PART 2
The chain-link gate to the naval base was slightly open, and Gadiel and
I entered and approached the first house, apparently unobserved. I thought I
saw someone out back, but decided to try the front door first. When no one
responded to our knocking, I cautiously began to walk around the side of the
house, keeping an eye out for the dogs we had been warned about. Upon rounding
the corner, I saw a lady sweeping a walkway that connected to the house next
door.
“Buenos dias” I called as we approached, and she looked up
from her sweeping with an expression that was less than encouraging. I
continued rather awkwardly, asking if she would give us but a moment of her
time, and quickly explained who we are, where we are from, and what we were
doing, and placed a number of materials in her hands. I wasn’t sure what her
reaction would be as she seemed to still be processing everything I had said,
so I simply asked her which of the materials interested her most.
“Well, it would have to be this one” she surprised me by indicating the
book Time of Hope (Original title, When God said Remember, by Mark
Finley). “Why don’t you come inside?” She said abruptly, turned, and led us down
the walk to her house. Once inside, she directed us to some chairs in the
living room, and while Gadiel filled out a receipt, we made conversation. I
can’t remember all the exact turns and transitions in our dialogue, but I know
that God was guiding, and His Spirit was present, as you will see
Her name is Sandra Nagada, and she and her husband were recently
stationed here in Guayaramerin after living for some time in the altiplano. She
has family in Riberalta, and passes by the school driveway every time she goes
to see them. I invited her to stop by some time. As we continued to talk, she began to share
quite a bit. She is an evangelical, and her husband is Catholic.
“It used to be very difficult for me” she confided. “I was praying all
the time for my husband. He loved to go out to parties and he would
always come home drunk. I felt so helpless, all I could do was pray. And well, God has
answered me and my husband is much better now! He doesn’t go to church with me,
but we don’t go out drinking, we just stay at home. The neighbors invite us out
to parties and stuff and I never want to go because I know what it is going to
be like. So now they think we’re weird and don’t invite us to anything and I
feel like I don’t have many friends. But it is worth it to have peace in the
home.”
“Wow. That resonates with me, what you just said about feeling alone
because of your decision not to participate in your neighbors’ parties! But I agree, it’s definitely worth it to make the
right decision and be at peace. It’s like it says in 1 Peter 2:9, ‘But you are
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…’ When we don’t go along with what the world does
they look at us as weird, but God has called us to be different and separate
from the world! Jesus said, no one can serve two masters. If we aren’t on His
side, we are against Him!”
“So what church do you guys belong to?” Sandra asked.
“We’re Seventh-day Adventists.”
“Oh! The lady who lives on the other side of the base is Adventist! I
remember because we invited her one time to a birthday celebration for the kids
and she said they couldn’t come because it was on a Saturday!* Your day of rest
is Saturday isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is! But we didn’t come up with the idea to keep Saturday! God himself is
the one who blessed and made the Sabbath holy as a monument to His creative
power since the very beginning of time. Do you mind if I share a couple of
scripture passages?”
“No, not at all!” She assented. I read Genesis 2:1-3 and Exodus 20:8-11.
It seemed as though Sandra were hearing all this for the first time.
“One of the most beautiful things about the Sabbath to me is that God
says it is a sign of what he wants to do in our lives.” I continued. “Just as
he sanctified the Sabbath, filled it with his presence, and set it apart for a
special purpose, so too He wants to sanctify each one of us, fill us with his
presence, and set us apart for a special purpose! (Exodus 31:13, Ezekiel 20:12).
So to keep the Sabbath is really an act of faith that recognizes what God wants
to do in us, and recognizes that He has the power to do it too!”
Sandra was listening intently. When she spoke again, her words took me completely
by surprise!
“You know, it’s not by accident that you came here today,” she said. I
felt a little thrill shiver down my spine. “I mean, what are the chances? First
of all you caught me at home today!” She continued. “Not only that, but I was
outside sweeping, just at the moment when you came! Usually if I am in the
house I don’t answer the door. Last night I wasn’t feeling very well, I had a
headache and I told my daughter I was just going to lie down for a little bit. ‘Okay
mom’ she said, and no sooner had I lain down on the bed than I fell asleep and had
a dream. It was the strangest thing, you won’t believe it, but in my dream
somebody came to me and wanted to sell me a yellow book!” She looked down at
the front cover of her new book, which pictures a large autumn tree, bathed in
the golden glow of sunlight. “Well, it’s not completely yellow,” she admitted,
“but it is quite yellowish!”
“And this book speak exactly on the topic we have been discussing about
the Sabbath! You are going to love it! And I am so glad you shared that with us
just now, because I am also convinced that our meeting today has nothing to do
with chance!” And I went on to tell her of my prayer, and how we missed the bus
by a question of seconds, and how the dump-truck dropped us off right next to
the naval base, and of the impression I had that we should try to canvass
there, and how we met someone who gave us permission right at the moment when
we arrived.
