The cross was an ambush set by God to destroy the works of the devil and to demolish death once and for all. Jesus did not go to the cross in defeat; He went to the cross for victory, and at the end of it all, when He said "It is finished", He had already won."It is a glorious phrase – 'He led captivity captive.' Psalm 68:18
The very triumphs of His foes, it means, He used for their defeat. He compelled their dark achievements to subserve His ends, not theirs.
They nailed Him to a tree, not knowing that by that very act they were bringing the world to His feet. They gave Him a cross, not guessing that He would make it a throne.
They flung Him outside the city gates to die, not knowing that in that very moment they were lifting up the gates of the universe, to let the King come in. They thought to root out His doctrines, not understanding that they were implanting imperishably in the hearts of men the very name they intended to destroy.
They thought they had God with His back to the wall, pinned helpless and defeated: they did not know that it was God Himself who had tracked them down. He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it."
- James S. Stewart, Scotland (1896-1990)
For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.
Psalm 20:18
Imagine you live in a place so terrible that a few hours stay gives your clothes a stench that won’t leave.
Imagine your expected life span is hovering somewhere around thirty because you drink sewage and breathe in the lingering smoke from a thousand fires every day.
Imagine that your only school has dirt floors, almost no books, and you can’t get in because hundreds of others are waiting for a place in that same school.
You enter this place from the main road, walking through a narrow side alley for several minutes until you reach the shores of the standing water. You immediately notice the number of people who live here as they get in and out boats at the makeshift docks.
You gingerly crawl into one of the boats, hoping it doesn’t send you on an unexpected trip into the black water. The boat takes you slowly through narrow roads of water onto the main highway where the missionary tells a story about a previous trip where a passing motor boat almost sent them all for unexpected swim.
Comforting, right?
Finally, you arrive at the only school, a building that is slowly collapsing under its own weight, looking forward to the swarm of children that will soon surround you.
This is where God has called us, because He loves the poor and the needy, and if we are His hands and feet, we must love them just as He loves them.
Without Help
The director of the school, a man named Noah, told me that the only way the school gets funded is by locals or foreign organizations. The government refuses to send any help of any kind, whether supplies or funds.
We spent some time talking and praying with him. Pray that God provides the funds for us to upgrade the structure for the school. After looking at the school’s structure, which is bending under the weight of the upper story, we’re confident that if we don’t do anything, there could be a disaster.
Pray for Noah and pray that God provides the funds and supplies for this school to keep operating. Noah gives a lot of his own time and money to make sure the school runs, even to the point where he’s chosen to live among his own people so that he can do everything he can for them.
A Bible for Every Student
With the help of someone from my church who works for the Gideon society, we were able to provide Bibles for every student in the school as the teachers had asked us. The Bibles will be a powerful tool for them to practice their English (which is a second language for them) while learning the scriptures.
Since we started coming and teaching the scriptures, there has been a massive difference in the attitude of both the teachers and the students. The students are now intensely alert during classes, asking good questions, and even quoting scripture that they’ve learned back to us.
Thanks to the education they’re receiving, some of these precious ones will be able to further their education on the mainland. Pray for their physical and spiritual condition - that they would come to know our Savior, and that God would provide for them so that they can escape the cycle of poverty and bring others out with them.
Intercepted by Hope
After we’d given out the Bibles, I was walking to go photograph the students in their lessons when I saw two young men reading John 3:16 aloud to themselves. If God had ever provided a clearer opportunity to hear the message, I don’t know what it was.
“Do you understand what you’re reading?” I asked as I sat down. They shook their heads. “No.”
For the next forty minutes, my brother Gabriel and I sat, reading scripture with them, asking them questions, and explaining things they didn’t understand. When we finally asked if they had any questions, one of the young men asked, “If there is a man who is an idolater his whole life, yet comes to Christ three days before his death, what will happen to this man? Will he go to heaven?”
Rather than answer his question directly, we took him to the story of the thief on the cross, who asked Jesus to remember him just hours before his death.
When he was finished reading, he told us, “It’s clear that the idolater who comes to Christ will go to heaven.”
I pointed at Gabriel, “Did you know he was an idol worshipper for many years?”
The young men sat back, surprised to find such a man sitting among them. Gabriel then shared his testimony, about how much God hated his idolatry and sin, yet how God still had mercy on him through Christ.
