September 2020 - My God Did Not Stop Working

I’m writing this report to you from my home office – a reminder of the things that have swept our nation. I have to admit, as an extrovert, it’s a lot harder for me to get going when the morning commute is a room away. But I was just encouraged thinking that – yes, our country social distanced and shut down work places, but God did not stop working (John 5:17).

By God’s grace and the generosity of His people we were able to share food with hundreds of families in five countries during the hardest months of the crisis, and by His grace I’ve been a part of some ministries to some of the poor here in our own community. God truly has not forgotten us during this time.

I was in a meeting the other day with some young adults, and one of them blessed me by praying and asking God to show our group how to reach out to those around us – to do His work. It is encouraging to see that God is still working in the hearts of His people, so let’s take a brief tour, and consider how God may use you in this time to be an agent of reconciliation.

Guatemala

Thank the Lord, our churches in Central America are allowed to meet again this Sunday! In Guatemala, they’ll be limited to 10-20 people per service due to the distancing rule and the small space they have. So, they will be meeting for three hour long services tomorrow (that’s a lot of work).

Throughout the crisis Vlademir and his family have been able to deliver bags of aid to hurting families, and the local police even helped with the deliveries! The people have given their thanks again and again that the church around the world has remembered them. When one part of the body suffers, we all do.

Young Bladito is still teaching music classes three times weekly to a small group of students – along with one who has yet to meet the Lord but is attending services. Pray for two of the students who had to drop out of classes to help support their family, because the economic situation in Guatemala is still very severe.

A new ministry

The Lord has some amazing ways of opening up new ministries. One of the women who came to faith took the gospel back to her parents back in her hometown, and by God’s grace, the parents have come to faith and are being discipled in the Lord now. Their community is two hours of hard driving away, and there is no gospel-preaching church in the entire community.

El Salvador – First church service in months

In El Salvador, they are having their first church service in months tomorrow, and they are hoping it will be a huge encouragement to those who have been isolated all this time. They’re also hoping to begin visiting and encouraging the family of God now that things are opening back up.

We are hoping by God’s grace to visit them soon to encourage them. Pray that the Lord gives the perfect timing for that.

Honduras – What man intends for evil…

In Honduras, our central church is located in a community whose leaders despise the gospel and want to see the church gone. Because of their threats and pressure, very few people from the town have been coming.

Seeing their opportunity during the early days of the pandemic, they got local authorities to shut down services even before a single case had appeared in the region. Perhaps they thought they had succeeded, but the Lord had other ideas. For the believer who is in Christ, resurrection always comes after suffering, because He rose from the tomb where they'd placed Him. 

Now, instead of meeting in one big service, each of our six elders carried the gospel back to their community and began small Bible studies and discipleship classes there. The Bible studies have each grown, and now they’ve even opened up a ministry in Corralito, a new community that had no church. The ministry there is still growing, so please pray for them!

Meanwhile in the original community that shut down the church services, curious people have been attending the bible studies – some out of boredom and some because they have been led by the Lord. Recently, a man came to faith who is a former murderer but has been redeemed. If Jesus can save such a hard man in such a hard community, imagine what He can do here!

He truly is able to do more than we could ever ask or think! Praise be to our God!

Prayer Requests:

• Pray for our nation – these are difficult, turbulent times. Pray that we will be a light and an encouragement because, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
• Pray for Alex – he has a ton on his shoulders as a supervisor of medical issues in his community, leading his church, and leading his family. Pray that God gives him the strength to press on.
• 
  
  Pray that God keeps our brothers and sisters strong in the faith
• Pray for protection from the virus and the violence in the area
• Pray for the new community in Guatemala and for Vlademir and his family to press on
• Pray for the elders in Honduras that they press on in the ministry in their communities without growing weary
• Pray for unity in the church in Honduras – many who came to faith bring a lot of baggage with them, and some of them were formerly enemies and are now worshipping in the same church. While this is awesome, it can be difficult at times.

Thank you all for your prayers and support! Keep pressing on!

- Paul

God is Faithful

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).

