“Hello, my friend!”
So, back at home in the United States, Adventures in Missions creates their things called Journey Markers and then sends them out to us who are on The World Race. This week, our Journey Marker was to sit together as a team, pray a really bold prayer, and ask the Lord what He wanted us to do in the specific moment in time and then do go and do it. My team and I waited until the day it was due. Possibly out of forgetfulness, mostly and probably out of fear.
We took some time to ourselves to pray and then came together and talked about what God was placing on our hearts. We eventually decided that we were supposed to exit the doors of the church and ask people right in Delgado if we could pray for them. Once we decided on this, we were more fearful that our ministry hosts wouldn’t let us do it than about actually doing it. We usually serve in the church or drive quite a bit out of the way to continue to serve the people of the church. We’ve figured out that Delgado isn’t the safest area from our hosts constant watchful and protective eye, but we’ve gained from freedom to go to the super market and the juice stand so we thought we might possibly have a chance.
We walked our eager hearts upstairs and began to explain what we felt like God had just placed on our hearts. At first, they were hesitant, but then they decided that it would be okay if some of them came with us. So, we split up into two groups to try and reach more people and were each accompanied by a host and we hit the street. Our hosts offered the protection we needed, but more importantly got to have a bold moment themselves.
Once we started to walk around it was almost as if people were looking for us instead of us looking for them. We’ve walked to the Super Market and the Juice Stand many times and have not been approached once. But this time, it was different, and some of them even spoke English! As we were walking, people would call out to us and we took that as an obvious sign that we were supposed to talk to them. Every person we walked to, it became obvious why we were there. Their stories are their own so I will not share them, but they were all searching for hope and looking for guidance. I’m not sure why, but for some reason a lot of people think if you’re from the United States you have all the answers, (Which is honestly hysterical. Ask Blaike how put together my life is…). As we were headed back to the church, a man approaches me hand outstretched and says the words, “Hello, my friend!” so of course we stop and talk. He was with two other men and they were searching. We couldn’t offer them what they wanted so we invited them to church that night. They told us they would come, but sadly, they did not. Even though they didn’t make it to church that night, I hope that we were able to at least plant a seed in their lives and encourage them to start living happier, healthier lives.
Never in my wildest dreams have I ever seen myself doing something like that, but I did and it was overwhelming how obvious it was that God wanted us to do that. This past week, one of my teammates in conversation said, “how much do you have to hate someone to not share the Gospel with them?” and that really hit me. Jesus is the greatest gift and everyone deserves an eternity with Him. How selfish would I be if I decided that my problems were bigger than a soul getting saved? Or that they don’t deserve to feel love from the One True King?
As we wrap up our last week in El Salvador, I’m feeling peace. Peace about who my God is and peace about who I am in Him. I’m becoming more and more thankful for Him every day. Life is hard, why not do it with a constant encourager??
Love,
Hannah
