2/23/20
Today is Sunday. Sabbath.
Today I was an angel.
Along with Bethaney, Rebekah, and Erica (Everette). Especially Erica. Every group needs a translator.
This past week we worked with 3 local translators who are around our age and all pretty cool guys. We met Marco and Daniel a week ago when they joined us for an afternoon of ministry and we met Sebastian when he walked us to a local ESL class to be native English speakers for them.
It turns out Sebastian and Daniel go to the same church. A nifty and awesome church that they invited us to come to this Sunday. So, this morning 7 members of our group did just that. We went to church. It reminded me a lot of churches back home. I understood bits and pieces of the message. Erica sat there and translated for us the entire time. I can’t imagine the effort that took and how tiring it was. But I know the group was grateful and I hope she felt that.
We took an Uber to the church, and then we took an Uber back home. The first ride was uneventful, although Ryan did invite his car’s Uber driver to church and he said he might check it out next week.
And then Erica, Rebekah, Bethaney, and I got in the car with our second Uber driver to go back home.
His name was Jorge. He sounded a bit sick, with a raspy voice that sounds a bit like me when my allergies strike and I lose my voice for a week (yeah, a lot of you reading this know me and know exactly how that sounds).
Erica struck up a conversation with him as she wanted to know if he was familiar with the church where he picked us up. That’s when he launched into his story. Words poured out of him. He shared that he had recently been diagnosed with stomach cancer. It’s advanced to the point where he has to have chemo to shrink it before surgery can attempt to remove it. It’s too big right now. He’s preparing to lose his hair and is going to doctor after doctor as he plans for treatment.
Most of all, he’s worried about his 8-year-old daughter. He’s worried about being able to make money and keep the lights on and make sure she has food to take to school. She told her dad he didn’t have to work. She would sell bracelets at school to support the family.
This was an incredibly heavy Uber ride. Many eyes in that car didn’t stay dry.
And then he told Erica that he was thankful to her for listening, and he said to her that he had needed someone today and he asked God to please put angels in his car today.
And God provided us.
God provided Erica with an ear to listen and understand. God provided us to pray. God provided our community to lift Jorge up in continued prayers.
All we did was listen and pray.
We’ll never know the end of the story. But I’m blessed that for one day I got to be an angel and for countless days until God tells me to stop I can be part of the story through prayer. I’m grateful for this platform of blogging in which I can invite other angels who weren’t in that car to be part of the story too.
We serve an awesome and amazing God. We can trust him to take care of Jorge and his daughter. We can trust that no matter the physical things to come that God will hold them closely in the palm of His hand every single day.
And if God sent us today as the angels that answered Jorge’s prayer, I know God will send more angels tomorrow and every day Jorge needs them.
You never know when you might get to be an angel for somebody. Always be ready, always be on guard, always have a heart posture focused on God so He can send you to a place of need you never knew existed.
Whenever your heart is willing, God just might make you somebody’s angel.