Our small team leaving for Honduras

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.

Blessing a village after we'd left

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.

Our Salvadorian brothers in Honduras

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.

1. Death is certain unless Jesus comes back first
2. Jesus is coming back to reverse death

We know that these days we are living in the shadow of death, but we also know that Jesus walks with us, and those of us who have put our faith in Him will never see death, just as He promised (John 8:51).

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 Greatest Need

To all my prayer partners who support me in the work,

Thanks so much for everything you do and all your encouragement. Keep pressing on in the work; keep praying for me and I invite you as always to come serve with us to see these things with your own eyes and to hear these stories with your own ears.

Our next trip to Central America will be on December 3^rd. Please pray that God goes before us and continues to opens incredible doors for ministry there.

Having been on two trips with medical clinics this year, I can say I’m really encouraged by what I’ve seen. God does incredible things when we minister to people’s physical needs while also ministering to their spiritual needs.

In the places we visit, receiving quality medical care is either too expensive for people to afford, or it is simply unavailable. Many of us (myself included), groan when we have to visit the doctor, but imagine for just a moment that you are sick and didn’t know why. Your condition is getting worse and you have no hope of receiving any care – and how helpless you would feel. We do not know how blessed we are here in the States.

Seeing our blessings and the suffering of others should motivate us to go meet that need, especially knowing the Lord’s words: “I was sick, and you visited Me” (Matt 25:36b), and by God’s grace, we are doing that very thing.

Yet it is not enough to meet people in their physical needs, because humanity has a far deeper sickness – one of the heart (Jer. 17:9). Here in the States, we have access to nearly every luxury, but we are not happy, nor are we satisfied. Our heart is sick beyond cure and we all have a deep-seated need for a relationship with God – a relationship we cannot have because we love the darkness of sin rather than the holiness of God.

Enter Jesus – the great physician. He not only healed people’s physical brokenness, but he also died on the cross, rescuing us from sin and death, and providing us with a way to live forever. A doctor may be able to heal for a short time and extend life, but only Jesus can give us eternal life. (Do you believe this?)

Since we do believe this, we go in the steps of our Lord, healing the sick in His Name and preaching the good news of life in Christ.

Africa – January 2019

Back in January, we brought a medical team to Africa, seeing hundreds of patients in several villages throughout the area where we serve. The crowd would arrive, and we would begin with a worship service, preaching the gospel, fielding questions from the curious, and praying over the village.

Then we set up the medical clinic, setting up a table where patients would get their vitals taken, wait for the doctor in the “waiting room” (sometimes under a tree), receive medical care and medicine, and visit what we dubbed as “the prayer chair” – where people could come and ask for prayer.

Of course, the prayer chair is voluntary, but I didn’t notice a single person avoid it. In fact, excited villagers made it a point to guide anyone who seemed unaware over to the chair.

In one village, we didn’t have enough people to translate for both the prayer chair and the clinic. Then a girl from the city who just so happened to be visiting the village volunteered to help us translate. When we were done praying for everyone, she took her seat in the chair, expectantly, “Ok, my turn; I need some prayer.”

We were overwhelmed by the response: even in the village where the villagers have rejected the truth and made it difficult for believers to come to church, the chief and his brother came to us both for medical care and prayer. Oh how powerful it is to love your enemies and to do good to them, and the example our Lord set for us in this when He died for His enemies (that’s us).

A note on the prosperity gospel

In one village we held a worship service before the clinic that many excited people attended, then opened it up for a Q&A with the people. One man stood up and asked, “What do I do if I want to go to church but don’t have enough money to put in the offering plate?”

Another woman asked the same thing. What would you tell them?

We were stunned, but quickly responded – the gift of God is free. God doesn’t require us to give what we do not have, and when Jesus came for us, He bought us with His precious blood and we freely receive His gift.

So what happens if you don’t have enough money? You come anyway. It’s not about the money – it never was. God desires us to give out of joy, not obligation. Should we give? Absolutely. How could we not give back out of gratitude for what He has done for us. But if we cannot, there is no reason a person should feel any less welcome.

