Brothers & Sisters!

August 15, 2015

It's a day of rejoicing! We are so thrilled to announce that today, four of the K people placed their faith in Jesus Christ.  Their names have been written in the book of life and we now have the joy of knowing there will be K brothers and sisters worshiping the Father before His throne with us one day.  Please pray for B, D, ML, and CI as they begin this exciting new journey.

But first, let me back up and tell you how this all came to be.  Back in the end of March, when our volunteer team from Georgia was here, they did door to door visits in the village.  They were able to find a husband (B) and wife (D) who were very interested in learning the truth of God's Word, and took Nick and I to meet with them one day that week.  We asked if they would like to start meeting with us to learn stories from the Bible each week and they said they would.  I'm going to pause here and say how grateful we are to our volunteer team for finding this family and how thankful we are that the Lord opened this door.  Although the K village isn't that large (about 300 people), this family lives on the outskirts of the village and there's no telling how long it would have taken for Nick and I to discover that this particular couple was so open to the truth.

We began meeting on Saturday afternoons and working our way through a chronological Bible story set of 12 stories from Creation to Christ.  We started with 5 or 6 participants, grew to as large as 10 one week, and by the end had dropped to 3 or 4 regulars.  But this small handful of faithful listeners were truly hungry for the truth and we could see that they were really "getting it."

Most of this group is illiterate, and those who can read, do so at a low level.  We gave out Bibles, but those who couldn't read had to find a family member or neighbor to read the stories to them each week.  Also, as they had never heard these Bible stories before, in the beginning they had a lot of difficulty in remembering what they learned each week - even basic facts like, "Who existed before anything was created?" and "What was the name of the leader of the evil spirits?"  To combat these issues, we did two things.  First, with the help of a Brazilian friend from our local church, we recorded each of the stories we told.  Each week, after sharing a new story, we would transmit the recorded version to their phones (because even though they live in small houses of mud and sticks, they have cell phones!).  This way they could listen to the stories throughout the week to remember the details.  We also made sure to review and ask questions about each story we had told in previous weeks before introducing a new story to make sure they were recollecting well what happened in each story.  Of course, this process took longer and longer as we neared the end of the story set, but we were excited to see they were remembering more each week and were able to recount more details and draw connections between the stories.

As we neared the stories of Christ's death and resurrection, we could truly feel the hunger of the core group of listeners.  It was tempting to skip ahead to the good news of salvation, but we wanted to make sure they truly understood who Jesus was and how the Father provided a way for the forgiveness of our sins through Christ's work on the cross.  So we continued in our story set, anxious to arrive at "the end."  We started to hear phrases from them like, "I'll never forget the part of the story when..." and "I'm anxious to hear HOW Jesus can save us from our sins."  This was so encouraging and exciting!

After finishing the story set and spending one additional week studying more about Christ in Colossians, we reviewed all of the previous stories, pointing out connections and recurring themes in God's overall redemptive plan.  Then we used the bridge illustration to show how God desires to have a relationship with us, but because of our sin we are eternally separated from Him by an enormous chasm that we cannot cross on our own.  It is only by Christ's redemptive work on the cross that we can "reach" God.  His sacrifice on the cross provides a "bridge" across this chasm.  All we have to do is repent of our sins and accept this precious gift and God promises he will save us.  We then gave our testimonies of how this truth had changed our lives and Nick read some key passages about faith and salvation.  We asked what they thought about this and the four there that week said they agreed and believed it all.  We asked if they had any questions or doubts and after talking about a few things, they continued to stress they believed.  Nick and I wanted to make sure they understood what it means to follow Christ and so we continued asking if they were confused by anything and explained again what this decision entails (such as leaving behind anything in our lives that does not agree with God's Word).  Finally, D said, "Let's pray, we want to follow Christ!" haha.  So Nick led them phrase by phrase in a prayer of repentance and all four prayed aloud with us.  When we opened our eyes, there was so much joy and happiness in our meeting place!

We will continue to meet with this group of believers - looking more deeply into the teachings of Christ and studying what the life of a believer should look like.  We told them that the Bible tells us there will be persecution in the life of the believer, but they agreed this was nothing compared to the joy of knowing Christ and the hope of an eternity spent with Him.

Please join us in praying for B, D, ML, and CI.  Pray they will remain firm in their decision.  Pray for the persecution they will most likely face from others in the K village.  Pray for them to be bold in their new faith, sharing with their families and neighbors.  Pray for direction for Nick and I as we decide what to teach next.  And most of all, rejoice that we now have four new brothers and sisters in Christ!