We went to visit homes to pray for
families and share the message of Jesus to those that want to hear.
We visited a family and Rosemary (mother), Rahayma (daughter), and
Siloam (son) were present at home. Rosemary shared with us her story
about how she was a former Roman Catholic, but how she had turned
away from God when a few of her close relatives died. However, death
is a form of universal suffering regardless of your faith. She
eventually married into a Muslim household. She expressed her longing
to follow God as she had in her former days again. God prompted me to
share the message of Christ with her because not all that claim to
believe in Christ actually have a relationship with Jesus. When I
asked her a couple of questions, she said that although she had gone
to church in her former days, she had no idea what it means to be
saved by Christ. After sharing, she and her entire household (except
her husband which wasn’t there) expressed their desire to receive
Jesus into their lives. [Act 16:31 And they said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.]
This case is not the exception, but has been widespread wherever I
have gone. From my experience, people from all over the world have
been willing to enter into a relationship with Jesus when the Spirit
of God causes them to have a change of heart – to recognize their
need for God and to recognize the presence of God around them. In Act
2:47, it says “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be
saved.” I use to wonder how it was possible for there to be a
community where people were accepting Jesus daily. That was
definitely not my experience back in
America.
At a first glance, it seems that in the
U.S, pluralism and postmodernism is prevalent so people are drowned
in heaps of information and worldviews, even ones that are
contradictory. With material wealth that can be gained through hard
work and the value of individualism, Americans often rely on
themselves as their own god. This perspective of explaining why
Americans have a lukewarm faith or are agnostic is merely from
looking at the situation on the outside. At a second glance, I
realized that perhaps the spiritual warfare back in the United States
might just be stronger. I know that seems strange to say considering
that witchcraft and spiritual darkness is obvious in third world
countries. However, John Wesley points out that spiritual darkness
often works through vehicles such as “unbelief, pride, idolatry,
malice, envy, anger, hatred”. It would make sense that spiritual
warfare is strong in the United States because we have so much
influence over the rest of the world and have the greater capacity to
do more good than the rest of the world does. Not all places are
created equal. The U.S. has more resources and human capital than
anywhere else, imagine the good we can create. Imagine if all the
Christians in the United States were passionate about following
Christ? In the words of my teammate Jake, “What if we didn’t just
give some food to others or simply gave some of our time to people?
What if we shared all of our food and gave our lives for others?”
Perhaps world hunger would end. Perhaps human trafficking would end.
Perhaps there would be no more orphans, no more street children, and
no more suffering.
