Enter Week One On The Race
Our day begins with our ministry host dropping us off on a street he’s specifically prayed over in the town of Las Charcas. He tells us he’ll be back to get us in a few hours and that our goal for the day is to talk to as many houses as possible because people in this area have never heard The Gospel. As we all timidly walk towards the first house of the day, our translator boldly walks ahead to make the initial greeting. He yells with confidence, “Saludo” as we all gather behind him, waiting for a face to appear or a friendly reply. More often than not it is a woman that emerges from inside the house, and she always warmly welcomes us to sit and talk with her. Upon seeing her face, our translator rattles off our loaded introduction, “These women are American missionaries. They have come to tell you about God and share the Bible with you. One of them will now preach to you.”
Run for the hills! If I close my eyes I disappear right? I mean, what do they expect me to say? Where do I start? I don’t even know this woman! Yes I’ve grown up in the church, so I know my Bible stories, but I’ve never encountered anything like this. Can we just slow down a little and just work on getting to know each other?
*good can be interpreted as brave, confident, assured, strong, and/or positive
We should make a difference in this community and be remembered
I should read as much as I can from scripture because that is the way for them to learn about Jesus and his character
We should talk to as many houses as possible because that is what our ministry host expects from us
I should be enjoying this ministry because so many other people on my squad would love to take my place and in their words “I am giving someone the best news they will ever here.”
We should be able to bring people to Christ because we do such a great job of telling people who God is.
I should pray out loud [and feel comfortable with it] because that allows God to speak through me; and that’s how we share our faith.
We should be able to convey that life is hard even once you know God, but that His love and joy is so much bigger than any hardship we will face.
I said it before and I will say it again, the race is so much bigger than me! It is not about what Jacquie Morges is doing. It is about how God has chosen to use me in his master plan.
God has prepared people’s hearts way before my team and I even got here. That has been evidenced time and time again. We watched two people come to Christ and let me tell you it had nothing to do with what we said or how we said it. In fact, at both of these houses we hardly said anything at all. At the first house, the woman we were speaking with seemed to state pretty clearly that she wasn’t really interested in learning about Jesus. I could tell by her facial expression that she was feeling ill, and quite frankly I thought we were being a bother to her. Not to mention, as we continued to force conversation with her, we had our two translators giving slightly different versions of what she was saying, so I was pretty much lost. Then the next thing I know someone is asking her if she would like to accept Christ as her Savior, and wham bam thank you ma’am she says yes. I didn’t know what to think. How did that happen? We hardly told her anything. Did she really understand the weight of her commitment? It all seemed rushed and quite frankly I struggled to believe her faith was real.
Something caused me to take a picture of this home before we entered it…it turns out the homeowner is the woman who accepted Christ. Coincidence…I think not.
But the next day when we were eating at the church during our lunch break, wouldn’t you know that same woman who accepted Jesus walks by the church and she is literally glowing. There is no more pain on her face and I swear it was like angels were surrounding her. She didn’t have to say anything (and because of language barriers she couldn’t really say anything), I just knew.
Yesterday I doubted, but today I understood.
It wasn’t about the words we said or didn’t say. God had prepared this woman’s heart and all she needed was someone to ask her to commit to getting to know Him better. He was taking care of the rest.
Wow! This is some powerful stuff. Here I was paranoid about praying the right prayer, and impressing people with my words when it’s really God’s they are in search of. I had it all wrong. And trust me, I am still get things wrong. Ministry didn’t become magically easy or instantly better after I had this revelation. My team and I are still working to figure out how WE best do ministry as a unit; and what it really looks like to shed those restricting shoulds from our minds.
But it takes time.
However, God is kind enough to show us His grace throughout the process. As I mentioned, my team and I felt pretty lost this first week when it came to refining our approach to evangelizing. We utilized a trial and error tactic that left many of us feeling disappointed and unsuccessful. But when it came time for us to preach on Sunday (a first for many members on my team, myself included) the church was filled with people WE had spoken to all throughout the week. Here we were criticizing our performance and why God had chosen us for this ministry, when in actuality God was using us for His work exactly the way we were. He knew we were nervous. He knew we felt awkward. But he also knew we were ready.
