“God do something that we cannot even imagine.” This is something that I ask God almost every single day and every single time I ask Him He shows up. This first week in Peru was no different.
It was our first day of ministry and we were told we would be handing out fliers. To be honest, handing out fliers was the last thing I wanted to be doing that night. God however had a night totally planned out that I couldn’t have even begun to think would have happened when I was supposed to be just handing out fliers.
I am walking around and I see this lady sitting on the bench. She did not look happy. I went over to her and sat down. I said “Hola.” She continued to stare straight forward and didn’t say anything. Ummm, okay this was not how I was planning on this conversation going. My host sees me and he asks “Haley, are you trying to have a conversation with this woman?” My response, “Well yeah but she won’t answer me.” So he starts walking towards me. While he is walking this older guy comes up and sits on the other side of the lady. I thought he was her husband. My host is now standing beside us and he says “Hola.” Finally, there’s a response but not from the lady from the man. He also said “Hola.” The lady however decided that she was done with us and gets up and walks off. Apparently they were not married. I then start my conversation with this man.
I find out that he is 85 years old. I thought he was in his 60’s. If you ever come Peru just know that the people here look so much younger than what they actually are. I began to ask this man about his life. I found out that he has a wife and they have been married for 50 years He also has 3 kids. 2 sons and 1 daughter. His daughter is deaf and mute but is really intelligent. As the conversation continues I am wondering how in the world I can tie church and God into this conversation. As soon as I thought about that the man starts talking about the Bible.
I spent a lot of the next part of our conversation trying to figure out what this man believed about God. I’m still actually really confused as to what he believes. He does know who Jesus is. I asked him if he knew why Jesus died on the cross and he said for me and the sins I have committed and for everyone else in the world as well. So I knew he knew about Jesus. The Holy Spirit put a question in my head and it was “Do you believe that God wants a relationship with you?” He looked very confused. I asked, “Do you ever spend time with God?” He said, “Oh yeah, I read the Bible and I pray.” I said “Do you ever take time to listen to Him and hear what He has to say.” “Oh God doesn’t talk to people,” was his response. It was at that moment I began sharing about how God talks to me and my relationship with Him. I was trying to read this man but I just could not figure out what was going on in his head. I then invited him to church and his whole family and he seemed so excited to come! I talked to him for a few more minutes just about life and then he said he had to go home to his wife. That concluded my time with this man.
The next day I meet this lady whose name is Linda in the market. She for some reason takes a liking to me before she even starts talking to me. I was honestly in a mood where I did not want to talk to anyone and this lady just did not understand that. So I start talking to her and then one of my teammates joins in as well. We end up telling her about the sale that we were having at the church and invited her to come. We go back to the church about about 30 minutes later Linda shows up. She starts talking about I don’t know a lot of what she said. However, I did catch that she is 59 years old. I thought this lady was going to say like 45 years old. She asks me what my kind of fruit I like and I tell her bananas and apples. She says “Okay, I will be back soon.” and she takes off. An hour later Linda shows up again with this time a bag in her hand. She looks at me and says for you. I looked in the bag and there were bananas, apples, oranges, and mangoes! Linda stays and chats for a while.
During her stay this time she invites me and my teammate, Chandler, to her house. We tell her we can’t but she was very persistent. Chandler tells her maybe we could a different day but we had to stay at the church because we had to help with English club. The words English Club got her attention. She wanted to know what time and when we told her we started in an hour and a half she got and left very abruptly and said she would be back.
Chandler and I about 30 minutes later start walking around the streets inviting people to the sale and guess who we run into, Linda! She sees us and immediately comes over to us and invites us to her place. We try to tell her we can’t but she would not take no for an answer. She grabs our arms and links our arms with hers and off we go. We get to her house and she insists we sit down on the couch so we sit and talk for a couple minutes. She gets up and walks into a room and then comes back with a man who we find out is her brother-in-law. Through a good hour of sitting and talking with them we find out that they are Buddhist. We got to share a little part of the Gospel with them and they listened very intently and they seemed very intrigued. After we got done sharing the Gospel we had to actually go because of English Club. We told them we would try and come back next week to talk with them some more. There is no doubt in my mind that a seed was planted that afternoon.
If you would’ve asked me at the beginning of the week if I thought I would be able to talk to an 85 year old man about my relationship with God and talk to a 59 year old woman and her brother-in-law about Jesus I would’ve said probably not. The one thing I have learned about asking God to do something that I could never imagine is that He never fails to say yes. Meeting those people happened during my first 2 days of ministry. I can tell God is moving and I can tell that the people are hungry for Him. I am so excited for what God has in store for this month in Peru.
