The past month God provided the great opportunity to return, once again, to Chaviña and even work alongside some familiar faces. Sunday, March 6 I left Lima after a short break from the last village, with Ana Yupanqui and Danielle Miller to Chaviña and we arrived the next Monday morning. Immediately, God placed us in direct contact with the people who we wanted to meet with. That very night we had our first Bible study. As is fairly normal, after a long period of time away from the village, we began to review the gospel. For nearly the whole first week we taught from the Old Testament and the foreshadowing stories of Christ, from the protoevangelium in Genesis 1, to the Passover in Exodus. As well, we moved in to the New Testament revelation of Christ. As well, we began to teach the very basics of our relationship with Christ, such as obedience, prayer, and the like. Three people specifically that we met with were, Mario, Julia, and Katy. Pray diligently for these 3 believers that they might grow in the knowledge and holiness of Christ.
On the 10th, Todd Unzicker's team came in. I praise God for the rejuvenation and encouragement I received from friends that I had not seen in a while. Whether it be from Jeep Sullivan attempting to speak Spanish or simply the good conversation of home that I have not had in a while.
During this week with them, God opened the doors literally to 2 specific peoples homes that we continued to meet in even after they left. An older lady named, Victoria, who struggles with osteoporosis, and an older man, named Guadencio. In the time we spent with Victoria, God really began to open her eyes up to the gospel as we me with her nearly everyday. While Guadencio was another story. Guadencio has been involved with some radical Pentecostal groups as well as Jehovah's Witnesses and as a result had some very foul doctrine in relation to salvation and the nature of God in His holy Trinity. After 3 weeks of teaching through the deity of Christ, from Old Testament prophecies to New Testament fulfillment, Guadencio still rejected the Scripture. The last day I met with him I looked him in the eyes and told him that he had a hard heart to the Scripture and the God of the Bible. While claiming to serve our great God he had created an image of a false God, while trying to use the same names as we use. Romans tells us that men without the new birth of the Spirit "suppress the truth in unrighteousness" and are "haters of God". I ask that you pray that God would show mercy upon him and break his hard heart. While if not, we trust that if God raised Pharaoh up and hardened his heart that God might show His own power and glory through Pharaoh, that God will still do the same today, glorifying His name even as sinful men live in rejection to Him.
Along with Todd's team, 2 other teams also came down. One led by Gary Scott and another by Mahlon Lecroix. If I may, I just want to praise God for the humility that both teams exercised while they were there. Both men, who are pastors of churches, upon first arriving said to me, "us and our teams simply want to serve." Both men, despite their titles, showed the attitude of Christ from Philippians 2. They came and simply wanted to plug in and submit, with the attitude that there is still more that we can learn. We need more men to take upon themselves this same attitude. We need more leaders to lead not by word or by trying to flex their muscles, but in simple service, just as Christ washed His own disciples feet. As Jesus said in Luke 22:25-27, "The kings of the Gentiles Lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called 'Benefactors.' But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves." I can learn far more from 2 men who serve than by myriads of men who speak. I pray that I too will follow in the example of these two men. I believe that on the day of judgment, it will not be the pastor who had a 2000 member church or the man who spoke in seminaries who will be given greater respect, it will be the humble man, that no one knows, who has preached at his church for decades faithfully.