When he was done, the men said that they were ready to come to Christ. We prayed with them, and as the conversation was winding down, I found out that John normally worked at a factory on weekdays, and didn’t even live in the water village any more. Yet because he was sick on this particular day, he decided to visit his brother at the school.
In other words, God used his sickness to bring him to hear the gospel.
I don’t know the end result, but please pray for the three young men who listened – that the seeds we planted will sprout and grow into the hope that only Christ can give.
Praise God for being a God who orders the steps of His children, that they would come to know Him.
Psalm 16:9
The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.
Acts 17:26-27
And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us
Grace and peace,
- Paul
Two months ago I was praying and considering whether or not I should return to Central America this December. Everything is on the table, and I’ve been considering what my ministry is and what the Lord is calling me to, because I have no idea what the Lord has for me in the years to come.
The Lord made two things clear though – 1. I should return to Central America at least in December, and 2. I should return to Africa in January.
That’s all I have to run off of at the moment. Sometimes I think it would be nice to know, but I trust God.
A week or two before the trip, I got a call from one of our translators in Central America – a man God saved out of a murderous lifestyle in the gangs. I was walking up to my workplace and almost considered ignoring the call because I’d be seeing him soon enough, but I took it anyway.
I picked up – he sounded shaken. Through the conversation I quickly learned that men from one of the gangs near his village had raped his daughter and that she was now pregnant. He continued, telling me that his family was shaken up – his wife and daughter were losing faith, and he was at least a little tempted to pick up his old ways and get revenge.
“Pray for me Paul. I know what I once was and I don’t want to go back.”
At a loss for words, I struggled through the conversation. After I hung up, my next phone calls and texts were to tell members of the team who loved him to be praying, and plans were set in motion to visit him and his family in his village.
This man, this former gang member used to murder people to make a living. Now he’s praying and begging God not to let him take any revenge, but to help him forgive. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a new creation. He used to bring death everywhere he went, now he goes into gang territories and preaches the gospel of life even at great risk to himself.
Obviously, Satan hates this and would do anything to stop it, and our friend and his family have already paid a terrible cost for living in the place God has called them to live. Pray for them.
Meeting with Death’s Messenger
Two weeks later when we arrived in our friend’s village, our entire group was marching toward his humble house when I saw them – six men standing out in front of his house to greet us. Our friend ran up to me and said, “Paul, they’re from the gangs. Don’t be afraid, they’re here to hear the gospel!”
At their center stood the leader – “Juan”. His ball cap and tattoos covered his entire head, surrounding his care-lined face. He looked tired and worn out; I’ve seldom seen a man look so weary. Yet we knew he was a murderer – a cold-blooded killer.
Men from the team went behind our friend’s house to meet with Juan and his men – to preach the gospel to them while the rest of us set about putting together a Christmas program for the children and people of the village. Several of the women spent the entire time ministering to our friend’s wife and daughter.
Around the same time that the program started, Juan and his crew came out from the meeting and watched the gospel vividly presented through a drama, and the preaching of the Gospel from the Bible.
Juan acted on the thoughts we only had, and God graciously kept us from carrying them out or from growing up in the same violent environment. Juan has the same problem we have – our sins have separated us from a holy God and without salvation, we are destined for the place of our own choosing – the wrath of God and eternal separation from Him.
We gave Juan a Bible and prayed over him, and tears shone in his eyes as he reverently held the scriptures. Before we prayed, he asked us to pray for his son – that he would grow up differently than he did.
Our friend the translator said that after we left, Juan and his men were standing around the open Bible in reverent awe. We have not heard from him in the short weeks since that day, but I pray that the Lord saves him.
God called us to go preach the gospel to the lost, simply to invite them to the banquet of God’s grace and mercy freely offered through Christ’s death on the cross to ALL, with no concern as to their former lives. Matthew 22:10 says that the servants of the king “went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
Christ is able to transform all kinds of people, both the “good” and the bad, realizing this, that only God is truly good, and He has provided a Way for us to be like Him through Jesus His Son.
Please pray for Juan and his men.
The Frowning Hand of Providence
But because Joseph was stuck in prison, he was right where he needed to be when Pharaoh wanted his dream interpreted, an act of providence that saved the lives of countless people in the end.
Everything that happened to Joseph--everything man intended for evil, God used for good.
