Jungle Warfare

We start with a battle hymn. I and the four other warriors gather around a Spanish hymnal and belt out a song. It’s an upbeat one that speaks of working in the “vineyard of the Lord”. As we sing, a certain energy runs through the group. An energy that only comes from knowing you are about to step out onto the front lines and do battle. And its not just any battle, but one against “principalities and powers and rulers of darkness.” When I read verses like that, I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. Yes, a battle song is definitely necessary.

The song finishes. We have prayer and embark, each to our respective communities. The front line for me is a squatter’s community, or invasion community, in the jungle of Peru. The streets are incredibly dusty, and they are littered with the mangiest looking dogs you’ve ever seen. The houses are patchwork jobs of cardboard boxes, aluminum, and thatch. Its no paradise, but then again, front lines normally aren’t

I make my way to Victor’s house, my first student. When I first came to his home, a few weeks earlier, the whole household of nine was sitting outside enjoying the shade of evening. I explained a little about our mission and how I wanted to study the Bible with the family. Victor was the only one interested. I always looked forward to studying with this 24 year old because unlike most of my other students, he hasn’t really ever heard of the most basic Bible principals.

Today I teach lesson five and six of a twenty lesson set. Lessons five and six deal with salvation and the pardon of sins. He listens with wrapped excitement and wonder as I share the story of Jesus and his sacrifice and how if Victor were the only person in the world who needed salvation, Christ still would have died for him. The lessons are question and answer format. I have Victor read the questions, but he starts to choke up near the end. Admitedly, I have a lump in my throat as I watch the power of divine love bring a man to accept Christ for the first time.

As I move on the next house. I feel so humbled by the fact that a man’s eternal life is no longer in question, as it was just a half an hour before.

My next student is Pedro. As soon as I walk in the door, the first question he asks me is what church I’m from, something that hasn’t come up before. As a rule I don’t tell my students what church I’m from right off the bat. I tell them I’m Christian and am here to teach them the Bible. But since he asked, I tell Pedro I´m a Seventh Day Adventist. His face lights up and he tells me the story of his son. A boy who dabbled in everything the word had to offer until a missionary got a hold of him. The father said he hardly recognized the boy, as his life had been completely changed. The missionary was a Seventh Day Adventist. Pedro can’t wait to complete the lessons and join his son in the faith.

Not everyone is that easy to reach. I go to Monica’s house next. She acts kind of bothered by my presence and tells me she’s busy and to come back later. The problem is, that’s what she told me the last time and the time before that. Its time to let her go. I bid her good day and as I walk away, I draw a line through the name “Monica” on my sheet. We had made it to lesson four, just before the salvation lesson. I walk with my head down for a little while.

The next family cheers me up. They are a lively bunch with eleven kids. With Peruvian music blaring in the background, children pulling my hair, and ducks waddling in and out of the house, we make it through lesson five and six with time to spare. They insist I stay for lunch. I´m served up a heaping bowl of cooked alligator chunks. I plunge chunks into my mouth and assure the woman of the house that it’s the best alligator I´ve ever had. I´m going to have a hard time explaining myself when we get to lesson 17, the health message.

Re-energized by broiled alligator, I´m ready for the afternoon. I continue from house to house, teaching and explaining the Good Book. Some students show great interest and nod enthusiastically throughout the lessons. Others simply stare at their lessons, without saying a word, making me feel like I’m teaching a statue. The ones I really enjoy are those that ask questions. Omer, one student, asks me things like, “if God is love, why did he send the flood?” Today, when I explain lesson five, he asks me if I would die on a cross for anyone. I said I probably wouldn´t.

The last lesson of the day is with Yoshi, a 24 year old mom with a two year old son. She´s heard lesson five and six before. In fact she´s heard the exact lessons. Adventists had come to the community in which she used to live. She told me that she was scared of Baptism, lesson 19, and didn´t finish. I told her we would take one lesson at a time, and I would do my best not to force anything. Today after we finished studying, she tells me her story. The father of her two year old, and the baby she will have in a month, is a drug addict. He left her several months ago and is living on the street. Tears started streaming down her cheeks as she told me how close she came to becoming a prostitute so she could feed her son. Thank God I didn´t come to that point, she says as she wipes her face with her shirt. Before I leave, I tell her that it isn´t by chance that she is studying the lessons for a second time, or that a white boy from southern United States was in her house teaching the Bible. “God is searching for you, Yoshi”, I say. We have prayer and I leave.
I make my way back to our camp. The other warriors are coming in too, their swords in hand. They look just as tired as I do, but we all have smiles on our faces. Then comes one of my favorite parts; over supper we all share our battle stories. They too have eaten strange things today. They too have heard stories of anguish and sadness. They too have led others to accept Christ for the first time. Our hearts are thrilled as we talk and sing late into the night. We lay our swords down and go to our respective tents to sleep. We all know that with lesson ten still ahead, the Sabbath, the struggle in these tiny homes in Peru is just beginning. But that also means that the finest hour of battle is yet to come.

