An Early Christmas Present

Over the past year and a half, I have wondered why I am here in Ecuador. Satan has done an amazing job at hiding the truth of the gospel behind the walls of a supposedly “Christian” church that teaches its followers that to gain salvation one needs to be baptized, be confirmed, and take communion at least once. A church that teaches that the souls of the dead hang around and cause all the bad things that happen in an individual’s life. A church that teaches that God doesn’t save all. He only saves the good ones. It has been so hard to get the kids to separate religious dogmas from the truth of the gospel.

After my first year, I doubted my call to come back. I felt that everything I said fell on deaf ears. But I knew from the very beginning that if anything was going to come of the work, the Holy Spirit was going to have to do it all! I can’t take credit for anything that has happened with these kids. I went into this situation with poor Spanish and almost no experience working with kids in a school-like setting. I’ve been praying for these kids. I’ve been pouring myself into these kids. All the while, Christ has been my example. I’ve been quick to forgive and I’ve tried to be slow to anger.

One thing I was certain of was that I did not want to be rash with the gospel. I have seen too many people present the gospel in such a way that nothing is demanded of the listener. It is a gospel that seeks to add numbers, not find true seekers of Christ! I’ve been very clear with the kids that once they decide to follow Jesus, he demands their ALL! Down to their very lives. I’ve been open with them about the fact that saying a prayer doesn’t save them. True belief and surrender to Christ does.

Things have been coming to a head lately. It started when I went out to visit with a missionary couple with Action who run a similar club to what I run, but on a much larger scale. While I was visiting with them we saw tens of thousands of people doing an all-night walk to visit the statue of a virgin. Supposedly she grants miraculous healings. I watched the way the missionaries dealt with the issue of idolatry in the club and it was very counter cultural to me.

In Canada we are told to sugarcoat everything. We cannot offend. If they believe in idol worship, let’s respect that and focus on what unifies us. But this goes against what the Bible teaches. How can we watch as people who claim to follow Christ choose to worship a statue over their Maker? At what point do we stand up for truth? I realized that day that I was not standing up for truth the way I ought to all because I was scared to offend. I was scared that a parent might come to the club to talk to me, or worse, that the local priest would stop by. But those would just be more opportunities to teach truth! I learned a lot from this missionary couple in only two short days.
            Upon returning to my kids I was surprised to learn that about half of them had gone on this walk to the virgin of Quinche. They all had necklaces on with her image. We opened the Bible and read the ten commandments out loud. Then we read Psalm 120 which talks about those who worship idols as being as useless as the idols they worship. It hit the kids hard. They’re not taught this in Catechism.

The next day, all but one girl returned to the club without their necklaces. They had become convicted and they acted accordingly. Over the following week I explained the gospel as clearly as I could. I emphasized the grace of God and I contrasted it with much of what they have been taught about salvation. No response.

I could have made the gospel more appealing I suppose. I could have left out the part about surrendering everything about themselves to God. I could have only talked about God’s love and then lead them in a prayer. But I’m not interested in numbers. I’m interested in seeing a genuine change in the lives of these children for the glory of God.

Today, the Holy Spirit was with me. This whole “the world is going to end on Friday” thing has opened the kid’s ears to the gospel in a whole new way. They are thinking about death and the afterlife. Se we needed to talk about it. One of the kids was certain she was saved because the Catholic Church has baptized her and confirmed her. Her brother insisted that thieves and murderers cannot go to heaven because they are not good enough. I used the illustration of the thief on the cross to explain the gospel. He never had an opportunity to be baptized, to take communion, or to be confirmed. Worse still, he was a thief! Yet simply by confessing that Christ was God he went to heaven that very day.
            Again, I wasn’t going to force anything. I simply told the kids that if they wanted to know Christ and to be forgiven for their sins then they could talk to me privately. You can imagine my elation when two girls, Carla and Gabriela, came to me after the club and said that they wanted to talk to me more about salvation. We sat down together and four more kids sat down with us. I asked them what they understood about the gospel. They were too shy to speak. So I explained it again. Carla got it. The others still seemed confused. Praise God I had an Ecuadorian friend there to help me today. I turned to Glenda and asked her to explain the gospel. She used the colour system (black, red, white, green, yellow). They seemed to be getting it. I emphasized (probably about 10 times) that any prayer we say does not save them. It is the first step in a life of surrender. God’s salvation comes when we repent, but that doesn’t mean we get to live how we want. I explained the gospel one more time and had each of the kids explain it back to me in their own words. Not all of them could do it, but some of them could.

