How are we to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and plant churches among people who are bound by the spirit of fear, darkness and hopelessness? People who have lost their traditions and who seem rootless? People who all too often look at the father of a family as one who abandons his family?
As I have begun establishing relationships with some of the people in Cerropón and Las Brisas on the outskirts of Chiclayo in Northern Peru, I have seen the Lord use some unusual things to open the doors of people’s hearts and homes as the following incidents will show.
Maximila was mending the outside wall of her shack with a needle and some yarn when I arrived, but she stopped her work and graciously invited me inside. The “chair” that she motioned me to was a pile of rags covered by a blanket. As I looked around her four-by-six foot shelter, I saw that the woven grass mats that formed two of the walls were coming apart and that the wind had torn up the “roof” and the other walls that were made of plasticized gunny sacks and sheets of plastic. The “door” was a heavy blanket and there was no furniture in the room; Maximila, herself, sat on the ground.
Maximila has eight children but only two of them, Rosa, 9 years, and Marlos, 7 years, live with her. The other children are in an orphanage in another town. Maximila’s husband deserted her and the children some years ago. She is illiterate, but earns a little money washing clothes for another woman. Her dream of building a real house with adobe bricks for herself and her children seems unattainable as she barely earns enough to buy the food they need. It was difficult for Maximila to believe that the crackers I had brought were made from yuca or manioc, a common Peruvian food, but that didn’t prevent her and the children from devouring them! Maximila wants to learn more about Jesus and has been attending our Sunday service in that area.
Teresa lives in quite a large house and has a lot of fine furniture. She is educated and her husband is a professor at the university near Chiclayo. Teresa enjoys cooking and sewing and was thrilled to get an American dress pattern (even though it was the wrong size). After she and her husband were over to my house for coffee one afternoon, I learned that the whole neighborhood heard about the bean bread and watermelon cake I had served them! Teresa and her husband are searching for answers and want to become part of a Bible study group.
Two little boys had spied my camera and came running up to me saying, “Mommy says you are to come.” I thought they wanted me to take their picture and since I wanted to ask their mother’s permission first, I followed them. Soon we were standing in front of a house that I had considered “off limits” to me as there was a big sign over the door that said: “We are Catholic, Do Not Bother Us.” The boy’s mother, Rosa, was very gracious and said that she had sent the boys to get me because they thought I was the one who had photographed them some days earlier, and they wanted to see the pictures. The mother brought me to a stool to sit on and I explained who I was, what I was doing there, and was also able to share many things about Jesus. When I got up to leave, Rosa invited me to come back and visit her again.
A camera, yuca crackers, bean bread and watermelon cake – somewhat unusual tools to use in evangelism and church planting, but tools that have helped me establish relationships not only with the three women mentioned above, but also with many others. These women are all from different “social” classes and have many different needs. Yet they also have some of the same needs – the need for love and friendship and, of course, the need to come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:9 says: “for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” It is exciting to see doors open up in the Cerropón/Las Brisas area, but it is also sobering to realize that there are many adversaries. How we need to pray for these people who have expressed a desire to learn more about Jesus…