The Beauty of the Beast

The beast described in Revelation 13 is a formidable foe. But when I decided to preach a revelation series to our newly formed church here in Peru, I knew it would have to be reckoned with. My nervousness was two-fold. For one, I would be revealing this beast power to Peruvians, whose country is 85 percent Catholic. And secondly, well, I would be preaching to Peruvians, who speak Spanish. And while my Spanish has come a long ways, I’ve still got a long ways to go.

For these reasons, if you would have stumbled upon my cabin here in the jungle of Peru a month ago, you would have found me preaching late in the evening to my bunk bed and the jungle crickets outside, who gave me the same monotonous droning no matter how passionate my appeals. At times, you would have found me flinging my Spanish dictionary across the room, frustrated that I couldn’t word a phrase exactly how I wanted, its meaning compromised in translation. Honing the message just right was a long and arduous process, but when Wednesday nights came around, I was ready.

And the first beast sermon went well, albeit there were only ten people in attendance. After preparing so extensively for these things, I fantasized about preaching to a stadium full of people. The lord, however, has many ways to keep a student missionary humble. But ten is better than none, and as they left I reminded them not to miss next Wednesday night’s sermon on “The Lady in Red.” I thought perhaps a fancy title for a sermon on Bablyon might bring more people.

And whether it was the mysterious title, or the better weather, or the fact that folks just wanted to see a white boy raving about some beasts in broken Spanish, a few more did make it to the next Wednesday night meeting. Again I preached my heart out, and let the Holy Spirit fill in the gaps in the language. At the end of the meeting I told the dozen or so people who had missed the beast message the previous week that it was crucial to hear that one before they heard the next sermon on the mark of the beast. We all agreed on having an extra meeting Friday night to catch up.

Friday night arrived, and almost an hour early, in walked my friend Dora with a woman and four small children who I hadn’t seen before. Dora pulled me aside and explained that this woman was her neighbor. The woman, who I’ll call Maria, had recently found her husband in her own bed with another woman. A day later the husband left Maria and her four children. The distraught woman, having no one else to turn to, came to her neighbor Dora (recently baptized in our church). Dora, doing the logical thing, decided to bring her to church on the night that I was preaching on the beast of revelation 13!

I reckon all would have been sort of well if more people had shown up. A group of believers would have been there to console Maria. But no one else did. Seven o’clock came and went and the only people sitting in the small rustic church were Dora, Maria, and her four children. I stepped outside and looked up at the stars to question God. What do I do Lord? This woman needs counseling and a shoulder to cry on, not a discourse on little horn powers and apostate Christianity. She doesn’t even know the Sabbath truth! Surely Lord, I should just sit down, listen to her story, and call it a night. I, however, got the distinct impression that I should continue with the message that I had prepared. Shaking my head I walked back into the church and began to preach.

And preach I did, imagining the church was full. Starting in Daniel I laid out characteristics of the little horn power and their implications. I moved to revelation 13 to draw parallels. I furiously wrote on my white board that I normally use to teach English so my five member audience could visualize the web of Bible prophecy. Throughout the presentation, Maria was breastfeeding her child. Occasionally, when the other three kids would become restless, she’d wrangle them in with one arm while holding her son, still feeding, with the other. Her face was incredibly stoic. There were no amen’s or pensive looks, but a poker face throughout the lesson. Even as I was preaching, I couldn’t believe I was doing it. “This is not what she needs!” my mind was screaming.

Her seven-year-old daughter, the eldest child, wasn’t helping my confidence either. She listened, but with the most incredulous look on her face. She had one eyebrow raised and she wasn’t smiling. Even when I tried to coax a laugh out of her as I acted out the bear of Daniel seven, the eyebrows only rose higher and I detected a slight role of the eyes.
I finished with a tactful appeal explaining how Catholics were our friends and how the sermon wasn’t an attack on them but the devil and his conniving. We finished with prayer. I was glad it was over, just knowing that I had been mistaken by preaching a beast of a message to a grieving mother.

Then something amazing happened. As she stood to leave, she smiled- the first break of the stoic face. She firmly shook my hand and told me thank you very much for the message. She then asked me when the next meeting was. I was stunned, and stammered something about meeting the next morning for church. We have church on Sabbath I said. She told me she’d be there.

And she was. She was there the next morning, and the next Wednesday night. In fact she came almost every time the church door was open for the rest of the time I worked at that site (about a month). And as far as I know, she is still attending that church.

I praise God. I praise Him for his wisdom in knowing what is best, and knowing just what people need to hear. I praise Him for the work of His Holy Spirit, without which, this gringo kid playing pastor with broken Spanish would never have made an impact on anyone. I praise him for giving the Adventist church this message. Now, I am not advocating that we go around preaching the beast to single, grieving moms. If you want that tactic to work, come to Peru where the ground is incredibly fertile. I am however, advocating the simple preaching and sharing of the word of God. We are the only church preaching this end time message. And if an abandoned mother of four was thirsty for it. I have good reason to believe the rest of the world is too.