It would have been impossible to make them each say a prayer in their own words (because of how shy they all get about prayer). So I decided that I would say a prayer for them, and I had them repeat those things in their hearts to God. After praying I told them that this was the first day of the rest of their lives. That from now on their lives are not their own, but God’s and that they need to be ready and willing to do anything for Him. I also told them that they should each go home and say a private prayer to God in their own words, and then to keep the line of communication open with Him. They now had his Holy Spirit and had new power to face life and all of its trials. Last but not least, I told them to share their faith with others. They had salvation from sin and that is something they cannot keep to themselves.

As I left the club I was overwhelmed by the fact that 6 children had just made confessions of faith!! SIX! After a year and a half, God gave me my first ever harvest. I was saying “praise God” as I walked down the street! God does amazing things in the lives of people. He times everything perfectly.

Please be praying for all six of the children who made professions of faith today! Magda, Martha, Carla, Gabriela, Wendy, and Christian. They are all between the ages of 8 and 11. This was just a first step. Now I have until June to continue discipling them. I long to see them grow in their faith and fall in love with Jesus over the next few months.
            I need to say it some more. PRAISE GOD!!!! PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME!!! GOD HAS DONE WONDERS! HE HAS SAVED US FROM DESTRUCTION! HE HAS DELIVERED SOULS!!!! HALLELUJAH!!

That darned visa.

I’ve been postponing the update regarding my visa process because the whole thing was so unbelievable that I thought it would be easiest to just write it all down when it was over. Last year I got my visa in August. It took about a week and was a total gong show. They ended up putting the wrong expiration date on the visa and so it expired four days before they even gave it to me. That meant another day in the visa office for them to fix it. Unfortunately, this year was MUCH worse!
            I was home for the summer and my visa from last year expired about a week before I got back to Ecuador, so I entered on a tourist visa which is good for 90 days. It expired on December 8^th. Not bad. I had plenty of time to go through the visa process again. On November 6^th I showed up at the visa office at 6am to wait in line for about 4 hours to hand in my paper work. When I handed it in they told me that two of the papers were done wrong. One was my resume which was in English. I needed to translate it to Spanish. The other was a chronological list of everything I would be doing until I left Ecuador. The man told me that it had to be divided by month with a detailed description of what I was going to do every month. I was confused. I was handing in the exact same paperwork we used the year before, but this year they were being very picky. When I explained that what I do never changes. I do the same thing every week and I am going to do it until I leave he told me that the paper was fine and sent me to go and translate the resume and return with it later that day. I left the office, translated the paper, paid a $30 application fee, and then gave the paper and the proof of payment to the man who told me the visa would be ready the following week on the 12^th.

I went back the next week. Got in line at 5:30am so that I could be out in time to still go to the kids club. When I finally got in I was told that my visa was not yet ready. In fact, they were WAY behind on the whole process and were still processing October’s visas. I was told that my visa would 100% for sure be ready on the 26^th of November. I explained that my tourist visa expired on the 8^th of December so I needed to be sure I was going to get the visa. She assured me I would get it and she sent me on my way. I was pretty happy. She guaranteed me the visa and it was going to be ready in two weeks.
            The 26^th came and I returned to the visa office early in the morning. By the time I got in I had been waiting almost 5 hours! A different lady helped me this time. She informed me that my visa was not ready. They were still working on visas in the 800’s and my visa was number 983. BUT, she GUARANTEED ME that it would be ready on the 4^th of December! FOR SURE! When I explained to her that I had received guarantees before and that they did not come to fruition, she told me she would keeps a special eye on my visa (lies). I left quite angry now. I was beginning to think that they were playing games with me. Every Ecuadorian I know was telling me that I needed to bribe them or they weren’t going to help me. I refused to do it, and so I had to return on the 4^th,

