These are unprecedented times.
The night before I was to leave for our latest El Salvador trip, I got a message from Alex (our Latin American Director) saying that the president of El Salvador was about to make an announcement. Within an hour, Alex sent me a somber voicemail informing us that the President of El Salvador had closed the borders. There was no March trip.
I was shocked; we’ve never had an entire nation shut its doors to all travel before. Reluctantly, we called everyone and told them the news. It was discouraging for us and for our friends in Central America, but it is good to remember that we serve the Living God who always provides for His people.
The God who Provides
We had the smallest team we’d had in over 10 years this past December, and in fact the numbers were even smaller before the Lord provided some last-minute people (even as we got on the plane to leave).
Each person who comes means we can give out more gifts, because each person brings a bag full of supplies. I remember trying to figure out how on earth we would visit all the villages we normally do, but God provided as always.
Several people decided to “adopt a village” and provide the funds for all the gifts for an entire community by donating. My church provided all the gifts for the annual Christmas Party in El Salvador, and God multiplied everything.
We saw last year how God miraculously supplied the gifts in one village, but this year we saw Him do that in three villages where the lines of people were impossibly long for the gifts we had left. We’d brought an extra 20 gifts beyond the biggest crowd we’d ever seen, still there were more people than gifts! Every time we ran low, we prayed that God would provide, and every time we handed out the last gift to the last person in line – the exact amount. We never ran out early.
Overall we ended up with enough extra gifts for our Salvadorian brothers to give to two churches and two extra villages after we left. God not only supplied for our immediate needs, He provided an abundance. Tell me that God in heaven doesn’t know our needs and provide when we seek Him first.
I also wanted to say that I am very thankful for Sherry Carlson, her church, and her family. God has used them to give a huge supply of Christmas gifts every year since I started coming in 2005. Having completed the work well, they will be retiring. Thanks ya’ll for all the years! You’ve blessed us a lot and I pray God blesses you in all your new adventures!
The God who Gathers
In Guatemala, we celebrated our first Christmas program ever at the new mission. We were expecting 50-60 to show up. God sent 180 people (no social distancing there!). The looks on the kids faces, receiving their first ever SOS Christmas gift, were precious. They excitedly showed off the contents of their bags to anyone who would look.
Most importantly, it shows the hunger and need in this region. We are looking to build a worship center in hopes of using it for after school programs – with a soccer field and space to train and raise up future Guatemalan missionaries. Pray with me that God will provide the funds for this project to lift off the ground, and let me know if there’s any way you want to help.
The God Who Plans Small Teams
Because our teams have been so small, it’s given us more opportunities to invite our Salvadorian brothers to come with us and have them share more of the work, and it’s been awesome to see them taking ownership and quite honestly – doing a far better job at the Christmas Programs than I ever could.
They really engage the kids – knowing the native language and the culture, and we were blessed to see one of the young men step up into leadership. He went from being shy to leading hundreds of kids in song and teaching them the word of God.
This is the second time in two trips that God raised up one of our Salvadorian youth to grow in his faith and to do the work of the ministry, and we already have some from Honduras who are wanting to step up into ministry as well.
Is this not what it means to make disciples? We are called not only to make converts, but to raise them up to follow Jesus wherever He goes, and that means ministering the gospel to these precious little ones. Despite the language and cultural differences, God has been making our multi-national teams one, just as Jesus prayed in John 17.
The God Who Overcomes Death
I know these times are hard, but there are two things in this life we can count on.
But knowing that our time on this earth is short, how will we spend it? No matter what happens to us, we are walking in history here – people will write about this great and terrible event. Will we look back on this time knowing we followed our Lord and ministered to the needy (with all wisdom of course!) or will we look back and realize we wasted it sitting at home or hoarding what we thought was ours (Psalm 100:3).
Let us purse Him and ask how we can minister to others. Let us not embrace fear (Isaiah 8:12) but let us realize that the love of God never lets us down (1 John 4:18). If we are in Christ, death has no sting, no victory, because not even the power of death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39).
Press on my brothers and sisters,
- Paul
P.S. The Covid-19 social distancing measures and oil crisis are hitting our countries very hard. Many from Africa are telling me that people are getting desperate and that food is hard to find, but for a dollar a day, you can provide food for someone who may otherwise go hungry. You may even save their life. If you are interested in donating to our Covid-19 relief funds, please let me know.
The night before I was to leave for our latest El Salvador trip, I got a message from Alex (our Latin American Director) saying that the president of El Salvador was about to make an announcement. Within an hour, Alex sent me a somber voicemail informing us that the President of El Salvador had closed the borders. There was no March trip.
I was shocked; we’ve never had an entire nation shut its doors to all travel before. Reluctantly, we called everyone and told them the news. It was discouraging for us and for our friends in Central America, but it is good to remember that we serve the Living God who always provides for His people.
We had the smallest team we’d had in over 10 years this past December, and in fact the numbers were even smaller before the Lord provided some last-minute people (even as we got on the plane to leave).
 |
| Our small team leaving for Honduras |
Several people decided to “adopt a village” and provide the funds for all the gifts for an entire community by donating. My church provided all the gifts for the annual Christmas Party in El Salvador, and God multiplied everything.
 |
 |
| Blessing a village after we'd left |
I also wanted to say that I am very thankful for Sherry Carlson, her church, and her family. God has used them to give a huge supply of Christmas gifts every year since I started coming in 2005. Having completed the work well, they will be retiring. Thanks ya’ll for all the years! You’ve blessed us a lot and I pray God blesses you in all your new adventures!
 |
In Guatemala, we celebrated our first Christmas program ever at the new mission. We were expecting 50-60 to show up. God sent 180 people (no social distancing there!). The looks on the kids faces, receiving their first ever SOS Christmas gift, were precious. They excitedly showed off the contents of their bags to anyone who would look.
Most importantly, it shows the hunger and need in this region. We are looking to build a worship center in hopes of using it for after school programs – with a soccer field and space to train and raise up future Guatemalan missionaries. Pray with me that God will provide the funds for this project to lift off the ground, and let me know if there’s any way you want to help.
Because our teams have been so small, it’s given us more opportunities to invite our Salvadorian brothers to come with us and have them share more of the work, and it’s been awesome to see them taking ownership and quite honestly – doing a far better job at the Christmas Programs than I ever could.
 |
| Our Salvadorian brothers in Honduras |
This is the second time in two trips that God raised up one of our Salvadorian youth to grow in his faith and to do the work of the ministry, and we already have some from Honduras who are wanting to step up into ministry as well.
 |
I know these times are hard, but there are two things in this life we can count on.
- Death is certain unless Jesus comes back first
- Jesus is coming back to reverse death
Let us purse Him and ask how we can minister to others. Let us not embrace fear (Isaiah 8:12) but let us realize that the love of God never lets us down (1 John 4:18). If we are in Christ, death has no sting, no victory, because not even the power of death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39).
Press on my brothers and sisters,
- Paul
P.S. The Covid-19 social distancing measures and oil crisis are hitting our countries very hard. Many from Africa are telling me that people are getting desperate and that food is hard to find, but for a dollar a day, you can provide food for someone who may otherwise go hungry. You may even save their life. If you are interested in donating to our Covid-19 relief funds, please let me know.