This is the result of the prosperity gospel and some who preach not for the love of the Lord and not in obedience to His command to make disciples, but out of a desire to make profits. Having traveled the world, I've seen this message preached where men use piety as a means of making money (1 Timothy 6:5b).

Whenever I am asked about a church, I always advise people to flee any pastor who says that the gift of God can be bought with “seed money” or that you can buy His blessing. It’s a gift (Romans 6:23b), and any pastor who has freely received this gift should freely give it (Matthew 10:8).

As for those who asked the questions, they were overjoyed when they heard that they could freely attend church and freely enjoy the blessings of God, because although Jesus Christ was rich, He became poor for our sakes.

Guatemala and Honduras – July 2019

I had been hoping to get a medical trip together for some time now, and a friend of mine told me that there were some people who might be willing to put together a medical mission for this summer.

With a brand new church plant in Guatemala starting, I knew this would be a great opportunity to minister to the community there.

God opened every door and the team formed in a few short weeks; it’s good to know that He is still creating things out of nothing. Even in El Salvador the few days before we left, God opened the doors for 5 more Salvadorians to join us for the work.

We arrived in Guatemala without incident and put the team up in hammocks around the family garden. It was incredible to be there, because we hadn’t even thought we could find accommodations so quickly for the team, and also because the sisters who live there hadn’t been on speaking terms before Jesus saved them both a few months prior.

There was an excitement in the air that night as we ate together with “glad and sincere hearts”. The next day, we came expecting a clinic that ended at lunch, then quickly realized that our local leaders hadn’t communicated an ending time. How often does the plan change?

We settled in for an amazing nine hours of seeing patients, praying for people, giving medicine, and sharing the gospel with those who wanted to talk. All the while, God renewed our strength to continue the work. All told we saw about 180 patients, which for a one-day clinic is a LOT of patients.

People kept coming throughout the day, and our waiting room seemed filled with an endless stream of people. Some had walked miles to come, and it was touching to see the compassionate care our doctors gave to them, and how the team from El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States came together to care for the community (John 17:20-21).

One patient hadn’t been able to eat for 24 days; he came looking pale and frail. Our doctor gravely said, “Unless something changes, he’s not long for this world.” He gave him a pill for his pain and told him to come back later on for further care.

Rugged Honduran countryside

The man returned with a smile, his color once again healthy. He announced that he’d eaten and kept down a big meal for the first time in weeks, telling our doctor, “That pill you gave me worked!”

Amazed, the doctor said, “I didn’t give you a pill for that… just to take an edge off the pain. God healed you.”

The man left, glorifying God for his healing, and even as some of our team members talked to the man, God moved in the hearts of two team members to go speak his son. Even though he’d grown up in a Christian home, he had no hope for eternity, so our Honduran brother shared the gospel with him, and he made a profession of faith.

On the same day God spared the man and His son. That’s good news indeed, and this young man wasn’t the only one. Several made confessions of faith during conversations as our doctors worked to show the physical compassion of Christ.

Early on there was a concern that we wouldn’t be able to do enough to help, but since we left, people in the community have been telling our leaders how wonderful the clinic was. God is good.

We repeated the same thing in Honduras, and God miraculously healed seven people throughout the course of the trip. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I know Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), but I’d just never seen Him move like that.

Praying over believers about to get baptized

But the medicine or the healings won’t have the greatest effect, and they don’t fill our greatest need. All of us will one day die, no matter how good our health, and all of us will stand before the judgment seat and give an account.

Our greatest need isn’t health – it’s the gospel. The truth that we can have peace with God through Jesus Christ. The truth that even though we are all great sinners, He set us free from our bondage to sin and the wrath of God freely by giving His life on the cross.

To love people is a great thing, but there is no greater love than the One who laid down His life for His friends, and He fills our greatest need with Himself.

So I ask you dear reader, do you know Him?
Grace and peace to all in Christ,

- Paul, the least of His servants

Photo credits Mateo Cepeda. Thanks for all the hard work, brother!

