“Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.” Hab. 1:5
Yesterday did not start out well. I woke up with a crick in my neck, annoyed in general. Still, I was determined that it would get better, and headed off to ministry. In the morning devotion with the ladies in the sewing school, Travis spoke on the story of Jonah… I got more annoyed. I was ticked at Jonah for having such a bad attitude, annoyed with Travis over it, and just wishing to not open my mouth at all when we went out to evangelize. And try as I did to avoid it, I ended up in Travis’ group to go evangelize. It wasn’t that I have anything against my brother, it was because I knew my feelings were unjust and I was ashamed because I couldn’t shake them. However, the woman who orchestrates the morning door to door was our translato
r/guide that day, and she came up to me to ask me how I was and encourage me that God was going to strengthen me. In fact, she insisted that I speak first when we got to the house, because when we are weak, God is strong, and I clearly needed His strength.
Just the walk did me such good, and by the time we got to the house at the bottom of the hill, my attitude was completely turned around. I still didn’t know what to share, as the Lord had not impressed anything on me, but my heart was no longer bitter and annoyed.
Here’s where things get awesome. When we got to the first house across the river, we met a man there peeling potatoes. We introduced ourselves, and the first thing we discovered is that his name in Rwandan translates as Jonah in English. Wow. Well, I took the hint, and began to share with him the story of Jonah. A crowd started to gather, and soon a certain man came to listen. He stood quietly listening to the story, not showing much emotion, just kind of hanging around.
As I finish, and before I begin to get to the Gospel, he asks if we would be available to come to his house to speak to someone who’s a believer, but needs encouragement from the servants of God. We committed to going to his hou
se after we were done, but we ended up being there for over an hour longer, praying with people, and seeing four people come to Christ, including a drunk woman who had come up yelling at us in the middle of the Gospel. Sadly though, he left before we were done. I was a bit pierced to the heart by that, I felt like we had failed him, and that the person he had wanted us to speak to was now not going to get to hear something they possibly desperately needed to hear. Well, we left, encouraged and praising God for what He had done, but with a bit of a sad heart, wishing we could have honored our word and ministered to that man and his household.
As we were walking back however, we saw him returning. He had seen us from his house, and rushed out to meet us. He shared with us, that it was actually he that wanted to speak to us, not another in his house, and asked if we could come. Our guide expressed that we were actually late getting back, but asked if we could come tomorrow. That opened him up to begin to share a bit of what had happened to him that morning, and how he had come to pass by.
He had been given the day off from work randomly, and just happened to hear us talking abo
ut Jonah. Listening to the story, he was incredibly convicted, realizing that he was behaving just like Jonah. Several months ago he had been hurt by the church, but instead of working through the issues and speaking God’s truth, he had run away and refused to enter a church again. Recently, however, he had been wondering if he had done the right thing, and told God that if he wanted him to go back to church, that He had to show him where.
Listening to us, he felt as if the Lord had sent us to him specifically. Therefore, when he heard that we could not come to his house, he asked if he could join us at church later and we could speak with him afterwards. Of course that sounded great to us, and we were excited to see him when we arrived. We were not able to talk before the service, but when Travis, Jack and I went to talk to him afterwards, he exclaimed in joy that the Lord had answered all of his questions during the sermon, that he had been so blessed, wanted to come back, and only wanted to talk to us to currently to share his story and praise the Lord together for what He had done.
Amazing… not only had I not wanted to go, but God used me sharing the very story that had annoyed me earlier to bring in one of his wayward sheep back. As we left, I saw him talking to the church leaders, and I was struck by how God can turn things around in a second. All we have to do is be faithful and obey.
Isaiah 2:2 – "In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will flow to it."
