The Government is Upon His Shoulder (Part III)

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

After I asked for your prayers for God's financial provision for our upcoming missionary training, He miraculously provided the total cost... through one donor! So please praise Him for His answer to your prayers.

Also, on our last trip to the community of Ayuma, Nelly learned two more stories of the life of Jesus. But what was even more incredible was that we got to watch her share the story of the birth of Christ with one of her friends. (Click below to view the video. It's in Quechua, but you can still get the idea.) Wow! That is a HUGE step towards our goal of Quechua reaching other Quechua with the Gospel, and we are so excited about this!



Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Jeremiah once said, "If I say, 'I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,' his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jer. 20:9). Please pray that God would instill in the people of Ayuma a passion for His Word that will burn in their hearts as it did in Jeremiah's such that they would not be able to hold it in but would HAVE to speak it to others. Pray that His Word would spread like wildfire from this community to the rest of the province.

2. Please lift up Misty and Amy, as they have 3-1/2 more weeks to go in their last trip to Taramarca. Pray that they would remain faithful to share the stories with the people there, and pray that the people would really grasp what the girls are trying to teach.

3. Pray that God would send us exactly the right women to participate in our missionary training that begins November 27. As of now, we have 13 who are interested, but a smaller group of 4-8 is preferable. Pray that He would show them and us the ones who are to be trained at this time. (We are pictured here with two different groups of girls who are interested in being trained.)




Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

OK, so where did I leave off last time? Oh, yeah. After reading Mk. 11:23-24, we had just prayed that God would grant us a miracle and give us our Bolivia resident visas in a mere three days. Never mind that we had waited eight months, and it seemed impossible. We had no idea how He would accomplish what we had requested, but our God is a big and powerful God, and we knew that He could do it!

But then, the unthinkable happened.

Immediately after we prayed together, Leah and I went to the immigration office in Cochabamba. When we walked back to talk with the immigration official, we explained everything: That we had begun the visa process in Cochabamba but now lived in Sucre, that we had been telling the truth about where we lived when we began the process but that our location had now changed, that we had been waiting eight months to receive the resident visa. And then we listened as he very politely explained that there was nothing he could do and that, according to new immigration regulations, we would have to begin the process over again in Sucre.

We were crushed, but we weren't quite ready to give up yet. I asked the official if we could just get a letter from the Cochabamba Immigration Office stating that we were in the process of receiving our visas. Such a letter would allow us to leave the country for our meeting (and my vacation in the US) and return to Bolivia without penalty.

We were very much looking forward to the team meeting but, if we left the country without that letter, we would have to spend time outside the country trying to obtain special temporary visas to allow us to re-enter Bolivia in order to get the permanent resident visa. And there was not even a guarantee that we could get those temporary visas, as they're next to impossible to get in Peru. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that spending any more time away from the Quechua meant losing invaluable time teaching them stories from the Word of God. So I can't begin describe to you the feeling of my heart sinking when that official gave us a very firm no.
We returned to our apartment sad and discouraged, and the girls felt the same way upon hearing the news. But we still weren't ready to give up. After all, God was more powerful than this Bolivian government!

For the next three days, we talked to everyone who could possibly help us. We talked to the immigration officials. We talked to lawyers. We talked to our visa runner. We talked to other missionaries. And we talked to God.

But, in the end, we wondered if He was listening.

During those three days, I struggled with faith like I rarely had before. Our friends suggested that we focus on trying to obtain the letters that would allow us to leave the country, rather than pursuing the visas themselves, but that felt like doubting God's power. And, while I didn't doubt whether God could grant us those visas, I did doubt whether He would. And I wondered whether that made me the double-minded man that the Scripture talks about:

"...when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does." (Jas. 1:6-8)

So I prayed and cried out to God for wisdom and for understanding. I read the roll call of faith and was troubled by this passage:

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance." (Heb. 11:13)

Did that mean we were not going to receive the visas before we left Cochabamba? I knew that, if that were to come to pass, it would not have been because God had been untrue to His Word but rather because our prayers had somehow been amiss.

But I struggled tremendously with the implications of our prayers being amiss this time. The four of us had been in agreement that this was a word from the Lord and that we were to pray according to that word. And there had been no doubt in my mind that God had taken me directly to Mark 11. If we couldn't hear Him correctly when we were all in agreement, and if I couldn't hear Him when He had spoken to me so clearly through His Word, how could I ever trust that I correctly discern His voice?