Africa to Central America–October 2018

As I’m going back over all the places the Lord has led me over the past 3 months, I’m somewhat overwhelmed. The Lord is working some awesome things throughout the globe, and it’s my privilege to participate in them, knowing that at the end of my life, when I stand before my Maker, I will say that I was only an unworthy servant who had done His duty.

So from conferences in Africa to translators and filters in Central America… here we go…

Training the Called – African Adventures

It had nearly been a year since my last trip to Africa, so imagine my excitement to have my feet back on the hard, red clay that covers seemingly every square inch of the land. We traveled immediately from the airport, arriving at the new SOS ministry headquarters, located right outside of one of the first villages I ever visited. Having stayed at many places here, I have to say, this is the nicest – no loud club music playing until 3:00 AM, no intense birthday parties going on around us, and no mosquito infested swamp to keep us slapping ourselves into late in the night.

In Africa, one of the biggest enemies of the gospel are so-called African churches where the pastors are only eager for selfish gain and teach that godliness is a means of making money. Many of these pastors live in luxury while their congregants give of their meager funds to keep the pastor in his lofty position.

Jesus taught that leaders in the church should be servants, not the high and lofty “pastors” who demand money from their people. This false gospel has taken over the churches and solid pastors have no formal training to combat the deception. Our pastors are excited about the gospel and diligent in their work, but no one has ever taken the time to train them.

This past May, we brought a small team from the States to teach a pastors’ conference, and the response was incredible. The attendees were encouraged, and we spent one night worshiping until long after midnight. It was awesome getting to be reunited with our Nigerian brothers and having the privilege to preach the gospel to men who had never heard it before. God is growing the ministry faster than we can raise up workers and funds, so pray that God will raise up the right people for the job.

“I’m Listening”

The day after the conference ended, we visited a village where we had never been – a village whose chief greeted us stoically – a village with no way out except the way we’d come if things went weird. We greeted the people warmly and especially the chief. After exchanging pleasantries, Mike explained that we were there on behalf of the God who had created all things with a message for him. He responded through our translator: “I’m listening.”

Mike then proceeded to explain the creation and fall of man, his need for salvation, and the hope of Jesus Christ which is for all people. When he finished, one of the pastors asked for permission to speak and the chief said again, “I’m still listening.”

At the end of our dialogue with the chief, with all the villagers watching, he gathered everyone close so we could pray for them, and the door seems wide open for the gospel to come into their village. Please pray that when we return that the chief will still be listening – for the salvation of him and his people!

Please also pray that God provides the funds for more water wells for the multitude of villages we love, because the need for clean drinking water is incredible.

El Salvador & Honduras Unfiltered

Speaking of clean drinking water, a month after leaving Africa, I found myself getting off a plane in El Salvador with two suitcases stocked with water filters. One of the biggest needs in developing countries without infrastructure is for clean drinking water, and a Christian businessman graciously donated 1,000 reusable water filters for us to give away free of charge – filters that could last these families for years. This meant that we had some awesome opportunities to visit people in their homes and deliver a potentially life-saving water filter that will serve them for years. One man who tried water from his new filter took one drink and declared, “Wow that is very good!”

But even more importantly, we were able to deliver the living water of Jesus Christ to thirsty souls.

“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;

Isaiah 55:1-3

Found in Translation

Last March, we lost a translator on the way to Honduras. This time when the bus pulled up, we had no translator. I greeted the bus driver and noticed a young girl sitting in the car so I talked with her for a moment in Spanish and suddenly something dawned on me, “you speak English… don’t you?”

“Yes I do!” she said, and started cheerfully telling me how she’d learned it from American movies and music – and that she’d never taken English as a course. She came with her dad to drop us off in Honduras, but ended up getting so excited over what we were doing and the idea of staying with the team that she asked if she could stay. Naturally, like a good team leader I contained my excitement and said calmly, “Yes I think we can do that.”

On the inside, it was more like, “Yesssssss!!!!!”

