It’s interesting how God directs our lives. Along the way, there are surprises and
blessings, lessons to be learned and a relationship with Him to be
deepened. We have felt God’s leading
many times in our lives and no chapter, it seems, begins nor ends the same
way.
This time, God has spoken
very clearly – we are to move to Jataity.
From the
moment we began praying for this little town (we were actually praying that our
team mates would move there), God gave us many divine appointments, powerful
contacts, and an incredible peace. The
signs were impossible to ignore (our team mates decided to move to a different
town).
On home assignment we prayed that God would
show us how to more effectively use the mobile clinic and that he would show us
when the right time was to leave San Francisco.
In September, we began weekly mobile clinics and visits in Jataity (a couple
men from the church have come to share their testimony). In January, a family asked us to begin a
Bible study at their home (a study we do Sunday afternoon).
The church here in San Francisco is growing
in numbers and maturity. The members are
reaching out to neighbors and carrying on with Bible studies and meetings
without us. When Jeff told the elders
and deacons about moving to Jataity their response was, “If God is leading you
there then how can we stop you? We would
like to be a part of the work there as well.”
And guess what? We have had a
believer from San Francisco join us on 4 out of 5 Bible studies in
Jataity. They are excited about helping
us reach this community.
Jataity is only a 15 minute drive away from
where we live now. Although it is close
by North American standards, we might as well be moving across the state by
Paraguayan standards. Rural Paraguayans
don’t travel much. For one, only a handful
own cars, and buses cost money they don’t have.
Second, they are tied to their land and finding time to stop being busy
and travel is tough. Third, Jataity is a
smaller town so folks from here would have no business there. For nearly a year, we have lived here and
gone there. Could we keep that up? Probably.
However, although we love San Francisco, we find that our hearts longe
to minister daily to people of Jataity.
A SIM church advocate recently said, 80% of our witness is just showing
up. We want to “show up” in
Jataity. We want to share our daily
lives with them. We want to be available
to start more Bible studies and give people a way to visit with us about
spiritual things.
Bible study.
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