Sunrise, sunset. East to West. Day and Night. Sun by day and moon by night. 24 hours by 7 days by 52 weeks by 1 year. Year after year, till life passes by and we go to meet the Lord our God. But until then, we are commanded to be prepared, because the hour is near. We don’t know when He will return, but we are to be ready. Ready meaning to live for Christ in every moment of life, every second every hour, every day—day and night.
Ministry this month has been unexpected; unexpected in that it is nothing like what we were prepared for, none of us thought that we would be filmed for a short-promo film about Surfing Ministries in El Salvador. Or creating social media posts for La Red’s Surfing Ministries’ supports back in the US, or creating a mission manual for future Surfing Ministries mission teams.
It’s fun and exciting and yet none of feel we are leaving a lasting impact for the Kingdom. It’s been hard on all of us, because our primary mission this month isn’t sharing the Gospel. We were starting to get discouraged, when we were reminded that even though we aren’t sharing the gospel every day as part of our mission work, we are still called to share. So we prayed that God would allow us to share the Gospel with those we come in contact with.
One of those people was Ricardo. I was sitting at a local restaurant with Wi-Fi, getting ready to video chat with my SQWS (Squad Worship Support), Arden back at Adventures, only to find out that we didn’t correctly account for the different time zones and I ended up at the restaurant an hour early. During that extra hour Ricardo came up to me and wanted to talk to practice his English. So we began talking about the cultural differences between the USA and El Salvador. Eventually I asked him if he believed in God, he said that he used to and that he doesn’t believe in God ever since his father died 4 years ago of cancer. Ricardo doesn’t understand why God let his dad die. We continued talking about why I believe in God and why I was here in El Tunco. I told him about the WR and so we talked awhile about the other countries I am going to and Ricardo’s desire to travel.
Then I asked Ricardo about his life, Ricardo told me that he works in San Salvador and he was here on vacation. I asked Ricardo if he is happy in life right now and he told me that he isn’t happy. He told me that all he wants to do is experience life and travel. My heart was broken; Ricardo is only a couple years older than me and he didn’t know what he was living for. So I asked Ricardo, “Is there anything that would make you believe in God?” Ricardo said he would believe in God only if he encountered God face-to-face. So I prayed and continue to pray that Ricardo would encounter God face-to-face so that he will believe in God.
Ricardo’s story is just one story of how our team shared the Love of God that day. It just amazes me that literally the night before we were discussing how discouraged we were and the next day we had the opportunity to share the Gospel twice.
“Always being prepared to make defense to anyone who asks you for the hope that is in you.”
— 1 Peter 3:15
We never know when the Spirit is going to move us to share the Gospel with the person sitting next to you at your favorite café, behind you in line at Target, or wherever you are. No matter where you are, we are commanded to be ready to share the hope inside of us. We are to proclaim the Love of God to the ends of the Earth, be prepared to share whether it’s during the day or at night.