The next day, we were ministering at a remote school in the mountains and came to the point in the program where we presented the gospel and suddenly I found myself unable to translate for Joey Rasico, the young man who was speaking. I pointed to Alejandra, asking if she could step up and translate. “Paul I can’t do that!” she said.

I shrugged, “I’ll be right up here with you” and she came up out of the crowd (to my relief).

She seemed unsure at first, but I backed away slowly as she began to translate the gospel with amazing clarity with all the kids paying careful attention to every word. (Hats off to Joey for sharing the gospel in an amazing way!)

The next day, Alejandra was translating the gospel at another school when suddenly the lightbulb went on. She later told us that day, July 12th, was the first day she’d truly understood that Jesus had indeed paid for her sin. How awesome is it that last March, the Lord gave me the ability to translate the whole trip, but with this trip, He took it away at just the right moment so that Alejandra would hear and understand and be saved?

God’s word is amazingly powerful, and Alejandra was just one of the several who came to faith this past month – among many other amazing things, even a miraculous healing.

But we do not go for the miraculous healings, nor the salvation testimonies – though both are wonderful. We go because our Lord has called us, and it is better to be with Him doing His work than anything else.

Thank you all so much for your continued prayers. If you are looking to get involved in the ministry in any way, please let me know! And know that God can use you.

March Madness–Surprises and Help for the Helpless

Every March, S.O.S. Ministries sends down a team to Central America to minister and to run some women’s conferences in the various locations, and it’s an amazing trip. For the men who ask about such trips, I always encourage them that it’s not a ladies trip but that the conferences are a backdrop that often involves some amazing meetings with their husbands who wouldn’t normally set foot on the property. (It’s amazing what serving a family and serving food will do…)

Even with that being the case, this trip was unique…

Lost in Translator

We were on our way to Hondruas and picked up a new translator, Francisco, who turned his life over to Jesus a few months ago after living a disordered life of drinking and drugs. Last December he seemed to be going through the motions, but this time, he seemed genuinely excited to go.

As a primary translator for the team, I was doubly excited, because it meant I wouldn’t have to carry the main burden of translating for the team, which would free me up to do other things… like breathe.

When we got to the border, Francisco took a long time to come back from the office, and when he finally returned, he told us that there was a crime committed in his name that he’d have to clear up, which meant he couldn’t come with us.

He was upset, saying, “I’ve come to serve the Lord and now this happens?”

Anyone who’s been in the same situation knows what it’s like to have a closed door – it’s frustrating, and I was bemused and slightly frustrated that after telling everyone how happy I was not to be a team translator, I’d just gotten another promotion. A friend of mine reminded me of God’s faithfulness and the feeling quickly passed. Yes, He can and does use even my Spanish, and He also even used being turned back at the border to grow Francisco in his faith.

The team gathered around him and prayed, assuring him that God had some kind of purpose for this, and that he would be joining us on the ministry soon enough…

Children’s Ministry and the Main Thing

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven… so shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” – from Isaiah 55

In Honduras, we usually have a ministry team that takes care of the children while the women’s conference continues, which allows the women to relax and hear the word of God without distractions. This time, our ministry team was four men, and most of the children were pretty young. Our team did an admirable job of keeping them entertained but we were getting worn out and the kids were in danger of getting bored. We went to put on a movie when we felt we couldn’t do any more, but the projector wasn’t bright and the sound wasn’t working.

One of the team members told me he’d done kids ministry in the past and could give a lesson, but I was doubtful that we could keep their attention. Still, we gave it a shot, and the moment we began teaching them the word of God (the parable of the unmerciful servant), they became completely still and even asked some really good questions. We shared the gospel about how Jesus had completely forgiven us of our sins and that we should share that same forgiveness with others and several of the kids locked eyes with us the whole time.

This happened two days in a row and I realized, sheepishly, that the real purpose for the children’s programs should not be to distract the kids while their mothers hear the gospel; it is another venue to share the gospel. God worked through us the moment we were obedient to that calling and befuddled all our attempts to entertain outside that main thing – preaching the word to the least of these.

Hats off to the team… that was quite the adventure.