On Thursday afternoon, we met with our visa runner, resigned to having to begin the visa process over again in Sucre, and she agreed to accompany us to the immigration office there the next day in the hopes of getting the letter from there before we left the country the following Sunday.

But, as we drove out of Cochabamba without our visas, I felt nothing but despair and doubt, and the one thought that kept going through my mind was this: How could I have misheard my Lord so badly?

The Government is upon His Shoulder (Part II)

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Leah, Misty, Amy, and I recently spent some time in the community of Ayuma, where our friend Nelly learned two of our stories and is so excited to learn more. (The picture to the left is me telling the story of the birth of Christ to the village women.) In addition, Leah and I went to Sijcha Alta, another nearby village, and shared the birth of Christ with Evarista, who quickly learned it and wants us to return to teach it to her daughters as well. The LORD is at work in these women!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Please be praying that God would provide for our upcoming missionary training at the end of this year. We have around 15 Bolivian women who have expressed interest in receiving this training that will prepare them to serve as missionaries in their own country and beyond, and we are so excited about that! But we need the funds to train them, and we need for God to specifically call those that He wants to participate. Be in prayer for those things and that these women would persevere in His call despite any difficulties that may arise.

2. Please be in prayer for the women in the communities of Taramarca and Ayuma, where the four of us have been working recently. (I'm pictured here shepherding sheep in Ayuma while Misty talks to Piscinta, one of the local women.) We will be heading to these communities next week to share more stories with the women and to teach them that they are to share them with others. Pray that God will continue to work in the hearts of the women and will embolden them to teach the truth of His Word to those around them who haven't heard.

3. Lift up Evarista and her daughters, who live in Sijcha Alta. (Evarista is pictured below with two of her daughters, Maria and Ana.) Pray that they would learn well the stories of Christ that we are sharing and that they would understand that they are not just to keep them for themselves but are to share them with others.
Bonus for the Readers:

To continue the story of our visa process, in late April, we made the eight-hour drive to the city of Cochabamba to speak with Bolivian immigration officials there about our resident visas. We had been waiting eight months to receive them and were getting ready to leave the country to attend a team-wide meeting in Peru. However, we were apprehensive about doing so because we had just been told we would not be granted the visas in Cochabamba and would have to begin the process over again in Sucre.

When we arrived in Cochabamba, we immediately went to the office of our visa runner. We sat down and listened carefully as she began to explain what had happened. Evidently, in the past, the immigration officials had never verified the applicant's address with a physical visit but, very recently, they had begun sending the local police to confirm that the visa applicant lived where they said they did. And, of course, when they arrived at the address in Cochabamba that we had given (the apartment where we lived during language school), we no longer lived there, and they now thought we had lied about the address.

This was news we expected, and we had come to Cochabamba for this very reason, to try to explain to the immigration officials that we had lived at that address when we first began the visa process but, because it had been eight months, we had since moved to Sucre. However, the next thing our visa runner said was not something I expected. She pulled out a map of Cochabamba and asked me to mark on the map where in the city we lived. She handed me a pen and nodded at me, assuring me that, if I would just mark the spot and make a quick calla to our former landlords, they would be glad to tell the government officials that we still lived there, and we would have our visas within the week.

Here I was, looking at the expectant gaze of this woman who had helped hundreds of people through this very complicated process, feeling the heavy stares of the others on my team as they awaited my decision. We had been waiting eight months for this, and here was this great promise that we'd have it in a week if only we bent the rules this little bit. After all, why shouldn't we? Didn't the Bolivian government, who had been nothing but a barrier to us every step of the way, deserve this? And, really, what difference did it make?

But, even with all of that, the offer wasn't even tempting. I couldn't think of anything besides this verse:

"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold" (Prov. 22:1).

And I kept thinking of the One Whose name I was really representing:

"We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (2 Cor. 5:20).

There was no way I could lie and say we lived in Cochabamba, knowing we were Christ's representatives. So I told our visa runner that I couldn't do it and that we needed to go talk to the government officials instead. She looked at me like I was out of my mind but told us where we needed to go.

After that meeting, the four of us went back to the place where we were saying to rest before going to the immigration office. I pulled out my Bible and began to read from Mark 11. As Jesus was going into Jerusalem with His disciples, He was hungry and went to search for fruit on a fig tree that was in leaf. When He found none, He cursed the tree and, the next morning, Peter pointed out to Jesus how the tree had already withered. And Jesus' response to him just jumped off the page at me:

"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mk. 11:23-24).