As we were leaving the house, a mongrel began to approach us, and Sandra
shouted and chased it away. “Usually I keep him chained up because he likes to
bite people!” she explained. “You didn’t have any trouble when you came in the
front gate?”
“No, no trouble at all!” I remembered the initial warning we had
received and thanked God for allowing us to pass unharmed.
Gadiel and I continued to canvass the base, finishing at the Adventist
lady’s house where we shared the story about her neighbor Sandra and encouraged
her to try to make friends.
The rest of the day passed quickly, and we were soon taking the 3:00 bus
back to the school. The bus was quite full, but we found seats near the back.
As I took my seat the man sitting behind me caught my attention because
he had a foldable aluminum ladder like one I saw recently in the hardware store
and wanted to buy for the school. The ladder served as a good conversation
starter. Soon I found out the gentleman’s name is David Sanchez. He is a merchant
from Brazil where he has a wife and two kids. After telling me a few more
things about himself, he started to ask me questions.
“So what do you do and where are you from?” he asked.
When I told him I am a volunteer missionary teacher at the boarding school at
kilometer 30, he grinned.
“Hey, I know that place! So what do you teach?” He
asked. “English?”
“No, believe it or not, I teach history, geography,
literature, philosophy, and civics!”
“You don’t say! What
do you teach about in those classes?” his question surprised me. Did he really just ask me that? Nobody has
ever asked me that question before! Lord, did you put that question in his
head? Or is he just wondering what version of history and civics a foreigner
might be teaching to the young people of nationalistic Bolivia! Or maybe it
was all of the above. In any case, I had to take advantage of the opportunity.
“Well, I believe that all true knowledge comes from
God, so I try to approach each subject from a biblical perspective,” I began. “For
example, civics has to do with the study of the obligations, rights and
privileges of the citizen. According to Philippians 3:20, as Christians our
citizenship is in heaven.** So in my class I start with that foundation. What
are our obligations, rights and privileges as Christians? That leads us into a
discussion on sovereignty, authority, and law. Sovereignty refers to a supreme
or ultimate authority. The view we take regarding who has sovereignty, or
ultimate authority, leads us down a road toward one of three outcomes in
government. If we believe that each individual is invested with sovereignty,
that leads toward anarchy because everyone is their own ultimate standard and
can do as they wish. If, on the other hand, we believe that one man, or a group
of men within a government have absolute and supreme authority, then they don’t
have to answer to anyone but themselves, and that takes us toward tyranny. The
best option, I believe, is to accept that God is sovereign, and as such both
the individual and the state are responsible to Him, and receive their
authority from Him. If we accept that approach, we are on the road to liberty!”
David seemed
quite surprised with all of that. “So what church do you belong to?” was his
next question.
“And what do Seventh-day Adventists believe?” he
asked. “Do you believe that salvation is only through Jesus Christ?”
“Absolutely! ‘There is no other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved!”
He asked me a couple of other questions on basic
Christian belief, and seemed to be satisfied by my responses. Before we
finished our conversation I was able to show him the books and magazines we
were selling and he bought the same book about the Sabbath that Sandra had
bought and promised to come by the school some time to visit.
It wasn’t until after I got off the bus and was walking down the
driveway that I realized that God had answered yet another part of my morning
prayer. He had sent someone for me to talk to on the bus after all! I thought I
had missed out when we had to ride the dump truck instead of the bus, but God
had everything worked out for the return trip!
That evening when my wife asked me how the day went I enthusiastically recounted
my experiences.
“Hey, and you didn’t get
sunburned today!” she exclaimed. More than once she has told me that I look
like a tomato when I come home after a day of canvassing! Just then I
remembered the last part of my morning prayer (I am slow at these things) and
my heart overflowed with gratitude yet again to my mighty Creator God who saw
fit to answer every one of my requests that day, even honoring my trifling
petition for supernatural sunblock! I had spent so much of the morning inside
the homes of hungry souls, that the sun hadn’t had a chance to scorch me! Now
while you may scoff at me for intimating anything miraculous about the
“sunblock” proffered by Jovannah and Sandra’s respective roofs, I know for
certain that it is only the Spirit of God that can put such a longing for truth
in the human heart, and to me, that two strangers would invite me into their
homes and question me with such eagerness concerning the Word of God, is a
greater miracle than if I had walked under the tropical sun all day without
getting burnt! May His name be praised!
*In Spanish, as in
many languages, the word for Saturday is actually sabado the equivalent of "Sabbath."
** The word
“conversation” in this text in Spanish is translated as “citizenship.”
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