Ministry life has been trippy. Really trippy. And I'm realizing that I'm trying to do things in an orderly fashion (well, according to Peruvian society and the Christian community) but God keeps messing things up! Something really tells me that He has more grace and love than we give Him credit for. Seriously.
The youth, LJP, whom we took to the church/rehab centre stayed for 5 days and made up his mind he was out of there. Luchin and I had gone there for a "pollada" which is a chicken BBQ fair that you sell tickets for to raise funds. And as soon as we got there, we saw the glum faces of the people in charge and you kinda know they were avoiding telling you something. So I asked how LJP was. And it all came out. They had counseled him, to no avail. We ate and counseled him. To no avail. He wanted out. Since it's not obligatory to stay, and rather than have him escape, we signed his release and took him to his mom's house. He called us last night to say that he had gone to church with her and we met with him today to set a time for teaching him how to read (he is illiterate) and to learn the bible later on this week. Eventually, we will need to meet with his parents to talk about him and also ways of preventing his younger brother from going the same way. So here we thought we could just get the guys off the streets into a Centre which deals with addiction and here he gets given back to us to be watched over. He needs a lot of prayer please. And we need lots of prayer too, please.
We saw the street women tonight. Had more headway with one of the transvestites, but I'm still learning how to share with them. EM was there and she was kinda happy to see us and embarassed at the same time. I asked why she was still on the streets. She's been regularly attending discipling lessons with me and she knows that what she does is wrong. She explained that she is deep in debt as she, along with most of the women on the streets are in a money pool and she has to keep paying into it for 3 more weeks and the only way she can pay it off weekly is to work where she does as any other type of job pays at the end of the month or bi-weekly. I told her as did Carmen and Luchin, to not get into it again after the 3 weeks are up. She agreed with us but had said that the reason why she had joined it was to be able to pay for her daughter's school uniform and books. EM also told us that her daughter, who is 6, has been making sure her mom gets into the Word as she makes sure they pray together before bedtime and that her mom reads the bible to her (the big adult bible, not kid version) and explains what it means so that she can understand. Wow.
Another woman, P, told us the same thing about her daughter separately from EM. Her daughter is 10 and wants to be baptized in a Christian church as she has been going with the neighbours and she has been telling her mom to get closer to God and to heed our counsel. She doesn't know what her mom does but she knows that her mom has been talking to us and that we counsel her with the Word of God. So she has asked her mom to invite us to their home or to take us out for chicken so that she could get to know us. Wow.
God is using children to save. These children want to know Him and He will use them to bring their mothers to Him. Topsy turvy. EM wants to follow God but can't leave the streets yet because of her debt. The general thinking would be, "What? She has to get off the streets if she is truly following Jesus". I agree with that. I agree with Jesus saying, go and sin no more. Yet, in this case, I am confronted with so much love and grace on His part. I see Him working deeper than just getting her off the streets. I see Him showing her His love and acceptance even though she is still on the streets. I see Him loving her and loving her and loving her as no one has ever done before. Because the truth is, no one has ever loved her before. I know her story, it is horribly ugly and no one should have to go through what she did. And I see my Jesus loving her so much, He keeps cleaning her and loving her so that she knows deep in her heart, that she is accepted and truly loved. I see the same with LJP.
Through this all, God is teaching me and Luchin more about His love and grace than ever before. By having to constantly pick them up, clean them, love them, spend time and money on them over and over and over again, we are learning His love and His ways. This is what God has to keep doing with us. All of us. Over and over and over again. This is His Mercy, Grace and Love.
We also looked at a place to rent as a place where we can have discipling, prayer, coffee, counseling, eventual church and hang out sessions and it has a lot of potential and the price is right. We're now just waiting on the owners to agree or not as to what we want to do with the place. It's up to God now. If it's where He wants us to be, it will be ours. If not, he's got something better. Your prayers on what He wants for us and where He wants it to be will be appreciated muchly.
The youth, LJP, whom we took to the church/rehab centre stayed for 5 days and made up his mind he was out of there. Luchin and I had gone there for a "pollada" which is a chicken BBQ fair that you sell tickets for to raise funds. And as soon as we got there, we saw the glum faces of the people in charge and you kinda know they were avoiding telling you something. So I asked how LJP was. And it all came out. They had counseled him, to no avail. We ate and counseled him. To no avail. He wanted out. Since it's not obligatory to stay, and rather than have him escape, we signed his release and took him to his mom's house. He called us last night to say that he had gone to church with her and we met with him today to set a time for teaching him how to read (he is illiterate) and to learn the bible later on this week. Eventually, we will need to meet with his parents to talk about him and also ways of preventing his younger brother from going the same way. So here we thought we could just get the guys off the streets into a Centre which deals with addiction and here he gets given back to us to be watched over. He needs a lot of prayer please. And we need lots of prayer too, please.
We saw the street women tonight. Had more headway with one of the transvestites, but I'm still learning how to share with them. EM was there and she was kinda happy to see us and embarassed at the same time. I asked why she was still on the streets. She's been regularly attending discipling lessons with me and she knows that what she does is wrong. She explained that she is deep in debt as she, along with most of the women on the streets are in a money pool and she has to keep paying into it for 3 more weeks and the only way she can pay it off weekly is to work where she does as any other type of job pays at the end of the month or bi-weekly. I told her as did Carmen and Luchin, to not get into it again after the 3 weeks are up. She agreed with us but had said that the reason why she had joined it was to be able to pay for her daughter's school uniform and books. EM also told us that her daughter, who is 6, has been making sure her mom gets into the Word as she makes sure they pray together before bedtime and that her mom reads the bible to her (the big adult bible, not kid version) and explains what it means so that she can understand. Wow.
Another woman, P, told us the same thing about her daughter separately from EM. Her daughter is 10 and wants to be baptized in a Christian church as she has been going with the neighbours and she has been telling her mom to get closer to God and to heed our counsel. She doesn't know what her mom does but she knows that her mom has been talking to us and that we counsel her with the Word of God. So she has asked her mom to invite us to their home or to take us out for chicken so that she could get to know us. Wow.
God is using children to save. These children want to know Him and He will use them to bring their mothers to Him. Topsy turvy. EM wants to follow God but can't leave the streets yet because of her debt. The general thinking would be, "What? She has to get off the streets if she is truly following Jesus". I agree with that. I agree with Jesus saying, go and sin no more. Yet, in this case, I am confronted with so much love and grace on His part. I see Him working deeper than just getting her off the streets. I see Him showing her His love and acceptance even though she is still on the streets. I see Him loving her and loving her and loving her as no one has ever done before. Because the truth is, no one has ever loved her before. I know her story, it is horribly ugly and no one should have to go through what she did. And I see my Jesus loving her so much, He keeps cleaning her and loving her so that she knows deep in her heart, that she is accepted and truly loved. I see the same with LJP.
Through this all, God is teaching me and Luchin more about His love and grace than ever before. By having to constantly pick them up, clean them, love them, spend time and money on them over and over and over again, we are learning His love and His ways. This is what God has to keep doing with us. All of us. Over and over and over again. This is His Mercy, Grace and Love.
We also looked at a place to rent as a place where we can have discipling, prayer, coffee, counseling, eventual church and hang out sessions and it has a lot of potential and the price is right. We're now just waiting on the owners to agree or not as to what we want to do with the place. It's up to God now. If it's where He wants us to be, it will be ours. If not, he's got something better. Your prayers on what He wants for us and where He wants it to be will be appreciated muchly.
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