Someone to help us

You may remember this, but back last December, some of the young men from Honduras told us that their parents did not care for their spiritual growth and that no one would teach them the scriptures.

This trip, we played a game of soccer with them that went on for quite awhile and we invited the young men to join us for a Bible study. For a moment I thought that everyone left – something that does happen sometimes in the ministry – but two of the young men stayed behind.

One of the young men on the team and I went through parts of Matthew 5 with them – that murder and adultery are not only sins of action but sins of the heart. When we told them that even looking at a woman with lustful intent was the same in God’s eyes as committing the act itself, their eyes grew big. “No one can do this,” they confessed. We finished with Jesus saying that you must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect and about how He had provided a way by living the perfect life for us. We gave them notebooks and a Bible and they told us that when we returned, the notebook would be full of questions. It was an awesome answer to prayer, and we’re hoping to continue that ministry in July.

Just so you know how difficult it will be for these young men, their cousin had been coming to the church, but according to our church leaders, his parents told him that if he continued to attend, he would be thrown out of the house. Pray for them – the road to salvation will not be an easy one.

Joining Together

Because we had a smaller team this time, we brought the entire group of Hondurans (the cooks and leaders and their families) to eat with us in Copan, and the next morning, we invited everyone, even the cooks, to join us for breakfast. Laughter and amazing conversation followed – even across language boundaries. How good and pleasing is it for brothers to dwell in unity!

At first the younger Honduran girls balked at the idea, thinking it wasn’t permitted to eat with the Americans – wow. No wonder they seemed a bit stand-offish. No one had ever told them this, but they assumed it was the case, and I’m glad the team corrected this.

How beautiful is team unity? When we got ready to depart, several of the Hondurans told us that their favorite part of the team being there was the times we ate together as a group. Is this not what Jesus prayed for in John 17 that all believers would be one even as He and the Father were one? I’m excited to see what the next trip brings.

Surprise

When we returned, we were looking forward to a baptism for our new translator (Francisco) and his familiy. But the day of, we found out that he and his girlfriend of ten years were living together but not married, even having kids together.

Baptism into Christ is a baptism of repentance – turning from your old sins, so what would you do? I’ll tell you what would have been the easy thing, to turn a blind eye to the whole thing and just baptise them and hope they made it right.

But that’s not the way of the Lord. He desires His people to be holy and pure, so we confronted them in this, and it was… really… awkard at first. But the Lord began to work in their hearts and they went from being taken aback to getting excited about obeying the Lord.

He agreed to move out and to stay with the team at La Esperanza for the sake of obeying God’s call to purity in their lives. Just to show how excited they were to get married, he woke up at 4 AM the next morning to go pick up his future wife and get the process started, and later that day, they brought their entire family out to minister alongside us.

Now normally, the process of getting the paperwork and everything lined up for a marriage takes a week, but they were so excited that they got the process done and we celebrated the wedding just two nights after we had confronted them. Praise the Lord when His children obey Him. Pray for our brother Francisco and his wife, that they would pursue the Lord with all their hearts, and that their marriage would be blessed. Lord willing, we will be baptizing them in July.

The team that “gets it”

I needed to spend some time abiding in the Lord the last day of the trip, because things had been so chaotic and quite frankly, I had not prioritized my time with Him. The team had things under control with the last womens’ conference, so I decided I needed to go. On the way to the room, I saw the soldiers and some of the men outside and had a strong urge to evangelize them. Yet it was almost as though the Lord were urging me to spend time with Him instead – that He was able to do His work (John 15:5).

When I came back, all of the men from the team were sharing the gospel with the men on the property and the soldiers – one of them even using google translate to communicate the message. Some of the girls had befriended a local doctor and were making sure that the doctor and her sister left with Bibles.

It was incredible. The team just “got it”, and many people not only heard the gospel, they heard it compassionately from members of the team. God is good – it never ceases to amaze me what He is able to do when His people come together to serve Him. The same invitation I give to people in person I’ll give to you, come join us this summer. I would love to serve with you.

