We have been called to persevere through both days of trial and days of overflowing joy so that we can enjoy a full harvest, and this trip to Central America has seen both of these types of days.
Edwin
Our first full day of ministry in El Salvador, we traveled to the headquarters for the national agency in charge of all the orphanages throughout the country in order to track down the orphans we have come to know and love, since many of them have been moved. While speaking with the director of the organization, she mentioned a troubled youth named Edwin who had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and had been placed in a specialized room where he was restrained from hurting himself and others.This piqued our interest. Jesus always went to the downtrodden and heavy laden.
The next day, when we traveled to the nearby orphanage, we immediately sought to befriend him, greeting him immediately as a friend. Because the officials at the orphanage have tightened their grip on the children, only five of the children were available for us to minister to. So each orphan had a entire group caring for them and speaking words of truth to them.
Two of our team members pulled Edwin aside and began to speak the gospel to him. And as they did, God opened his heart to respond, and the tears began to flow. After we finished sharing, he gripped the Bible, kissing and caressing it, and requesting that he could have it (though he was illiterate). The change in him was incredible. He embraced us over and over and over throughout the rest of the visit.Unfortunately, we soon found out that the heads of the orphanage, who hate our work and have a reputation for cruelty, took the Bible from him, something he reacted extremely poorly to, and resulted him in being returned to yet another mental hospital. This news hit us like a brick.
We are in the process of trying to get him to be able to visit La Esperanza for an extended period of time along with another one of the orphans. But in the meanwhile, please pray for him, and pray that God would have mercy and change the hearts of the leaders of the orphanage who continue to oppress those under their charge, locking them up like a prison and showing them no compassion.
UPDATE: We spoke with the workers at the orphanage (who are friendly and love the children) and they said that as soon as we'd left, Edwin was asking if they too knew Jesus and he begged them to read more of the Bible to him when he returned (they already read Psalm 23 to him). So please continue praying for him.
Playground for the Poor
Several days after the orphanage, we commenced a small construction project to build a soccer / basketball court at the school next door to our building. In all the time we’ve known the teachers, they have only asked us for one thing: a court where the children could play that wouldn’t be on ankle-turning rocky soil. We gladly accepted, bought the supplies, and provided most of the manpower for the short project to be completed.
Meanwhile the teachers allowed us to go into the classrooms and to teach short Bible lessons, which the kids readily enjoyed. Over and over the teachers expressed their appreciation, and let us know one more need; they would love to have someone come and teach both the teachers and the students English for several months so that the children do not fall behind.
The Only Help
After completing the construction project in El Salvador, we traveled to Honduras to continue the work there, where we spent the day climbing a local mountain up into a tiny Guatemalan border village, where we ministered the gospel to a crowd of eighty. Teachers from the local school brought their entire class to come and see us. After we had presented, they told us with incredible gratitude that they were grateful for the gifts and supplies we’d brought the children back in December when we’d visited.
They told us that everyone had forgotten them and that we were the only organization who was there to help. They asked us only to continue to meet the needs of the children, pointing out a local child’s shoes, which were almost completely worn to the point of being unusable. If you have the ability, please consider donating shoes, because this is one of the biggest needs we face in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nigeria, and wherever else we go. Imagine your children having to walk over mountains and glass strewn roads with threadbare shoes or none at all. So please join us in praying that God will provide for each and every one of these precious ones.
The teachers we spoke with ride a bus an hour every day just to go teach in this tiny mountain village. Yet their primary concern is for the children, not themselves. This is a pattern in the schools we have ministered in. The teachers asked us to remember the poor children, something we are more than willing to do, and it rings of the scriptures, where the leaders of the early church asked Paul to remember the poor. (Galatians 2:10)
Celebration
The next day, under a beautiful blue sky dotted with white wisps of clouds, we sat on the banks of a flowing river, enjoying a beautiful mountain breeze in what is one of the finest moments in missions – baptism.
Two weeks prior, the number to be baptized was eight. The day before the baptism, the number swelled to eighteen. And on the day of baptism, twenty-eight were baptized into the name of Jesus Christ, including one girl who confessed faith that very day. This means that roughly a third of the entire church got baptized.
About a hundred people came from both sides of the river, crossing from the nearby village to participate in the celebration. We sang together, shared a word on baptism, and then started the festivities. And as we continued to baptize, more came forward to proclaim their death to the world and their new life in Christ, including one of the former leaders of a group that is hostile to the gospel.
The young, the aged, the single, and the married all came forward to proclaim their love for Jesus Christ. And on the bank, a man from the nearby village sat down and watched the entire thing, as person after person came forward to the waters of baptism.
Was the entire thing blissful? Not exactly; many of the members of the church, especially the aged, cannot swim and looked about as comfortable in the water as a fish on dry land. They seemed eager to get out as soon as they could, clinging to those doing the baptism with surprisingly catlike reflexes. So humanly, it always doesn’t look pretty, but spiritually it is fantastic.
Each person represents a life changed, a life Jesus has rescued from domestic abuse, from drunkenness, from violence and sexual sin, and most importantly, from the just and righteous wrath of God. Each person has a new hope and new life. Each head that drops in the water is a testament to Christ’s burial along with our sins, and each person that is lifted out of the water is a symbol of Jesus’s resurrection and the new life He provides us.And so in baptism we proclaim that we are clean; Christ has cleaned us from our sin and we are now free to live for righteousness. So praise God, He is continuing to grow his church in the villages of Honduras and Guatemala. Pray that God would draw those who publically proclaimed Him closer to Himself and that He would help them through any persecution that may come from such a bold declaration.
Joyous days like this only come through careful work and through bold preaching of the gospel to the lost, even at great personal cost. This could be the norm in the United States as well, so pray that we would become bold like our brothers and sisters in Honduras and preach the gospel like they do, that we may too share in the Lord’s harvest.“Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.”
Psalm 126:5,6
- Paul