I read those verses over and over, wondering if the the Lord was telling me what I thought He was telling me. Finally, I read the passage to Leah and Amy, who were both in the room with me. I then asked them, "This government bureaucracy over our visas is really a hindrance to the Lord's work here. Do you think it's a mountain that the Lord is telling us to cast into the sea? Do you think we should ask that He would give us the visas while we're here in Cochabamba?"

Amy immediately responded that she and Misty had just been learning about great faith and told me that the Lord had them both reading about Abraham and his faith. And, when they had finished reading about Abraham, the Lord had told them to go and read about him again. They had both been thinking so much about faith that they had been wondering what God was going to do. Amy was pretty convinced that we should pray that we would receive the visas.

Leah then shared how she had been praying for months that we would receive our visas prior to our team meeting in Peru and how she had been asking her prayer supporters to be praying the same. She, too, was convinced that we should ask God to give us our visas.

When Misty came in later, we asked her what she thought, and she said that she really wanted to see God do something big, something that only He could do. Getting those visas would certainly fit the bill, so we were all in agreement that the Lord was telling us to do this.

So, on that Monday afternoon, Misty, Amy, Leah, and I prayed together as a team, asking that God would grant us our resident visas by Thursday when we left Cochabamba. It was a step of faith for us, but we knew that our God was big enough, and we couldn't wait to see what He would do!

Stay tuned for part III, coming soon to a blog near you... :)

The Government is upon His Shoulder

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

All four members of our team received our one-year resident visas here in Bolivia... just in time for me to go home for a three-week vacation. Thank you so much for praying, and praise Him for answering!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Misty, Amy, and I are leaving in the morning for a trip to the village of Ayuma. While there, we will be sharing stories especially with a young believer named Nelly (pictured here), who has specifically asked for discipleship. Please pray that we would be effective in teaching her the stories and that the Lord would ignite in her a passion to share God's Word with others.
2. Misty and Amy will be returning in August to the community of Taramarca, where they will be working for the remainder of their time overseas. Please pray that the people of this village would grasp the vision of Quechua reaching Quechua and that God would use them to begin a mighty work among this people group.

3. Please be in prayer for our Bolivian men's Xtreme Team, as they begin to work with a new people group in a different part of Bolivia. Also, Efrain (pictured here), one of the young men who has been part of the team for the last few years, is leaving us tomorrow after four years of faithful service here, and it has been a sad time for all of us. Please be in prayer for him that he will be refreshed as he gets to spend some time in his home country of Colombia, and pray that he will remain obedient to do the next thing to which the Lord calls him.

Bonus for the Readers:

As many of you know, I just returned to Bolivia from visiting the U.S. for vacation in late May and early June (I'm pictured here with a group of great friends from Virginia). It was a wonderful time of refreshment and rejuvenation for me and, afterwards, I could wholeheartedly relate to and agree with these words of the apostle Paul in Phil. 1:3-5:

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now" (Phil. 1:3-5).

While at home in Virginia, I had the privilege of being able to share with my sending church, London Bridge Baptist, a little bit of the miracle God did in providing us with our resident visas. But even LBBC folks don't know the whole story, so let me share with you just what a mighty God we serve!

Back in September of 2009, Leah, Amy, Misty, and I began the laborious process of obtaining missionary visas that would allow us to be legal residents of Bolivia. The process is complicated and constantly changing, so we use a visa runner who is familiar with the nuances and, even more importantly, who has lots of government contacts. The visa runner is expensive but far more efficient than us doing it ourselves.

I should stop and explain a little about the government here first. Bolivia is a third-world country with a third-world government. I don't mean that as an insult so much as a statement of fact. Let me illustrate my point here: Do you hate going to the DMV because its inefficiency will likely cost you an hour or more of your time? The DMV is an absolute model of efficiency by comparison with any Bolivian immigration office. You can ask for a list of the documentation you will need to obtain the missionary visa and walk into the office the next day with every last piece in your hand, only to be told you now need something else because the list has changed. It's a moving target that you can never anticipate, so you eventually learn to stop asking why and just do whatever they tell you to do in the hopes of one day getting the paperwork you need to legally remain in the country doing what God has called you to do. Visa work is a constant battle with frustration.

OK, now that you know the background, you can probably see more clearly why we use a visa runner. The particular one that other missionaries with our organization have used is located in Cochabamba, a city about eight hours north of where we live in Sucre. We debated beginning the process in Sucre but chose to begin in Cochabamba because our visa runner was there and because we would be there anyway to begin Quechua language school.