School funding

As one last thing, there are many in El Salvador who are seeking to get a higher education but who are unable to attend. One of them is a fine young man named Roberto who is constatly serving at the church and seeking to grow in the Lord. He’s brilliant – top of his class – but because his father abandoned him, he has no way of going ahead to the university and may not even be able to finish high school.

Please pray for those who are looking to further their education, and if you are interested in donating to the education fund for El Salvador, please contact me or go to www.soshope.org/donate and be sure that whatever you give is earmarked “El Salvador Education”. We will make sure that 100% of the funds go to that purpose, knowing that whatever we have done for the least of these, we have done for Jesus Himself. (Matthew 25)

In His strength,
the least of God’s servants,
- Paul

Christmas Joy

Ministry in Central America
Our Honduras team was the smallest it’s been for 7 years, but that didn’t mean it felt like that. Every member of the team contributed in an awesome way, making sure that the hundreds of children we ministered to in many different areas not only received Christmas gifts but also the good news of the Savior of the world, brought into humble circumstances 2,000 years ago.

Everywhere we went, we preached the gospel, and people were listening, even going out of their way in some cases to be sure they could overhear the conversation. Here are a few stories from the trip:

Dealing gently with others
One of the houses we visited was home to a family that is staunchly opposed to the gospel. A 17-year-old from El Salvador boldly engaged the man of the house while we spoke with a woman we’ve spoken with before. At one point in the conversation, she asked, exasperated and in an accusing tone, “How do YOU know you’re going to heaven?” to a young woman in the group.

How should we respond to people when they act like this?

The young woman answered her gently, and all of us were very gracious to her and she settled back and listened to the gospel, then went out of her way to introduce the rest of her family, even putting a smile on her face.

When we share the gospel and others oppose us, we must remember that it was in kindness that our Savior rescued us, and we should show that same mercy to others.

No one to help us
One of the last nights of the Honduras trip, we invited several of the local youths to an impromptu soccer match, which turned into a miniature tournament. One of the young men on the team volunteered to preach the gospel before we presented the prizes (prizes we put together on a whim because we didn’t know it was supposed to be a tournament), and many of the young men gave their full attention as we shared the gospel, even hushing those who weren’t paying attention.
In a conversation later on, one of the young men told us that there was no one to preach the word of God to them and no one to teach them right from wrong, and their parents didn’t take them to church or teach them the Bible because they only cared about whether they were living an outwardly quiet life.

There is a great need in Hacienda Grande for someone to teach the youth the scriptures. Please pray that God touches someone’s heart to do this.

Pastors’ Conference
While we were serving in Honduras, our local elders traveled to El Salvador to a pastors’ conference (thank you Lakeside Community Chapel!) and on their return, each of them spoke about what an incredible blessing it had been for them to learn how to preach the scriptures more effectively. The men are hoping to return to the conference in July. Please keep praying for these courageous men.
An incredible note about these men is that one of them was not even literate before he became an elder, and he learned to read for the sole purpose of studying the scripture. These men are unequipped by the standards of the world, but as Paul wrote, “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).

If you should find yourself feeling discouraged and useless, remember this – God uses the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Cor 1:27-29). The race doesn’t belong to us – He does the work and He works in us.


New Frontier
In El Salvador, we have been visiting some of the same villages since the first year I came (2005), and it’s a huge privilege to see the Lord work in those places through our continual visits. But every year we also visit a new location with a special need recommended by one of our local contacts. This time, we found ourselves in the beautiful village of San Jose that sits on a hilltop opposite the local volcano (no worries folks, it’s probably extinct).

The people were extremely welcoming, and the program went off fairly well. Afterwards, my friend Casey and I went over to speak to some of the men of the village. Now usually the men won’t engage us in deep conversation, but Casey was very vulnerable with them, sharing his testimony and how the Lord had rescued him from the folly of his youth, and for some reason, the story resonated with the men. They told us at first that they believed that everyone was going to heaven, but that some of them had had struggles.

