You of Little Faith!

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our wonderful and God-sent Quechua friend Simon and his wife Daria have begun a church that meets in their house here in Sucre. The participants at this point are all Daria's relatives, and they want Leah and me to come and begin teaching stories from Scripture to them that they can then share with others. What a blessing and encouragement this is for us, and it was completely uninitiated by us, which makes it even more exciting! These Quechua believers are beginning to do this on their own!

Prayer Necessities:

1. Please pray diligently for Nelly, our sister in Ayuma who has battled some long-term, undiagnosed health issues. But her bigger problem is the crippling worry over her health that plagues her constantly and is beginning to alienate her from friends and family. She remains interested in hearing God's Word, but the worry is an enormous barrier to her focus. Please pray that she would trust in the One Who truly controls her health and that she would seek first His Kingdom.

2. Begin praying for this church in Simon and Daria's house. Pray that they would be unified and would be determined to exalt Jesus' name here in Sucre. Pray that they would learn the stories from God's Word and use them to reach others for Christ.

3. Please pray for Ester and Soledad, two of the young women who had planned to participate in our missionary training. We recently discovered that the reason they could not participate was related to their alcoholic father. Please pray for their father Guillermo, that he would see the difference Christ makes in their lives and would surrender himself to the One Who can change lives.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know:

We recently made a short trip out to Ayuma to visit our dear friends, and especially to invest more time in Nelly, the one woman there who has consistently been interested in memorizing the stories. We are so excited about Nelly because she has already learned eight stories from the life of Christ!

However, this trip was a little discouraging for us. When we first saw Nelly, she began to talk to us, once again, about her health problems. Ever since we met her, she has had some sort of medical issue, a problem that no one has really been able to diagnose, predominantly because she lives three hours from the closest modern medical care and doesn't usually return to the same doctor for follow-up.

The problem is that Nelly assumes the worst. Her mother died from something that was probably cancer, so Nelly assumes she also has cancer and is going to die from it. It doesn't matter that her symptoms are nothing like what happened to her mother; she is assuredly going to die from this cancer that is causing her problems.

As a former medical professional, this is highly frustrating for me. But, truly, as a believer, it's even more frustrating. Our good friend is just worrying herself into a frenzy all the time, crying every time she sees us and beginning to alienate her friends and family there in town because of her constant fretting. And I honestly don't know what to do.

During this trip, Leah and I tried the compassionate approach, saying, "We're so sorry, Nelly. We can't relate to what you're going through, but we know that the Lord loves you so much and has this situation right in His hands." We tried the harsh approach with, "You have to stop worrying. You're just making yourself miserable, and you can't even do anything about the situation! Trust God!" I even spent an afternoon memorizing Matt. 6:25-34 in Quechua to share with Nelly. At least four times in that passage, the Quechua Bible specifically says, "Ama phutikuychischu!" (Don't worry!). Still, the words from that story still hung in the air when Nelly started asking us once again, "Sisters, what will I do? My children are so young. What will happen if I die?" I just wanted to bang my head against the wall.

One story that Nelly has learned that has spoken to her is the story of Jesus calming the storm. Just so your memory is refreshed, here is Matthew's version (the parallel passages can be found in Mk. 4:35-41 and Lk. 8:22-25):

"Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, 'Lord, save us! We're going to drown!'

He replied, 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?'

Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, 'What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!'" (Matt. 8:23-27)

Nelly enjoys this story and has even told us that the Lord has used it to calm her when she has awoken in the middle of the night worrying. So Leah shared it with her again on this trip, hoping to remind her that the One Who has command of the wind and waves surely has control of her health also. After sharing the story, we returned to our house, a little discouraged with everything that had gone on. And the Lord tested our own belief in that story that very night.

The houses in Ayuma are made predominantly of mud, though the inside walls and floors are often concrete. The roofs are usually tin that is not attached to the house but is held down by heavy rocks. Our beds are straw mats on the floor with our sleeping bags on top. These pictures should give you some idea of what our house looks like:


























Well, the night that we had told the story of the calming of the storm to Nelly, there were heavy winds in Ayuma. This is normal for them, and they don't think about it at all. But for us to hear the wind howling in the trees and the tin roof being banged against the top of the house was a little nerve-wracking. I was asleep when the winds began around midnight, and the sound of tin against concrete is not a pleasant way to wake up, let me tell you.

I've never lived in a place where I've been that scared of wind. I've lived through two hurricanes and a few tornadoes, any of which would have been strong enough to destroy my house, roof and all. But I've never been in a place where just an ordinary wind was frightening. Of course, I've never before lived in a mud house with a tin, non-attached roof.

So, as I listened to those winds howling and thought about all the ways I could die if that roof came off, I was reminded of how the disciples must have felt when they felt the strength of the wind and saw the water pouring into their boat. As fishermen, they had been on that sea all their lives. They knew what a deadly storm looked like, and this evidently appeared to them to be one.

But when they wake Jesus to tell Him they are going to drown, He says they have little faith. And I knew I was exactly the same as they were. Here I had been so confident in telling Nelly not to worry, that the same Jesus Who calmed that physical storm could most certainly calm the spiritual storm in her life. Yet, here I was, lying wide-eyed in my bed in the middle of the night, fearful of a physical storm. How ironic and how fitting.

I resolved that night to trust the Lord to keep the roof on that house, and He did. Obviously, we made it out of Ayuma alive. :)

But I've been thinking about the story ever since and would love to hear input on it from any of you. Why did Jesus say they had little faith? There was no guarantee they would not die as long as they were His disciples, so why was their asking Him to save them a lack of faith? What is the significance of Jesus sleeping during the storm? And how did their amazement (or terror, as Mark describes it) at seeing Jesus calm the storm affect them from then on?

Would love to hear from you! Until next time, thanks for your prayers for us and for these people. We all desperately need them!