So, on a weekday morning in September, we gave our visa runner our passports and filled out the necessary paperwork to begin the process of applying for missionary visas. The whole thing took just a few hours, and our visa runner assured us that all we had to do was wait.

Little did we know we'd still be waiting eight months later. By that point, it was late April, and our annual team meeting was drawing near. The meeting is held every year in Peru and, without our passports, which were still in the hands of the Bolivian immigration officials, we would not be able to go. And I was hoping to begin my vacation right after the team meeting, so all of this did not make me very happy.

At this point, we got in touch with our visa runner, who assured us that the immigration officials would write us a letter allowing us to leave the country and return with no problems as long as we returned within 90 days. With that information, we began making plans for Peru, and I booked my plane tickets home.

But, a couple of weeks later, when we called to find out when we could expect our passports, we got the worst news we could imagine. Apparently, a new rule had been instituted that required the immigration officials in Cochabamba to verify that we lived at the address we had put on the application. The problem was that, though we had begun the process in Cochabamba during our time in language school, we no longer lived there but in Sucre. And the immigration officials now thought we had been deceptive and were refusing to grant us our visas or the letters we needed to re-enter the country. Our only option was to go to Cochabamba to talk with them in person.

There is much more to this story, and I learned so much through the experience. But, as you can see, it's a long story, and the Lord's work in this situation merits that I do it justice. So I promise to get you the next installment when I return from my community trip in a week. Truly, He has done great things!

Memories of Matt

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Misty and Amy have returned safely from their latest community trip and, though it was discouraging in many ways, the LORD taught them so much everyday! Praise Him for His constant revelation of Himself to His children!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:
1. We are having some serious visa issues right now and will be traveling to Cochabamba tomorrow to try to sort those out with the Bolivian immigration officials. Please pray that we would be accurate representations of the character of Christ before these government officials and that we would be humble and wise in our words.

2. Please be in prayer for our upcoming women's Xtreme training this fall. We have several national women who have expressed interest in being trained to go out and serve as missionaries, and we are so excited about all of this! Please pray that God would call these women first to Himself and then to His service.

3. Please be in prayer for my partner, Leah, as she has been facing some difficulties and discouragement lately. Pray that she would be encouraged by our Lord and that I would be able to encourage her as well.

Bonus for the Readers:

This will be a little different than most of my blogs, and I know some of you might be very glad to hear that. :) I wanted to use this space to pay tribute to my brother, Matt, because this coming Monday, May 3, will mark the fifteenth anniversary of his death. In some ways, it seems like he’s been gone forever but, in some ways, it seems like only yesterday. Matt was my only sibling, and he was 17 years old when he died. This is one of the last family pictures we had taken, from 1993 just before Matt was diagnosed.

Let me tell you a little about him. He was born in October of 1977, when I was in the first grade. At first, I thought he was pretty cool, because I got to leave school early to go to the hospital to see him for the first time. But that was before my dad traded in our beautiful sports car (which had no back seat) for a more practical, but far uglier, van. From that point on, Matt was just my annoying little brother.

Because of the six-year age difference, we weren’t all that close as we were growing up. He had his friends, and I had mine. We fought frequently, of course, but I learned to stop fighting physically when he got big enough to beat me. :)

But we did more than just fight. I remember having some surprisingly in-depth conversations with him. When I was about 14, our mother decided to quit her job to stay home with us, and Matt and I took a walk around the block the night our parents told us that. I remember telling him, “We’re going to have to make some changes and not be as greedy.” And his response was pretty astute for an 8-year-old: “Yeah, we can’t ask for so much stuff.” :)

That being said, Matt never had many problems with asking for what he wanted. When I was in college, I worked as an assistant manager at a local movie theater when I was home from school. One night, one of my employees came to tell me that my brother was there to see me. When I came to see him, I discovered that Matt had brought along with him the entire youth group from church, all of whom seemed to think I would allow them in to watch the movie of their choice for free. And you know what? I did, and my brother just grinned as he walked by me on the way to his free flick.

I was in college when we found out that Matt (pictured here to the right) had lymphoma. We were all shocked, of course. He was 15, six feet tall, a robust and healthy football player. Until he wasn’t.

It’s funny how life can change in an instant. One minute, I’m a 22-year-old college student with a perfectly healthy family back at home. The next, my brother is a cancer patient. Cancer. That’s a really ugly word that inevitably leads to one even uglier thought: Death.

