“Then Jesus told his disciples a
parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” – Luke 18.1
There are certain people we run into for certain reasons and
there are certain things that stand out for certain purposes. I don’t know why these kinds of things
happen, I just know that they do and, typically, God likes to get me caught up
in it.
Every Sunday all of us manly World Race men get together and
have an accountability meeting – you know, to help keep each other on our toes
when it comes to a little bit of everything.
Today we chose this “Chinese” restaurant in Chincha to hold our
festivities of manly conversation. This
particular restaurant just happens to be next to the market the street corner,
so there’s exhaust from taxis and motos everywhere, vendors on the street
trying to get you to buy whatever it is that they’re offering, and of course my
favorite: people – too many people for one street corner.
So there’s six of us guys sitting there in the midst of all
this trying to have this in depth conversation over heaping plates of chicken
and rice (because we just can’t get enough of this stuff…). Rusty’s deep into his monologue, probably about
embracing our sonship, when this little girl walks up to us. Now in Peru it’s okay for people to walk into
restaurants and stores and try to sell you stuff… or beg. This little girl just had her empty hand
stretched out mumbling something under her breath.
My heart breaks at times like these.
And it’s times like these that I get really angry at
language barriers and having to turn my ear from that girls’ silent screams for
help. My heart goes out to these
people. Before her it was an elderly
woman. Not knowing anything about
assistance programs here (or lack thereof) on top of that language barrier makes
things even more difficult to handle, especially when you just have to turn
them away out of ignorance.
I was talking with Dave afterwards and he told me about a
little girl that was begging the other day.
She stood there for fifteen minutes – not saying a word – with her hand
stretched out. He gave her money for her
persistence. I could only smile at
that. My goal is to find a bag of candy,
load up my pockets, and shower these kids with Jesus’ love (even though they’re
the ones trying to sell us candy at times).
But that’s all I know how to do at this point.
And so today on our way to Vilma Leon to do some ministry
there, I read Luke 18. It’s the story of
the persistent widow who, after much persistence, finally gets the justice she
deserves from the judge. Jesus looked
upon that persistence favorably. He used
this story to illustrate to his disciples about why they should be persistent
in prayer.
Hold that thought.
Caroline, Becky, Andi, Angie, Patrice, and myself were
sitting in a house today – Carol’s house, actually – with the intention of just
sharing with them for awhile. We ended
up praying for two of the deaf women there.
They have VERY limited hearing.
So we all laid our hands on them and prayed. It was awesome and I truly felt the Spirit in
the room, however, I felt instruction from the Lord. I felt like He wanted us to come back every day
this week to pray for them – persistently.
It’s funny how things stand out.
And I hope that’s what happens. I hope that our persistence in prayer for
healing pays off. That’s all I really
can do I guess; hope for the best. We’ll
see what God continues to do through us.
I’ll keep you all updated. And I
plan on writing more about the whole begging thing. This has been something the Lord has put on
my heart a lot while here and, well, I think I have a lot to say about it.
Stay posted.
“And will not God bring about
justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep
putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get
justice, and quickly.” – Luke 18.7-8
