Yesterday as we were working in the garden at Cicrin, the orphanage we are working at in Nicaragua this month, I was talking to Robert, who planted and takes care of the garden. Most of the people helping in the garden were using Machetes and Hoes to cut down the weeds around some of the vegetable plants. I was going around with a watering can and watering the plants.
That feeling came over me again just for a moment. That feeling that "what I'm doing is really nothing. Everyone else's work is more important, that what I'm doing really isn't as hard or having as much of an effect. But then I remembered the lesson from last month in Honduras.
Last month in Honduras, we worked with a church that their pastor had recently left to do another ministry and many of the people had stopped coming or had gone somewhere else. There was an intirim pastor named Jesus (Hay-soos), and this man has SUCH a huge passion for God and for the people of that church even though he is only temporary. Our team lived in the church building in a back room, but there was no gap between the wall and the ceiling so whatever was going on in the sanctuary could be heard as if it were happening in the room we slept in.
Our ministry that month was very fluid. We generally did door to door evangelism with Jesus and one or two of the people from the families that went there and served our team meals that month. Many of us were frustrated at times because we didn't feel like we were really DOING anything. We would go along and sit there not being able to understand what was going on as they talked in Spanish, but they would ask us if we had any Scriptures for the people before we prayed for them. As we would leave, the people of the homes we visited always seemed to be grateful for our visit and thanked us and a lot of times would give us soda or bananas or fresh squeezed orange juice. (bananas and oranges and coffee beans were in huge abundance there)
Toward the end of the month we began realizing that we were helping to develop and mend relationships that were shaky or broken. We were watering the seeds. We weren't planting, we weren't harvesting, we were watering. We realized watering was a very important part of spreading the Gospel, because without water, seeds cannot grow. So back to the garden. I realized that my job that day was symbolic of the ministry of last month and so I began a conversation with Robert about that. Eventually, it lead to us talking about the power of prayer and persistence in prayer. He told me that there was a group from Korea that had come. They had a really large church, but they always had intercessory prayer groups at 4 or 5 every morning to pray for the salvation of lost souls in their community.
Then I remembered the intercessory prayer sessions that Jesus and many of the current member of the church would do a couple of times a week at around 4 a.m. They would come into the sanctuary of the church and begin praying very loudly and passionately. I will be the first to admit that I did not particularly enjoy being woken up that early and although I understood why they were doing what they were doing, found myself wishing that they would pick a different time or place. If I had it to do over again, I would get up out of bed and join them instead of laying there wishing that they would pray more quietly or pick a different time or place, but unfortunately, that is not the attitude that I adopted at that time.
To top it all off, Rober said that he was talking to the Korean missionaries and he asked them how many churches in Korea had these 4 a.m. intercessory prayer groups. He said that they didn't seem to understand the question, so he rephrased it. "What percentage of Korean churches would you say do these intercessory prayer times?" The Korean missionary then said, "Well all churches in Korea do that. We don't consider them a church if they don't."
I was hit with a conviction, even though I had already repented for being annoyed before about being woken up by 4 a.m. prayer sessions and had even learned to appreciate them. It made me realize that Christians, apparently including myself, generally do not care about the lost as much as they would like to think. How often do we get up at 4 a.m. and spend hours begging God to save the lost souls in our communities? How willing are we to give up sleep in order to come before the Father on behalf of our lost friends and family members? I'm not saying that we have to necessarily get up at 4 a.m. to do this, but should be willing to.
This is an area in which I am growing and is just one of the many things that God is teaching me and convicting me of here on the World Race. I hope to continue to learn more things like this and continue to be broken and convicted before God to become more of the man He made me to be. To be more like His perfect Son, Jesus Christ.
