Cesar's story
by Jeff
Discovering Cesar has been like finding an enormous nugget of solid gold
after months and months of panning the same old riverbed. He was there all along, but I never noticed
him. Mostly because he was lurking in
the shadows... watching... listening...thinking... waiting. When Amy and I started an evangelistic Bible
study in his poor neighborhood in our town of Jataity, eighty people came out
for the big event! The numbers slowly
dwindled over the following months, as did the unrealistic dream of starting a
massive church overnight! What filtered
out from that initial surge of interest was a core group of three families who
have been learning and telling Bible stories now for eight months. We have seen glitters of gold as some of the
participants have had “Aha!” moments
when they finally understand a truth from God’s Word, or they let go of
a long-held erroneous belief or tradition.
The first “flash” of pure gold came the night when Cesar’s wife prayed
to receive Jesus as her Lord and Savior at the close of a Wednesday night Bible
study. When she decided to get baptized
the following month, Cesar and I met for the very first time. He came to witness up close what he had been
watching all along from the shadows. It
turns out that this quiet, shy man had been listening very carefully to what I
was teaching and then discussing those things with his wife back at their
house. The Lord was slowly but surely
drawing this nugget up to the surface to be revealed in due time.
Months went by and Cesar and his wife started coming regularly to the
other Bible study we do at our home on Sunday nights. It seemed that their appetite for God’s Word
was insatiable and they were more than happy to walk 2 kilometers in the dark
to hear what God would say to them through that week’s Bible story. Last week, the Timothy Training workshop I
direct was to be held starting on Thursday and ending on Saturday. On that Monday, I felt led to ask Cesar to
attend, but I wasn’t even sure he was a believer yet! I had seen some fruit, but how should I ask
him? That kind of direct question is not
always wise to ask in this culture. It rarely gives you the answer you really
want. So I asked him and his wife to go with us to a mid-week praise service
being held at the Bible Church in San Francisco, where the Timothy workshops
are held. Somewhere along that bumpy, dusty road, they said that something very
interesting happened to them on Sunday night after the Bible study. We had just heard the story of Balaam and how
this sorcerer admitted that witchcraft and curses weren’t going to “stick” to
the Israelites, because God was on their side.
Instead of the evil curses he was being paid to pronounce over them, one
blessing after another poured out of his mouth, much to the chagrin of his
employer, King Balak! Our group had a
lively discussion that evening about the sometimes paralyzing fear of
witchcraft and curses from which many Paraguayans suffer. We left with an assurance of God’s greater
power to protect his followers from the schemes of the devil and his
allies. Upon returning to their home
that evening, they found three cigarettes rolled together in a piece of paper,
stuffed between the wood planks of their bedroom wall. They opened the paper to find Cesar’s wife’s
name written there! Someone had tried to
curse them at the very moment they were attending a Bible study about
witchcraft! I asked them how they felt
and how they responded. Cesar said that
he now had no reason to fear such things, as he had just learned from the Balaam
story that if God is on his side, and he is following God, then fear has no
place in his life.
I had the answer I was looking
for! I asked him to tell me that part
again, the part about him following the Lord.
He said that he had indeed prayed to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior
not too long ago. I immediately asked
him to consider laying aside his work in his onion fields to attend the Timothy
Training, and he confirmed the following day.
So this brand new believer experienced his first Bible storytelling
training seminar. At the outset of the
seminar I told a very long story, about ten minutes in length, covering the
whole panorama of God’s story of salvation from Genesis to Revelation. I drew out a storyboard of stick figures and
symbols on a piece of butcher paper 5 meters long! As incentive to learn it, I offered a new
Guarani Bible to the two men who could retell the story with the fewest
errors. To my surprise, I observed Cesar
reading over the story text, working his way through the storyboard, and
thumbing through the prized Bible several times a day during the
conference. When Saturday morning came,
Cesar told the entire story with the fewest mistakes, and earned his very own
Bible- his only one! This is coming from
a guy who only started opening his mouth at Bible studies a month ago! I had no idea he had the memory capacity for
that length of story. Well, the other
six stories we learned concerning the life of Gideon were a breeze for
him. They are only three to five minutes
in length. He really enjoyed the story
learning, the basketball games and the fellowship with mature believers who
have been leading churches for 5, 10, and 20 years in some cases.
His life was changed. How do I
know? Well, the next day was Sunday, and
we were due to start the six stories about Gideon at the Sunday night Bible
study. I rolled out the five meter long
storyboard on the floor and passed him a pointing stick and asked him, Do you
want to do this or me?” He confidently
took the stick and proceeded to tell the entire story of the Bible to the
group! Then, since that went so well, I
invited him to tell the first Gideon story from memory and he launched right in
to it. He went from a mere Bible study
participant to Bible study co-leader overnight!
Months of prayer were answered in such a short time. Worries like “Who will be able to lead these
Bible studies when I go on furlough in 9 months?”, and “Lord, show me a man I
can disciple into a leader!” have been suddenly answered! I’m so grateful to God for bringing Cesar
into my life. I can’t wait to see what
God has in store for him and his family in the months and years to come! Timothy Training was the perfect tool at the
perfect time to equip this young Christian with the confidence and knowledge
necessary to become a leader in God’s future church in Jataity!
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