Matt and I had never talked about faith. As a matter of fact, at that point in my life, I wasn’t following the Lord very closely, so I never had any real desire to talk about such things. But, thankfully, my dad asked the tough questions. One day, he asked Matt whether he was afraid, and Matt said no. Dad was understandably surprised, but Matt just said, “Why would I be afraid? What’s the worst thing that could happen? That I could die. But that’s the best thing that could happen.”

Wow. My brother had never really talked much about his faith before, but that explanation showed so much of how the Lord had worked in his life.

In May of 1995, Matt’s faith became sight when he stepped into the very presence of God, never to leave again. I’m sure he heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I still have mixed emotions about it. Does that surprise you? I mean, really, why should I be mixed up about Matt’s death? Shouldn’t the only emotion I have be sadness?

Nope.

Don’t get me wrong. I definitely feel that sadness. Even today, fifteen years after his 20-month-long battle with lymphoma ended, I still miss Matt (pictured here after his bone marrow transplant). I miss how he used to start small fights between my grandparents just so he could sit back and laugh at their bickering. I miss watching “Beavis and Butt-head” with him and listening to him laugh his head off at the antics of two completely idiotic cartoon characters. I miss seeing him do the silliest things to entertain his best friends. I even miss things that never happened, like seeing his high school graduation or being a part of his wedding or watching him play with his children.

But I also feel happiness. Shortly after Matt’s funeral, my dad told me something that was completely beyond my grasp at the time. He said, “If I had the opportunity to bring Matt back today, I wouldn’t.” I didn’t understand that at all then, but I get it now. My brother is in the very presence of God! There’s no more pain, no more crying, no more darkness, and no more death for him. There is only worshipping in the loving arms of His Lord and knowing Him fully. Why would I ever want Matt to come back to this world when he has all of that?

Which brings me to the third emotion I feel: Jealousy. Not in the sense that I want to trade places with him but that I want to be there with him! I now understand completely what Paul meant when he said:

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21)

There was a time when that concept was completely foreign to me. I remember my dad once told me how much he was looking forward to going home to be with the Lord. I was a teenager, and I thought, “I don’t want to do that yet! I want to finish school and have a great career and get married and have kids. All of that heaven stuff can wait!”

Yeah, I don’t feel that way anymore. I have learned that this world has nothing that can possibly compare with eternal life with my Savior. Can you imagine what it must be like to be with the Lord, with nothing standing in the way? Yeah, I can’t either, and I know it would be beyond anything I can even imagine.

Jesus describes eternal life for us in the midst of talking to His Father:

“Now this is eternal life: That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (Jn. 17:3)

And Paul gives a little information on the subject in these words:

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12)

One day, I will know God fully, even as He knows me. This, my brothers and sisters, is eternal life. Until then, we just have to persevere in what He’s called us to do. But all my hope is beyond this life.

Can’t wait to see you again, Matt. I think it just took me a little longer to learn the lessons you got in seventeen years. You weren’t short-changed; you were rewarded!

The Power of "I Can't"

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Misty and Amy had a great week in the community of Ayuma. The church there was so glad to see them, and they had several opportunities to share the stories of God's Word with the people. We are so thankful for this community and the constant encouragement that they are to us!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

1. Please continue to be in prayer for Misty and Amy as they have now moved on to the community of Falsuri, where the church has struggled with division and strife. Pray that the girls would be a true representation of what the church should always be - unified - and that they would be an encouragement to the people there.

2. Pray for the people of Falsuri and the girls' next community, which is still to be determined. Pray that the people would catch the vision of taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth, beginning with those of their own culture and language who have not heard.

3. Pray for Leah and me as we go on our own community trip next week. We will be taking Gretzel, a national believer who is interested in working with our team and who wants to get an idea of what the work is like. Pray that we would all be an encouragement to one another and to the church and that God would direct Gretzel's steps after she graduates from seminary this fall.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

Misty and Amy are currently out on their fourth community trip. Prior to this one, they have spent time in a variety of Quechua villages. The first was a place called Finca Esquina (FEENK-ah eh-SKEE-nah), which I'll, from now on, just designate as "Finca." (In the pictures are Misty with a cute kitten from Finca and a sunset over one of the mountains there.)

Finca is a place that's near and dear to our hearts. It's the hometown of our dear friend Simón, and everyone on our men's and women's teams have visited there multiple times. It's kind of like our home, too.