Wicked men raped our friend’s daughter, and that is something she will have to live with for the rest of her life, but our friend told us that since the trip, God has used this as an opportunity for her to know Christ in a more real way. Furthermore, God turned the situation into a chance for us to minister the gospel to a small crowd in our friend’s village, including several gang members who heard the gospel in many different ways. Perhaps God will use this to save their souls as well.
God works out everything for good for those who love Him, and one day, He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. It is from this hope that we operate – we base all our confidence on the fact that this life is not all we have. Our reward – our home is not here but in heaven, where the former things, no matter how great or terrible, will never be remembered again. All of this life will fade except the Lord – yes, even this horror.
Please take some time right now to pray for our friend, his wife, and most importantly, his daughter. Pray that they find comfort and healing in the Lord, pray that they are able to forgive the wicked men who did this, and pray that God will continue to use this for good in their lives.
When any of us refuse to forgive, remember this:
You could be living in riches and feasting in the mansions of God's grace in kindness toward us but you have chosen to live as a vagrant on the streets of unforgiveness.
Worse yet, you have voluntarily locked yourself into the dungeon of bitterness, and though you hold the key of forgiveness with the power to unlock every door inside, you refuse to suffer your own escape.
You have drank poison in hopes of killing your enemy, ignoring the fact that you have secretly become what you hate.
You have forgotten your own forgiveness, and renounced your inheritance – the inheritance of mercy purchased for us by Christ on the cross. Repent and let it go! Gently lower your burden into the hands pierced for you and pursue peace, that it may find you. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Love stands at the door and He knocks. Will you answer His call?
Fast forward to January: we visited the village and found that Solomon’s seventeen year old son had also come to faith and was making some incredible statements. When we asked him how he came to faith, he said, “When I saw the futility of Islam and the gods of Africa and compared them to the new faith of my father, I knew I had to come to Christ.” 
Then we told him the situation in his village – not many were coming to the church, and many had turned back to offering sacrifices to the gods of Africa. And as we spoke, the chief interrupted us, “This must not be! I will go back and tell the people to stop sacrificing to the gods and to begin attending church!” 
He has one more year left of schooling before he seeks to get a degree in music. His village was attacked and his family managed to escape right before a massacre, but his father returned to help others escape and never returned. They found his body by the riverside. Ibriham said, “When my father was murdered, I thought I would never stop crying,” but when he came to the orphanage, God comforted him so that he was able to write a song about how Jesus had dried up all his tears. He has a passion for missions work, and seeks to be a missionary when he finishes school. He is extremely strong in his faith, and it’s a privilege to serve the Lord alongside him. 
Isaac 
Fired at his job – Literally
Life is full of tragedy, seemingly without meaning. One moment you’re basking in glory, and the next, stricken and searching for answers.
I once heard the story of a man who spent his life in preparation for serving the gospel. Leaving his family fortune behind, William Borden graduated from Yale, studied at Princeton theological seminary, and departed for further training in Egypt – a bright, brilliant star.
He died shortly after – a light snuffed out. If death is truly the end, then Bordon’s death was a pointless waste.
It all seemed so senseless to me until I read and understood Micah 3:16-17:
“…those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. ‘On the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘they will be my treasured possession.’”
God’s purpose for our lives goes far deeper than ministry; He doesn’t want our ministry, He wants us. We are His treasured possession.
For the follower of Christ, death is not a period; it is a comma. God is not working on us so we can be more effective ministers; He is working on us because He loves us. Our story begins, not ends at death. God didn’t end Borden’s story; he turned the page and started the next chapter, as if to say, “I cannot wait for you to come home, son—today is the day.”
Ephesians 2:6-7 says that “…God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
God’s purpose for us is to display the riches of His grace to us. This is a task that will take all of eternity, since His grace is infinite. We will spend all of eternity watching as God unloads treasure after treasure from His infinite hoard of grace, mercy, and kindness. This is our story.
Life on this plane isn’t a movie; it doesn’t end with every loose end conveniently tied up, and we’re often left asking “Why” without hope of hearing an answer.
All of our pain, all of the seemingly senseless agony and tragedy of this life, all of our rejections and sufferings, and everything we’ve lost are all unwoven threads of an unfinished tapestry, but the day will come when all of our scars and all of our stories are woven together by the Master Weaver Himself. On that day alone will it finally make sense, but until then, we know that He is the God who walks with us through our pain.
Bordon understood this. One of the last things he wrote in his Bible before he died was this simple phrase, “No regrets.”
Welcome home, son.
Finally, it all makes sense.
