After working several years in the village of La Cumbre and investing our lives among the people there, last Sunday, July 11th made it all worthwhile.

There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes of building relationships with people, earning their trust and respect.  Sometimes it’s working hard with them and sweating with them out in the fields, other times it’s enjoying a birthday party or special occasion with them, but yet at other times it’s agonizing with them while someone is sick or has just passed away. It’s at these times we live out our testimony among the people … the same people that are trying to understand why we would want to be with them in the first place. You see, it just doesn’t make sense to love people unconditionally … by the “world’s” standard of thinking anyway.

When we first started working there, most people would not give us the time of day and would never have invited us into their home. Now days, things have changed drastically … and for the better. We can’t hardly get in and out of the village now without being stopped and asked to get out and go eat with them and by far the most amazing feeling of trust … is when the kids come running up to greet us as if we were long-lost family members. Well, we are family members now … eternal family members, as several people have surrendered their lives to Christ and last Sunday, the first five people wanted to publicly show their obedience to Christ through baptism.

It was amazing to see how God orchestrated everything, as the day started out rainy and cold. We had purchased a small children’s swimming pool, but soon realized that we didn’t have enough water available to fill it even halfway. So we constructed a small frame out of PVC pipe, and used a heavy tarp as a liner and then connected to a hot water shower that we had previously installed and started filling it up.

As we started preparing everything, the rain stopped, the clouds started clearing out and the sun even started shining!  After each person was baptized, they stayed in and helped baptized the next person. It was a great opportunity to teach the people that not only are they capable and authorized to do the great commission … but they are commanded to do so!  They are learning from the start that it should be an expectation of every Christ follower to serve others.

In some of these villages, a public display of allegiance to Christ can be costly. Sometimes they are ostracized by their family members or the rest of the community, sometimes they are denied basic rights in the village and other times they are run out of the village or even something worse … so this was a very big deal and we’re very proud of each and every one of them!

As we finished up and headed out of the village we looked behind us and saw an amazing sight … the clouds had started moving up the mountains from out of the valley below us, as if they were given permission to come back.  And so they did, it turned cold and cloudy on our way out and it started raining again.  What an awesome day the Lord gave us!