This blog has nothing to do with a book written by Shakespeare. It’s also not about helping someone find the love of their life. This blog is about helping a teacher at the local seminary find a way to go back to his home village and live out the life God is calling him too.
Romeo is a teacher and he has been teaching at Trinity Theological Seminary for over 10 years now. I met Romeo for the first time when my team was involved in a local sports ministry. My team got the opportunity to play “football” against the teachers at the seminary. You see that was the only way 10 Americans would have a chance to beat any of the other teams, by playing men in there mid to late 40’s. But…. we still lost. We had a blast playing in the rain and getting covered in mud though. There was a picture posted on Facebook of my team after the match was over. Romeo was the teacher that I was playing 1 on 1 the whole match.
A few days went by and I ran back into Romeo at the same field. He had just picked his 3 children up from school and he asked me to walk and talk with him for a while. We talked about home, family, and passions for ministry for about an hour. He shared that he was from a neighboring state called Assam, India. The village he grew up in was 99 percent Hindu. At this point in the conversation I could sense that Romeo’s heart was heavy. He continued to share that God placed on his heart long ago, that he needed to go back to his village and start a school and alcohol rehab center there. He could use both as a ways to minister to his native people. In the school he would educate the children to be Christian leaders in their town when they grew up. This is very realistic because there are many Hindi children that go to Christian schools in India because of the quality of education. He then told me about the alcohol issue in Assam. Romeo said that many families make hard liquor and sell it out of their homes. He told me that his family is heavily involved in this business and the majority of his family are alcoholics.
I started writing this blog 14 days ago and I have ran into Romeo almost every day since. We sit and talk for hours about life and things that God has place on our hearts. He invited me to join him on the 30th of this month to travel with him back to his home town and speak at a youth conference. He wants me to also invite two other world racers to join us. At the conference we will preach on the verse 2 Timothy 2:22 “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” My hearts want to jump at the opportunity to go to Assam but I will have to get it approved by my leaders to make sure it will serve our hosts the way they want us to serve.
One week later we got the all clear from our hosts that we could partner with Romeo. I invited two of my really close World Race friends Paige and Jeff. Jeff and I planned to each write a sermon, while Paige would give a detailed description of what exactly we were doing in India. All three of us lead worship so we planned two “special numbers.” We also found out that we’d be going to two different youth conferences and the first church had never had foreigners as guests before.
The day has finally arrived and boy was it an amazing day. Jeff talked about John 10:10 and how that verse tied into his sermon. I spoke on the book of Daniel. (This was actually my second sermon while I have been in India. I will be posting my first one on Facebook before the month is over.) I’ll share the days details with you the next time we talk face to face. God moved in the hearts of the people we ministered to that day. God also taught the 3 of us how to trust that He will speak exactly what He wants to through us.
Have you ever been talking to someone and when you finished you thought that there was no way those where your words? That God must have given you the exact word to say?
Do you ever let God lead your day? For example I tend to always plan out my day hour by hour. I have been learning a lot about living in the moment and letting God guide my steps
Thanks again for reading! My team is currently in Pokhara, Nepal and will be here until December 5th. We will then be traveling to Vietnam #Xmasinvietnam #newyearsinvietnam
Shout out to my Camp Timberline folks. Nathan don’t ever forget that you are a difference maker and Rosie the next time you are in NC please invite my mom to come to Mercy Hill with you. Please and thank you!!
-Joe
