As I awoke Friday morning and was preparing for the day, I prayed that God would let us be sensitive to His Spirit as we went out and finished out our last day of ministry here in Guatemala and on the field this summer..I prayed that lives would be changed, hearts of our team and the hearts of those we were going to visit. Well, God is good and to Him be the glory for everything that happened yesterday!
During the morning we broke up into two teams, each going to do four home visits. On our first visit, we were able to pray with and encourage a sister of the church who had just recently lost her sister and was struggling greatly. God, being the awesome and sovereign God that He is, equipped our team with just the right people. One of our team members lost her dad as a child and was able to relate to the struggles of this woman. Our second visit brought us to a Catholic couple who had been in and out of church a lot. The gospel was presented to them and they prayed for the forgiveness of their sins and confessed Jesus as their true Lord! We continued on to our third visit then and met an older lady who was a church member who had not been in a while. We walked in to find her reading her Bible! As we began talking with her, she shared with us that due to her diabetes and bad knees she isn’t able to walk to church anymore. Hannah Brown was in our group, and she shared with the lady about how her diabetes can be a daily struggle for her as well. She prayed for the lady and you could feel the Holy Spirit in that home, uniting us as believers..encouraging one another like scripture calls us to. Then, we gave the lady a food bag and she immediately began to weep tears of joy and thanksgiving. Our whole team was in tears by the time we left. To see how much a simple food bag can bless the life of someone like her was truly a moving experience. Then on we went to our last visit. We visited a lady who was in desperate need of a job and who continuously needs strength to provide for her son, Kevin, who is in the daycare at the church. Again, one of the team members shared very similar struggles and was able to relate to this young woman.
To God be the glory!! All through this summer God has shown us how great He truly is. In America, we have doctors and running water and access to food, so we don’t really need God for a lot of things..we may not necessarily mean to, but we do not depend on Him! So, it was incredible to see the faith of some of the people we came into contact with this summer. These families have to depend on God for everything, every day! What an inspiration and motivation it was to see the faith and hospitality of the people in Guatemala. Even if all they had were dirt floors, they would offer any seating that they had and make us sit.
This last day’s experiences were just a glimpse of how God moved this summer. My prayer as I travel home is that God continues to speak to me by His Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church. I pray that as I obey the guidance of His Spirit, I continue to learn to truly trust in Him through experiences like these this summer.
Romans 12:9-21
“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
-Lindsey
