The Story of our First Worship in our new village POST ONE

This is Natalie,
Ryan and I are going to both write in the next few blogs together.   A little background to get us started on the past Sunday's experience.  

Ryan has been researching villages and was given the opportunity to come work alongside another pastor in a village that is about a 15 minute boat ride from our house.    While meeting with the pastor and talking about the needs of the village it came to light that there were only 8-10 Christians in the village and that most people had never even heard of Jesus, the Bible or the One True God.   The pastor has been praying for someone to come and help him and to train him.    We as a family made arrangements to begin coming to the small worship service on Sunday mornings and to work with him during the week and on Saturdays.  

This past Sunday we were all excited about going to the village, but Mari-Madeline had a fever so we decided that she and I would stay home.   Ryan, Walker and Lorelai headed out for a great time of worship and fellowship.    Walker called me when he was done with children's church and was excited to report that there were 5 snakes slithering around while they were in class.   He also informed me that the main service was in Garifuna and Spanish and that children's church was in Miskito!    We laughed at having to learn 2 new languages and how fun that would be.   He told me that Ryan and Lorelai were still and church and he thought they had about another hour to got.....It is normal for worship service to last 2-4 hours here.   We were so excited about the opportunity to work in this village and Walker was so excited about sharing the gospel with other kids in the area.  

Now, that is the beginning of the best, worst, most incredibly blessed day that this family of 5 has ever had.   Ryan is going to pick up from here in a new post....

God's Word in many languages

The past 6 weeks the children have been learning and commiting to memory 1 Samuel.   We are still only part way through the book.   Suprisingly, Lorelai is the best story teller of the bunch.   She has listend to every word from the Bible and is able to retell it in her own words.   She needs little correction even after only hearing it one time.  The other two are amazing as well, but it just seems easier for Lorelai.   

Mari-Madeline suprised us the other day by telling the story in Spanish!    She translated it all on her own and was able to tell it to someone else.    What an amazing gift she has!

All three children have been sharing the story, they have some friends who speak English so it has worked out well.   Ryan and I are convicted of sharing the Gospel through Bible Storytelling and this was even more affirmation to see our children being able to do it.   It was even more amazing to hear it told in another language by our children.   I pray that one day they will know all the Chronilogical Bible Stories and be able to tell them in Spanish to the children we are working with.

Yesterday, Ryan and I were looking at some school curriculum for the kids and we were blown away by the wording for one school's wording regarding Bible and Foriegn language classes:

"To know that one day people will stand at judgement seat of Christ as redeemed souls-all beacause of our burden to reach those who do not speak our language-will be our greatest reward." `LBC

How true is that statement.  I pray that we continue to share God's word in the native tongue of the people we are working with.   Right now we are learning 3 language due to the fact that we are working with three groups of people in the same village.

Waiting and waiting

This past week at over 4 and a half years Lorelai finally gave up her pacifier.    She told us she would scream and she did for about an hour.   She then decided life was still great and moved on.    That pacifier has been the object of many conversations between family, friends, doctors, dentist, and complete strangers.   Honestly, the only opion we ever valued was that of the dentist and doctor.  They all agreed that the pacifier was fine, but try telling that to the rest of the world.   We were constanlty persecuted because we waited.   Glory to God that we listened to Him and raised our children in a way we saw fit.  The benifit to this was that our child was ready emotionally when we she parted with her pacifier.  We agree the wait was worth it.

So, what does this story have to do with anything?   Well, we have learned over the past 5 years that everything is in God's time.   When you try and schedule things on your own you will be disapointed and desperate.  There have been so many times that we have waited, knowing that God had something in store for us, but we just had to wait.   I can't tell you how frustrating that is.   These past 6 months have been so hard waiting while we learn a language and a culture.   All that changed yesterday with a boat stop in a village we were starting research in.

Ryan had already made contact with a pastor there, but do to rain, schedules and illnesses he was not able to return until yesterday.    Ryan, the girls and I stopped by after we had helped another family.    What a blessing and humbling experience it was.   Ryan met with the pastor while the girls and I played with the local kids.   The pastor said there are about 500 people in the village with about 8 Christians and that no one else has even heard Jesus Christ name.  You see this pastor has only had limited training and does not have any knowledge of how to reach out to his own people.   He was so excited to have Ryan there willing to train him. help him outreach and was even more excited to learn how to plant house churches!

You see, had we not waited and been patient we could have very easily missed this entire village.   I am so grateful for God's guidance and direction.  

Please join us in praying for this village.   We will not be sharing the name of the village for security reason, just know it is Gracias A Dios, Honduras.    Very ironic that the name of our state in Honduras is Thanks to God!