We dialogued on man’s brokenness and his inability to please a holy God – how every one of our good deeds is defiled and how only the sacrifice of Jesus can cover over the filth of our sin. By the end of the conversation, one of the men said, “We are trapped in the mire, and unless we grab God’s outstretched hand, there is no hope for us.”

The men thanked us repeatedly for coming to their village and for sharing the word of God with them, and we were amazed by their openness, especially considering that both of us were younger than most of them. When God opens a door for ministry, none can shut it.

Afterward, the medical worker briefed us on the sad conditions of the people in the village – teenage pregnancy, malnutrition, and family issues, and I felt a strange tug on my heart.

Could God be calling us to plant a church here?

Please pray for San Jose.

Personal
It amazes me that God can or would use me. I remember at one time thinking that I was invaluable to the kingdom, but now He is showing me more and more just how little I have to offer in my own strength. He really does use the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the strong. I’ve been in awe of how He uses even the smallest grain of faith to move mountains, and I’m looking forward (hopefully) to sending a part two with an update from our latest trips.

Redeeming Communities Update – A Seed Finally Sprouts
I just got off the phone with a friend of ours from Rainbow Village (the neighborhood in our area where we’re ministering) and a young man from there just told me how much he needed the Lord and to stop doing things in his own strength. He attended church last Sunday along with his family and he’s planning on attending more. He had a court date March 19^th so please pray for him.
We preached the gospel to him almost two years ago and he’s continually rejected it, so may this finally be the wake up call that brings him from darkness to light.

Water for Life
Our regional director for Africa just gave us an urgent plea for us to support a new water well in a village that has no good source for water. Please pray for the Lord to provide, as it will affect an entire village and be a positive testimony of the gospel in a village that has an incredible thirst both physically and spiritually.

Prayer Requests
Thank you so much for your continued prayer and support. God is working more than I can say in a short letter and I ask for your continued prayers.

Pray that God will glorify His name in the ministry, that He will sanctify me and give me wisdom to know Him better and to reach the lost, and that He would cause the word of God to be honored and to grow rapidly wherever we go.

With much love, the least of the followers of Jesus Christ,
- Paul

Is Anger Your Treasure?

It feels good to be angry.

It’s a rush of energy: the confidence that you are right, letting someone know your displeasure, and the momentary satisfaction that revenge provides.

It feels good, but we don’t stop to think about the cost. What we think in private and the way we look at the world when no one is watching affects the core of our being.

I remember holding a grudge for years. It felt good to unleash on the person in my mind in battles I always won, and it felt good to shun them in public for what they had done to me, but it was affecting me to the core. My curses affected me more than it did them – my anger led me to a great dissatisfaction with life and opened the door for more and more sin.

Jesus said that the eye is the lamp of the body, and if your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body is full of darkness. (Matthew 6:22-23).

In this context, if all you view is revenge and anger, and you’re the person who wants to give people what they deserve, it will cause your whole life to be full of darkness and in the end it will kill you. Jesus was betrayed by such a man – he was full of secret cursing and bitterness, and it ended up costing him his soul. Psalm 109 speaks of him in this way:

He loved to curse; let curses come upon him!
He did not delight in blessing; may it be far from him!
He clothed himself with cursing as his coat;
may it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones!

What you treasure up in your heart will come out in your life. People like those in Psalm 109 can only hide their wickedness for so long before it destroys them. But it need not end that way for us. Jesus took the curse for all our cursing when He died on the cross. He paid for our sinful anger, and if we repent and turn to Him we will be saved from it!

Once we are saved, we can look to His example on the cross, He responded to cursing and bitterness by saying, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

He forgave when they cursed. He returned their cursing for a blessing, and now He is forever blessed. If we follow His example and delight in blessing rather than cursing – in patience and longsuffering rather than anger, then we too will be blessed. After all, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Brothers and sisters, let us not be angry. Instead, let us return evil for good. In Jesus we were blessed in order to be a blessing to others –yes, even our enemies.

I resolve here not to cover myself in cursing any more. I resolve to speak what is good and true and loving in the example of my Lord, that I may know Him better.