it. Ironically, her church is called La Luz del Mundo
(The Light of the World), and this woman was the only person out of the
hundreds we have talked to who refused to let us pray over her.
After we left her house we felt pretty discouraged because we realized
why all the people we had talked to in Canafistol did not want to go to church.
Church, in this case, represented a controlling woman who judged them and
demanded that they change everything about themselves before they were
considered worthy of God’s love. There are only eight people in her
congregation, and it was then that we realized why. We went behind a big tree
where she could not see us and prayed over the village, her church, and her
spirit of judgment and condemnation. Even though we felt like throwing in the
towel and calling it a day, we decided to visit one more house.
As we walked down the road, Brent saw two men sitting in the backyard
of a house calling to us. We walked back to where they were sitting, and before
I could even explain what we were doing there one of the men began to tell us
the story of the Bible. He knew it so well, often quoting directly from
Scripture. He explained that God was a God of grace, and that even though he
had flooded the earth to wipe out all the corrupt humans, he had grace on Noah
and his family, saving them so that humanity could continue to exist. Before we
even told him that we had talked to the pastora, he told us that God loves each
person exactly as we are and that it is the light inside of us that people can
see and that draws them toward God. He told us he was happy that God had sent missionaries
like us to his town and that he believed it was no accident that we were there.
“The church here is wrong,” he told us. “It’s a church of condemnation and
judgment and too many unnecessary rules. When people talk to you they can see
that you have love in your hearts and they can see that you are not the same
kind of Christians as the ones we have here.”
This man, Juan Antonio, was such an encouragement to us because we
felt like there was no hope for the church in Canafistol. We told him about
Amanece Dominicano and our contact, Miguel. He lit up and insisted that we
write down his address and phone number so that he can meet Miguel. Juan
Antonio told us that he believed we had come to Canafistol to meet him and tell
him about this church planting ministry. “We need a new church here, one that
accepts each person exactly where they are and lets God do the work in their
lives. I would like to meet Miguel and help him start such a church in
Canafistol so that the people here can see that God is a God of love, not of
condemnation and legalistic rules.” We found our man of peace.
Juan Antonio is the man between Tiffany and me
All of Team Kaleo with Juan Antonio