I got there bright and early, waited for hours, and finally was called up to the front. My visa was ready…or so I thought. Turns out they rejected me. Why? The paper they told me was wrong at the beginning and then told me it was fine…was wrong. They needed me to divide it by month. I explained to the lady that they had told me that all my paperwork was fine and that I was confused as to why the paperwork they themselves had approved was now wrong. Her actual response was, “well for us it was fine, but not for our lawyer.” My thought was, “how could it possibly be fine with you when your job is to make sure that the lawyer approves me?” But I didn’t say anything else. She told me to go and make the document and have it in her hands by 1pm. I went to the office, made the document, and had it back with my visa application by 1pm. She told me to return the next morning and my visa would be ready. I was annoyed, but excited that it was going to be ready in a day.

So I was there again in the morning. I waited forever and got up by 10. This time another man helped me. He said, “weren’t you here yesterday? Why are you back? A paper was wrong, right? There is no way your visa ia ready today. The lady who helped you yesterday was just fired and I have no idea why she told you to come back today.” I was FURIOUS! He went to see where my visa application was. It took him ten minutes to find it. He came back, opened the folder, and dropped it on the desk. “Where’s the paper that you fixed?” I looked through everything and…no paper. The lady who was fired the day before never even put it in my folder and now she was gone. The man told me, “there is nobody even here to sign your papers, so I have no idea why she told you to come back. But this is what I am going to do. I am going to submit your papers to get signed without the missing paper. You go and print it off again and come and give it to me before noon. I think I might be able to have the papers ready today.” I cried a little and explained to him (not in a very polite manner) that everyone in the visa office is a liar. He can promise me a million times that my visa will be ready and I will never believe him.

I left for the office, cried some more, printed off the paper…again! And went back to the visa office. I handed the man the paper and he told me that he couldn’t accept the paper because he didn’t have my folder to put it in. He told me to come back with it at 1 and my visa would be ready. I didn’t get my hopes up, but I killed some time and was back at one. When I got in to see him at 1:30 all he did was shake his head as I approached him. “It’s not ready. There’s nobody here to sign your papers. Come back later today.” I told him there was no way I was going to return later today. He told me it would be ready at 1, and nothing. I wasn’t about to waste my afternoon hoping that magically the visa would be ready. He gave me the option of returning the following week and I chose that option. I then went home and cried for a solid 20 minutes. It was the only way to get rid of all the stress and frustration I felt.
            So this week on Tuesday I was back at the visa office. The same gentleman helped me. And, amazingly, my visa had been approved. I went and paid the remaining $150 for the visa, surrendered my passport, and was told to return (again) on Friday to get my passport back with my visa in it.

I went back today, waited for 2 and a half hours this afternoon, and there it was! My passport with my brand new visa in it. It only took 5 weeks (when it shouldn’t have taken more than a week). I left that office today so incredibly thankful that I wasn’t going to have to go back in there for years. Maybe not ever again!
            So for those who have been asking and praying, you now know what happened, and that I now am officially legal in Ecuador until December 11^th, 2013. Throughout the process I felt frustrated with people. They kept telling me not to worry because God was going to give me the visa the next time for sure. The next time would come and go and instead of having a visa I would have more problems. When people would tell me that God was going to give me the visa the next time I started saying, “but God doesn’t work like that. He doesn’t just give me what I want when I want it.” I have thought a lot about Job the last few months. I know that my problems are not nearly as severe as Job’s, but God didn’t just make life fine and dandy for Job because he believed in God. Job suffered and in the end never turned his back on God. Sometimes I think we forget that. We think life is going to be a walk on the beach with Jesus, but there is no guarantee of that. In fact, when I read the New Testament I see a group of people who were persecuted for their faith, who suffered terribly for the sake of the Gospel, and who still didn’t turn their backs on God.

May God forgive me for being angry with Him for not making my life the care-free life I think it should be. And may I grow from this experience.