Hello all. How are you? I hope this letter finds you at peace in Christ, who is our life (Col 3:4) and the health of our countenance (Psalms 43:5). Lyli and I are well. The Lord's mercy is from everlasting and is new every day! I can’t keep up with it!
The “winter” vacation is over now, and we’re ready to tackle the last half of the school year. The senior class should arrive today from their trip to the mountains to the southwest to distribute bibles and give health expos near La Paz in the altiplano. I can’t wait to hear the stories.
There are so many things I haven’t written, but the battles are the same as always, for our souls and the souls of those we serve, and, as always, I solicit your prayers. Following is a story from about this time last year.
June 9, 2011
Wherever you are, let your light shine forth. Hand our papers and pamphlets to those with whom you associate, when you are riding on the cars, visiting, conversing with your neighbors; and improve every opportunity to speak a word in season. The Holy Spirit will make the seed productive in some hearts. . . . {Te 250.3}
As I wait for a ride today, I finally think about something besides my list of things to do in town and remember to pray. This time I ask God to get me a ride with someone who wants to hear words of life. In response to my hitchhiker plea, a big truck pulls up. Usually I would ride in the back, but the driver invites me into the cabin. His name is Mircol, but it doesn’t strike me until much later just how much his name sounds like what God does in our lives. Turns out Mircol lives in Riberalta, has a wife and two kids, and has been trucking in these parts for several years now. He asks about the internado and what I do there, and the conversation easily turns to spiritual things. I am amazed how one thing links to another and the words just seem to flow as I endeavor to uplift Christ. Mircol seems to enjoy our chat, and after a very fast forty minutes, we arrive in town. He refuses payment, but does accept a couple of small bible-study tracts.
A couple of hours later I stop by to visit Antonia, one of the shopkeepers I met last school year. When I arrive, she is conversing with a short smiling man with thick hair and sparse teeth. Antonia interrupts her conversation with him to greet me cordially, introduces me to Carlos, and then asks me to please “share something with him from the word of God!”
“What church are you from?” Carlos preempts.
“Seventh-day Adventist!” I reply quickly with a smile.
"Oh, I attended that church in La Paz" he says, and begins to share a few things he remembers. I can only hope that all the memories are not such to obscure the message born by the name: that we remember our Creator as He commands by observing the seventh day as His Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11), and that we also remember him as our Great Redeemer and Liberator, (which significance is also found in the Sabbath, see Deut 5:14-15), and He is coming again to pick up his children in the Second Advent, a fact we can count on in light of the cross! After all, no one in their right mind pays an exorbitant price for a much-desired item, only to leave it behind and never return to reclaim it! Our God, who has bought us at an infinite price will not so leave us unclaimed! He will surely come again and receive us to himself, that where He is, we may be also!
