Ephesians 6:12 "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]."
As some of you may recall, I mentioned several prayer requests in the last blog. One main request was for the situation concerning the church in Ojo de Agua. Any time God's work is moving forward, souls are being saved and people are hearing the truth of God's Word, Satan is mad! And right now, Satan is furious with what is happening in that small Lenca community in the mountains... and he is doing all he can to stop what God is doing there!
Seven years ago we started going to this little community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the beginning there was little interest in the message of God's love and His free gift of salvation. We were met with suspicion and skepticism. But slowly, with persistence, much prayer and much love, we began to see people opening up and listening. For a long time, we had services with basically one family in their home. But the powerful message and truth of God's Word began to chip slowly away the foundation of Satan's stronghold!
Last Sunday, in (as far as we know) the first and only non-Catholic church in all of San Francisco de Opalaca, 75-80 people gathered together in the Calvary Baptist Church of Ojo de Agua to study and learn the Word of God! God has so blessed His work there and we have seen many accept Christ as their Savior and baptized in the nearby river. Nearly every Sunday we see new faces in the congregation. We have three, very faithful believers, that walk an hour every Sunday from the community of Azaqualpa, just to attend the services there in Ojo de Agua! The people in the church there are excited and growing in the Lord. But, that is exactly why Satan is furious!
Now, you need to understand how things work in these Lenca Indian communities. Each family has their land that they live on and farm and pass down to the next generation. But, if they want to sell some of their land to someone, then the current president of that community, as well as the community's land transfer committee, must give their approval. Once you have received their approval to buy land in their village, then there is a lot of paperwork and signatures required. After all these requirements have been meet and you have all your signed paperwork in order, the land is yours to do with as you wish. When we bought the land in Ojo de Agua to build the church there we, of course, had to fulfill all these requirements.
Our problem is, that the current community president is a very strong Catholic. His priest is not happy about us being there and the fact that he and "the church" is losing some of its power and influence over the people. Because the priest wants us out of there and our church closed down, he's putting a lot of pressure on the current president. The president is claiming that we got the land without going through all the proper procedures and he wants to rescind the permission we received to build the church. He wants to close it down and claim the building for the community!
Tomorrow, there will be a community meeting and some of the people in the church got word to Mike that they thought he probably needed to be there. We are not really sure what the meeting is going to be about or what their plan is, but Mike and some of the men plan on being there. This is why we need our fellow Christians to bombard Heaven with their prayers!
This is not the first time we have had problems with the Catholics in these Lenca villages. We have been told, at different times, in different communities, that if we kept coming and preaching the Gospel, there would be serious consequences. They have threatened to puncture our tires, block the roads or bridges, or do something "more serious". Once, while Mike was receiving cancer treatments in the States, some of our "preacher boys" hiked in to a new area, showed the Jesus film, and gave the plan of salvation. Several people accepted Christ as their Savior that night. The next week, when they returned to hold services, several men with machetes met them on the trail and would not let them pass. But, it is three of those believers from that community of Azaqualpa, that faithfully walk an hour to go to the church in Ojo de Agua, and another hour to return home!
They can try to scare us and threaten us all they want. We come with the authority and power of God on our side and, also, Honduras has a constitutional freedom of religion. It is against the law for anyone to harass or threaten us with harm. If they ever tried to harm us physically they could be thrown into jail. But that fact has never stopped the Catholic priests from stirring up his parishioners and sending them out to make trouble and threaten us or their own people who want to attend our services!
In these strongly Catholic mountain villages where the Lenca live and work, Satan has had free reign for centuries. These people have never been taught God's Word. Their hearts and minds are filled with superstitions, traditions, and the lies of a false doctrine. They are unbelievably poor, most living in mud houses with dirt floors and without running water or electricity. They have no hope of ever being able to better their lives and, because of what they have been taught, very little hope and no assurance of a better after-life. They are not really recognized by their government, nor accepted by mainstream society. Even most missionaries are not interested in working with them because it's a very slow, very difficult ministry with seemingly very little return for your months and years of work. They are, basically, a forgotten and an unreached people.
But, God loves them and He has not forgotten them! He died on the cross because He loves the Lencas as much as He loves you and me! They have a right to hear, and we have the responsibility to tell them the truth of God's Word! In fact, as Christians, we are commanded to go and tell them about God's plan of salvation. We are commanded to tell them that God promises, that if we accept His forgiveness for our sins and accept His free gift of salvation, then we can KNOW that we will go to Heaven when we die! And God also promises that, if we GO and TELL them His message, He will be with us!!! And Mike and I have learned that we can take God's promises "to the bank"!!!
In these strongly Catholic mountain villages where the Lenca live and work, Satan has had free reign for centuries. These people have never been taught God's Word. Their hearts and minds are filled with superstitions, traditions, and the lies of a false doctrine. They are unbelievably poor, most living in mud houses with dirt floors and without running water or electricity. They have no hope of ever being able to better their lives and, because of what they have been taught, very little hope and no assurance of a better after-life. They are not really recognized by their government, nor accepted by mainstream society. Even most missionaries are not interested in working with them because it's a very slow, very difficult ministry with seemingly very little return for your months and years of work. They are, basically, a forgotten and an unreached people.
But, God loves them and He has not forgotten them! He died on the cross because He loves the Lencas as much as He loves you and me! They have a right to hear, and we have the responsibility to tell them the truth of God's Word! In fact, as Christians, we are commanded to go and tell them about God's plan of salvation. We are commanded to tell them that God promises, that if we accept His forgiveness for our sins and accept His free gift of salvation, then we can KNOW that we will go to Heaven when we die! And God also promises that, if we GO and TELL them His message, He will be with us!!! And Mike and I have learned that we can take God's promises "to the bank"!!!
And you see, we love the Lenca people, too! We have claimed for Christ those mountain villages and the precious people who live and work there! We will continue to go and preach the Gospel and teach them God's Word as long as we are physically able. And when we can no longer go, our prayer is that others will have caught the vision and continue to seek them out and tell them of God's love.
We covet your prayers for the meeting on Saturday! Please, pray that the devil and his demons will be rebuked and that God will show Himself strong. Please, pray that Satan's strongholds would be torn down and that these dear people who have lived in spiritual darkness for so long would suddenly begin to see the Son in their eyes!
We are not discouraged or worried about the outcome, because we know that many of you will be praying and Jesus has promised us that "...greater is He (Jesus) that is in you, than he (Satan) that is in the world." ~1 John 4:4
And if God said it, I believe it…
and that settles it!!!
and that settles it!!!
1 comment:
When we were up there in January of '07 they actually DID put nails in the tires of our bus. I believe we pulled several out of the tires once we got back into the city. But thankfully, they didn't cause a blowout and no one was injured.
On second thought, that might have been up at San Lorenzo, just past Ojo de Agua.
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