Our story begins 3 days before leaving Peru, when my purse was stolen right off the back of my chair at a restaurant in Peru. Interesting situation given that we were in Cusco, and the American Embassy was back in Lima. And I needed an emergency passport.
We would have a 12 hour lay over in Lima before heading to Argentina. As soon as we got off the plane Eric and I headed to the Embassy. You may have read Michelle’s blog, she was there with Eric to get a her passport just a few days before. In fact, the security guard at the Embassy greeted Eric like an old friend.
Enter God. THERE WAS NO LINE at the Embassy. And the woman remembered Eric and within an hour I had a new passport in hand. BUT no Visa stamp. They lady at the Embassy said to just get back to the airport and show the police report, she said we SHOULD be ok. We added a lot of prayer to the formula.
And in fact, here I am in Argentina. No worries.
We did not have any ministry set up for Argentina. Our plan was to ATL it (Ask The Lord). And that is what we did. Team Agapetos spend some time together re-connecting as a team, and some time in prayer to ask our Lord where he wanted to use us. Our mission here, set up work. To ask the Lord to bring us to contacts for a future World Race team. I love it, recon work for God.
On day one, a man at the hostel led us to a local restaurant. There we met our adopted grandmother who invited us to her church. At church we met a translator who told us about an orphanage (possible contact #1). As we were leaving, I noticed a guy talking to a homeless man right outside. I said “Dios le Bendiga” “God Bless You” to them both and said a prayer for them as we walked to the bus stop. At the bus stop our adopted grandmother introduced us to Louise. She said he works at the restaurant we had lunch at. Turned out he lived by where we were staying and so we rode the bus all the way home with him.
Within a few minutes Luis had our hearts. He is a recent prodigal son who has come running back to the father arms wide open. He is powerfully anointed, amazing discernment, and a heart of pure gold, and plain and simply loves the Lord with all he is. As we talked I realized that it was Luis that was speaking to the homeless man on the street moments earlier. A few hours later, after sharing a meal together and enjoying fellowship with our brother, we were heading home when I asked him where he lived. As he grinned a bit, he admitted that he did not live near our hostel, in fact he lived all the way back at the church we had left. He said, he knew he was supposed to meet us and that if we had known where he lived we would not have let him come all that way with us. AMEN brother. He traveled out of his way, on a bus, and a long walk, just to be able to spend time with us, to share his testimony, to share his life with us.
Luis has our heart. Please lift him up in your prayers. He belongs in missions and is looking for his tribe, we pray he has found it .
Luis was the reason we went to that church, the reason we met our grandmother, the reason we were at that restaurant, at that hostel. We asked God to show us where he wanted us to go, who he wanted us to meet. And I know that God’s hand was in this from the start, from before any of us stepped foot in Argentina, before we were born, before the world was created. What a concept. Come on, can I get an Amen to that. God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good.
