God Is Not Late

Our "offical" Tuesday Together in the Word reading group is taking a summer break and will be starting back in September. Please contine reading and be ready to start back the first week in September.

Matthew 9:36-38, “But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’”

The day after we arrived in Ecuador, we gathered on the hotel roof at 2pm to meet all the pastors who would be working with our teams. I was already a little nervous because I did not have a translator. The person who was to be my translator was running late to the meeting. At the meeting, Brother Sam discussed the upcoming events of the week and reviewed with the pastors the things for which they would be responsible, for example, providing our transportation and food for the week. At the very end of the meeting, I noticed a pastor running in the door holding a motorcycle helmet. I prayed, “Please Lord, don’t let that be the pastor that I am assigned to.” He had missed the entire meeting and obviously was not that interested in working with a team because at that point he was two hours late. Can you guess which pastor I was assigned to? Yep, you guessed it!

One of my fears going into this trip was that I would be matched with a pastor who was not truly interested in working with our team. Looking at the circumstances surrounding the day, it appeared that this was going to be the case. All the other teams started leaving to do prayer walking in the village to which they were assigned. At that point, my translator still had not arrived, and I could not communicate with the pastor. I was getting that “freaked out” feeling again. One bright spot was that Tabitha Hyde and I were assigned to the same team. I used her translator to ask the pastor how we were going to travel to our assigned village. He said that he did not know because all he had was a motorcycle. He asked if Tabitha and I could ride on his dirt bike. This was a problem because Tabitha’s translator also needed to go with us. We started to try to find a second motorcycle. Luckily, my translator arrived and came to our rescue, and we were able to use his car. I discovered that my translator had been late because he had seminary classes that morning, and he was working with Child Evangelism Fellowship in the afternoon. Tabitha was disappointed about not getting to ride the motorcycle. I think the Lord knew of her disappointment and “blessed” her with another motorcycle ride later in the week (I will save that wild story for another blog).

I can honestly say that God totally took care of every worry that I had about this trip. Not one concern that I had came to be, including my concern with the pastor. I thought his two-hour lateness was because he was not interested in working with us. I found out that he was late because he was one of the three pastors that had asked for a team but had been turned down. In a previous blog, I mentioned that three pastors had to be turned away because we did not have enough team members. I asked you to pray for the teams that would be put together. Thank you for your prayers! God answered them in amazing ways.

My pastor was named Pastor Omar. He had been contacted the previous week and told that a team would not be able to work with his church because there were only enough workers for 10 other teams. His church desperately wanted a team to help them start a church in an area with no church. His church began a weeklong time of fasting and praying. Pastor Omar said he begged and cried out to God to send workers. He then received a phone call at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon telling him that there was a change in plans (one of the ten pastors had not shown up to the meeting). He was told that if he could get from his church to the city of Ventanas in about 15 minutes, he might be able to have a team working with his church. He said that he jumped on his motorcycle and made the normally 30-minute drive in about 15 minutes. Thus, that is why he ran into the meeting at the last minute.

Thank you God for not answering my prayer of “please don’t let that be the pastor.” If that prayer had been answered, I would have missed one of the greatest blessings of my life. Pastor Omar is a wonderful man of God. It was an honor to work with him. He and his church of about 30 members have such a passion for the lost and a deep concern for areas that do not have churches. Most people do not have cars, and in remote villages, walking is their only means of getting to church. If a church is not within walking distance, people cannot go. Pastor Omar and his church wanted to start a church in a remote village about 45 minutes away.

On Sunday morning, Pastor Omar shared that his church had been praying for several years for a missionary to come to their church. He said that no one had ever come. As he was telling Tabitha and me this, I decided that I would begin praying for a missionary to visit his church one day. I could see how desperately they wanted this. Tabitha said she was thinking the same thing. But then, he started telling us how thankful he was that God had answered their prayers and sent us. I had never felt more unworthy and undeserving than I did at that moment. I really do not deserve to be the answer to anyone’s prayers, especially for the prayer of a missionary coming to their church. Why God chose to use me in this way, I really do not understand. I am just very thankful that He did.

Thank you for all your prayers!

Kelly