On the girls' first trip following language school, we hadn't planned to send them to Finca, as they had already worked there before. But the Lord had other ideas and, when our plans to send them to a neighboring community fell through, it was our next choice. The girls spent two weeks there, going from house to house and developing friendships with believers and non-believers alike. During that trip, they had multiple opportunities to share the stories they had memorized.

Now, I'm not sure if I've fully explained how we work before, so let me take the opportunity to do so now. If you've heard this already, just skip the next few paragraphs. :)

We choose stories from the Bible that will address different barriers that we have seen among the people with whom we are working. If we are trying to evangelize an animistic people group who believe they need to influence the balance of power among evil spirits (like the Quechua), we would incorporate stories which show God has power over those evil spirits (the Gospel has LOTS of examples of Jesus driving out demons). In our case, we are seeking to disciple women, so we incorporate stories about how women are loved and used by God. An example would be something like the Samaritan woman at the well, where Jesus spent time in conversation with this outcast woman, resulting in her salvation and subsequent missionary efforts to bring her entire town to meet Jesus (see John 4:1-42).

Once the stories have been chosen, we carefully craft them to a manageable amount, using as much directly from the Word as possible. If necessary, we summarize large sections (for example, the flood is recorded over three chapters of Genesis, so the story is largely summarized), but we try to use as much direct quotation from Scripture as we can. Once the story has been crafted, we memorize it and share it with the people so that they can memorize it as well.

Now that sounds very easy, but it's not at all, either for the trainers or for the listeners. Memorization by hearing requires listening to the story multiple times. We as trainers do as much as we can to help the people memorize, particularly by incorporating actions and other memorization aids into the teaching, but the main method we use is lots of repetition. This gets tiring, and it's just plain hard work for everybody involved.

That being said, that was what our girls were trying to do in Finca (and on every trip they make). Unfortunately, they weren't having much success in getting the people to memorize the stories. The main excuse they heard time and time again was, "I can't."

When the girls are out on a trip, they call Leah and me twice a week to let us know how things are going, how we can be praying, and what struggles they're having. On that trip, they called us very discouraged, and the reason for that discouragement was that they kept hearing that excuse.

Let me give you a little background on the Quechua. This is a downtrodden people group, if ever there was one. Descendants of the powerful Incas, they were conquered by the Spanish in the 1500s. When that happened, their culture, their language, and their religion were all superseded by those of their conquerors. Suddenly, they became second-best and, 500 years later, this still continues. If they are educated at all, they are taught in Spanish and, sadly enough, most cannot even read in Quechua, though it is their first language. They are typically farmers (see the picture of us helping sow potatoes and beans in one of the fields in Finca) and live in the rural areas, meaning they are of a lower socioeconomic class than their Latin counterparts. Even if they have money and want to come to the cities, they are often precluded from living in certain areas simply because they are Quechua. Their animistic practices of animal sacrifice are also viewed as inferior to the practices of the Catholic church, meaning they frequently incorporate Catholic saints into their spiritual viewpoints.

Now, in addition to this second-class mentality of the race, imagine where the women are in social status. They are the lowest of an already low class of people. Is it any wonder these women think they can't memorize a story?

But, my friends, while it's very easy to understand and even sympathize with these women, let me remind us all of this: THAT IS AN EXCUSE!!!

I bet you're wondering how I, an American who's had every possible educational and financial opportunity, say that? Because Scripture tells me this:

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." (Phil. 4:13, NAS)

And it also says this:

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor. 12:9-10, NIV)

See, there is no excuse for any of us because it's not we ourselves who are doing the work anyway. It is all about Him, His power, His strength. None of this is about us.

When the girls told us about how the women of Finca didn't believe they could memorize the stories, they wondered why they were even there. If the women weren't willing to put in the effort to learn the Word, why should our team even stay there? And I will admit that I wondered the same thing.

The next day, as I was praying about that very thing, God led me to this passage:

"'This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the LORD Almighty."'" (Zech. 4:6)

That day, it was not the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel but the word of the LORD to Kelli because it was the key to everything for us. See, this work that we do will not be accomplished by us. The Quechua believers will never, by our might, come to know that they can do this work, and the Quechua non-believers will never, by our power, understand that there is One True God Who came in human form to redeem them. They will only know and understand these things by His Spirit.

So, if you think you can't memorize Scripture or share the Good News or anything else that God commands you to do, just remember how powerful that "I can't" mentality is. Then remind yourself of the Truth that nothing you do is by might nor by power but by His Spirit. Then you'll recognize that, through Him, you can.