Ok. First of all, let me just start off by saying I am literally at a loss for words. I have been saying that the Lord has been doing some incredible things on the World Race, but this one (so far) takes the cake.
For Month 3 of our Race, my team is in Lima, Peru. This is the third country in a row that is primarily Spanish-speaking, and because my teammate John is fluent in Spanish, we have had two months of ministry where our ministry host did not speak much English. Most of my teammates have very minimal knowledge of Spanish (myself included with only two semesters of high school Spanish). So we have been more than a little frustrated with the language barrier.
Until this week, that is.
This first week of ministry has been focused on evangelism. We have been walking around a marketplace, speaking about God’s love and praying for people who will allow us to pray for them. In order to cover a wider range, however, our ministry host decided to split us up into two teams: one team included John, and the other team was composed of the few of us that knew at least a few words in Spanish. Of course, I ended on the second one! I thought, “Great… Now I have to rely on my two semesters of Spanish from 9 years ago. Lord, help me.”
And the Lord delivered. I actually started to speak to people in my broken Spanish, and they could kind of understand what I was saying! I developed a quick little blurb that included simple phrases like “Jesus loves you” and “we would like to invite you to our church.” People were surprisingly receptive to this “gringo” (their words, not mine) trying to speak Spanish, and I actually got to speak some encouraging words over them. Some of them even gifted us some oranges, and another group of people gifted us an artichoke. Wow, God has a sense of humor! He showed us literal fruit (and vegetables) of our labor!
Still, I felt a little unsure about this whole thing. I had to silence the little voice in my head telling me, “You aren’t good enough at Spanish,” and, “You have never shared the Gospel with anyone before. What makes you think you can do it now?” My answer? Nothing. Nothing makes me think I can do this now. But the Lord is presenting me with an opportunity to do something that I know is His will. So regardless of what I think, this is GO TIME. After all, God confused people’s languages at the tower of Babel, and He brought supernatural understanding through different tongues on the day of Pentecost. He’s proven He can work wonders through languages. Maybe He can do it again…
Fast forward to Thursday, March 14.
This day was different. We went around the surrounding neighborhood, delivering tracts and inviting people to the church down the street. Again, this happened in two different teams, but to make matters even worse, two of our teammates were sick and had to stay home from ministry that day… and John was one of them! Everything suddenly become much more difficult for my team. But we carried on. Thankfully, the Lord provided someone along the way that spoke some English (we will call him “M”), and my other teammates got to talk to him and encourage him. They even offered to pray for him because he had mentioned that his back was hurting after he hurt it at work, but “M” told them, “Maybe later.” That may sound like a loss to some people, but not to us. One person’s “maybe later” is another person’s “for sure later.” And we had a wonderful opportunity for him! We told him that we would be playing soccer in the park later that day if he and his family wanted to join us. Maybe we could talk to him some more and pray for him there.
Later that day, we got to the park and started playing soccer. We were halfway through our first game when we see “M” and his son walk up to the field. The pastor of the church we were ministering with took me out of the game and asked me to try to evangelize to him. He said I could do it in English, but it would probably be a good idea for me to go instead of some of the other guys on my team just in case I had to use my Spanish knowledge as well. I thought, “Wow. You really want ME of all people to be your English-Spanish evangelist? Do you know what a bad idea that is logically?” But again, I KNEW the Lord wanted me to do it without Him having to tell me (and despite the nerves I felt in my body). I think God and I have gotten to that point in our relationship where I just know what He wants without me even having to say it. I had never shared the full gospel before (much less by myself), but God has been doing this for a long time through many believers before me. He’s got this, even when I don’t.
“M” and I start talking, and slowly but surely, my nerves started to dissipate. I just had to remind myself to just take it one step at a time. It’s just a conversation. I’ve had millions of those. I don’t need to worry; God will give me the words that I need.
Eventually, I asked “M” about his relationship with the Lord. He was having some difficulty articulating what he wanted to say in English… but the next words that came out of my mouth were a total surprise and made my own heart skip a beat:
(In Spanish) “It’s ok. You can speak Spanish if you need to. I can understand more than I can speak.”
WHAT… Why did I say that? What am I doing right now? I barely know enough Spanish to invite people to church, much less share the gospel. But all glory to God, He had other plans.
For the rest of the conversation, I spoke almost ENTIRELY in Spanish!
“M” shared that he grew up Catholic, but didn’t go to any church at present. He believed that as long as he did “good things” (like we see in Matthew 25– feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, etc.), God was pleased with him. I started to share part of my testimony and how I came to understand that God loved us and sent Jesus to die for us even while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). He loved us before we even had faith in Him and before we EVER did anything good for the Kingdom. I even shared that in Matthew 25, the “goats” also did all of the things that the “sheep” did, but God rejected them because He did not know them personally. That passage shows that it’s so much more important to have a relationship with Jesus and accept Him and His love for you than it is to do good things. Doing good things is not enough. While it’s true that faith without works is dead (James 2:17), our works need to happen out of the OVERFLOW of our faith, not as a prerequisite of our acceptance into God’s loving presence.
Now if you have ever shared the gospel before, you know that you have to give people an invitation to respond to the message. After a long while of discussing Jesus and speaking truth and life into him, I asked “M” what he thought about everything. He said that hearing the gospel like this was such a beautiful thing. Then he proceeded to ask me about the church in the area and what times the services were! Wow! The pastor was so excited when I called him over and told him what he had asked me!
Not long after that, it was time for me and my team to head home for the night, but I still felt a huge desire on my heart to pray for “M” and his health. He had mentioned to me how he had hurt his back really badly while he was working, so I offered to pray for him. I told him, “What will it hurt? It’s free! And because we are sons of God, we don’t need to ask PERMISSION to talk with Him! He’s our Father and He wants to talk to us!” He agreed on one condition: he wanted everyone else to leave and to have me pray for him by myself.
Ok. Why not?! I was on a spiritual high! I lay my hands on him and began to pray probably the BOLDEST prayer I have ever prayed in my entire life. At one point, my mind practically went blank, but my mouth kept speaking and declaring wonderful truths about the Lord and His love for “M.” After the last “amen,” I asked him how he felt…
AND HE FELT BETTER!
Wow! The God of miracles strikes again! Glory hallelujah!
I about skipped down the road to catch up with the pastor and my teammates after that. I began to recount to them (again, in Spanish) the whole story from beginning to end. My mind was going a million miles a second, and I probably missed half of the details. At the end of my, I told the pastor and His wife, “My Spanish may be bad, BUT THE LORD IS GOOD!”
Guys… GOD IS GOOD! Not only does He still answer prayers, but He still performs miracles and supernaturally inspires His people to declare His goodness in all the languages of the world. Sure, I could have told you that before the World Race as well. After all, we see cases of this in the Word. But now, I can tell you this with total faith as someone who has experienced this firsthand. NEVER (and I mean NEVER) ignore what the Lord is leading you into. If you think you are under-qualified, GREAT! The Lord is overqualified, and He is more than capable and willing to work through your weaknesses to bring even further glory and honor to His name!
In all things, be blessed!
AG
