February 15, 2011
God’s perfect plans never cease to amaze me. Yesterday our plan was to make house visits in the morning to families in the community who were already Christian to encourage them. There must have been a miscommunication, however, because the family we were supposed to visit first was not at home. So, we started walking back through town discussing where to go next. We passed the site that has been donated as the site of the future church (they are currently meeting in a basement until they have a building). As we passed it, Ivan asked if the guys would mind stopping there to do some machete work to get rid of some of the vegetation since it was a nice, but not too hot, day. So the guys stayed there while the four girls, our translator, Jim, and Ivan continued on. We ended up visiting Rosa, who had invited us in when we passed her house on the way to our first house, but we had said no, thinking we already had plans. But because these plans fell through, we went back.
All of these little things amounted to the four girls, Jim, and Ivan sitting with Rosa and her daughter Wendy. Rosa is 22 years old and is married to a man she loves. Unfortunately, he works out of town and is only home for 5 days a month. He works as a soil chemist in a large city several hours away, but she lives in Huaticocha with their 2 year old daughter, next door to his mother.
Being the same age as her, I felt like I could relate a little to her. Of course, our lives are extremely different, but for some reason I just felt a connection. I shared with her a little about how with Jesus we don’t ever have to feel lonely ever again because we have our best friend with us at all times.
At this simple statement, she started to cry and told us that she feel so alone most of the time. When she moved here she left her entire family and all of her friends to be with her husband, who now has to work out of town. She doesn’t have any friends here yet, and doesn’t feel a close bond with her mother in law. We ended up talking with her for a couple of hours, and all four of us girls shared parts of our testimonies with her. While we were talking, she decided to accept the love of Jesus Christ and accept Him as her Saviour. Afterwards, as we were leaving, we left her with the Scripture that whenever someone comes to Christ there is a party in heaven, and congratulated on her being the reason for the party today.
