Tuesday March 11 – Thanks so much for all of your prayers. God is answering. Today our teams split up and covered two villages. My team was one dropped off in the village of Sacadat while the other teams went to Brusturi. On a previous missions trip the teams were not received well in Sacadat. We learned that the local priest who had been involved in witchcraft had ordered the people not to receive the Christians. God has not given us a Spirit of fear but of power and a sound mind to the pulling down of strongholds. We prayed that God would bind spirits of opposition and to go before us and prepare hearts to be receptive to the gospel. God allowed us to share the gospel in several homes in a way that they understood for the first time that Jesus had done all the work and they simply needed to repent and trust in the work He has done. Five precious souls surrendered to Jesus as their master and embraced Him as Savior!
Most of the folks believe facts about Jesus but have no personal relationship with Him, think they have to perform good works and hope for the best for heaven and find out where they are going when they have died. When asked if he knew he’d go to heaven when he died – one sweet elderly man shook his head no and said he had committed too many sins. What a joy it was to share with him that Jesus had paid for all of his sins and he needed only to repent and call on the name of Jesus as Lord. He did so. He was the husband of our guide who was a believer. Her sister and brother-in-law also entered the kingdom today. I cannot help but think of how blessed America has been to be saturated with the gospel and yet we still have multitudes who have not understood it. These sweet folks have lived under a vale of works based salvation many years without the peace of knowing true salvation and have been waiting for someone to tell them the truth about Jesus. My heart is humbled with gratitude for this overwhelming opportunity.
During the church service Lewis Thomas sang the song The Power of the Cross. I could not help but recall how the faces of people who initially seemed less than eager to welcome us into their homes had softened as we shared the good news of the gospel. As they understood, eyes teared and their faces which were almost expressionless previously were transformed with smiles of joy.
Indeed the Gospel is powerful – it is the Power of the Cross – an offense to those who perish and unto those who are being saved – the power of God unto salvation.