Porfilia finds Christ
On my recent trip to Candelaria I visited Porfilia and she received Christ. Candelaria is a 7 1/2 hour trip. Two hours by highway, two hours rural and dirt roads and 3 1/2 hours tracking up a mountain. We are building a church in this Tojolabal Indian village the only church around the area.
After meeting with the new church Saturday I was ask by a precious Indian brother if I wanted to visit with an elderly lady up the hill who was interested in hearing the gospel. The next day Octavio and I hiked up the hill to a small shack where we visited Porfilia. She greeted us with a smile and ask us to sit. I don’t speak Tojolabal so Octavio interpreted for me. I shared to gospel and how Christ loved us so much. Porfilia said she wanted to go to the meeting but because of her leg she couldn’t walk down the hill. I explained that it wasn’t about a meeting to go to, but about meeting Christ here and now in her house. She said she wanted to and we prayed together. Her face and Octavio assured me that she understood. I was thrilled she received our Lord. I looked around her shack, all she possessed was worth in the worlds eyes nothing but to God she was worth more than all the gold and silver and God sending His Son Christ Jesus to save her soul. That day we spent over an hour in her home and I promised her on my next trip up to visit her. I spoke later to the new church of the need to visit Porfilia. The oldest Christian in this village is at this writing 6 months old and the pastor in training is 5 months. Raul is being discipled and must mature quickly pray for this baby church.
You can see more pictures of our trip by clicking on the pictures on the sidepost. My daughter went with me and did a great job ministering to the children.
Missionaries are people too
Never feel sorry for a missionary we are privileged to service the King of Kings! but we are not supermen and women we just serve a SUPER GOD.
- We hurt
- We get sick
- We feel lonely at times
- We fail (much more than you will know)
- We have disagreements with other missionaries ( the greatest factor in attrition on the mission field is missionaries not getting along. Why? It take people with strong character to reach the missions field, so sometimes we do butt heads. Hey Paul did!
- Missionaries can be territorial. Hey I’m working here you go over there!
- Sometimes we spend all day sometimes days waiting in lines to get a piece of paper that gives us permission to ask for another piece of paper so we can apply for permission to stay in a country a month or year more. (RED TAPE)
- Most of the time we are the minority. Think about it.
- US missionaries if living out of the States for more than six month get no earned income credit and pay taxes and social security total amount. personally When I live in the States for over six months I get money back from IRS but living in Mexico I pay.
- Sometimes we make enemies who try to get us kicked out of the country. I have and they have tried, I’m still here.
- We take risks sometimes to prosper and sometimes to fail.
- We have family issues just like you. We work through them with God just like you do.
- A lot of these are negative but the positive far out weigh the negative.
- We are privileged in getting to know many beautiful people, beautiful countries, to be used of God to reach out to people with the gospel, people who otherwise would not hear the goodnews.
- What a honor to serve the Lord and be sent out by loving brothers and sister from our home country, culture and family.
We are no different than or better than our brothers and sisters in Christ back home just called to do what Christ has called us all to do but in another country, culture and language.
The next question I want to deal with is Are all Christians missionaries?
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