Sharing Good News

Arnoldo Ca’al, a young student at the Bezaleel School, found Jesus as His Savior and Friend through the teaching of the pastors. He grew in his faith and wanted his community, which had no evangelical church, to know about God’s plan for Salvation. Arnoldo invited the church leaders to go to his community and share the Good News.

The church leaders went to Arnoldo’s community walking 7 hours to get there. They were invited to preach in the local Catholic Church. No one accepted Christ that first trip, but the church leaders returned because of the receptiveness the people showed to their messages. Upon their third trip to the community eleven families believed and a Mennonite Church began. The former Catholic leader, Brother Sebastian, began studying in the Bible Institute and became their pastor. That took place five years ago.

Recently we visited this community, Seabas. They dedicated a new block church building. The beautiful building showed the hard labor and dedication of this excited group of believers. People flocked from neighboring communities walking hours to attend this dedication service. What a joy to be a part of the celebration with this church! There was a wedding and a baby dedication as well. Another family committed their lives to Christ at the meetings and many requested prayer.

We wish that others could have seen that gathering of people and the openness to hear the messages. Even children sat with attentive listening ears.

Galen said that he never had driven a bad road like the one we traveled. It took us five and a half hours to drive to that community. For two hours the car slowly chugged along in first gear, low range four wheel drive climbing a very rough, muddy road with deep holes and rocks. The church leaders traveling with us pushed us through one muddy spot when we got stuck. “I’ll never agree to do this again,” Galen said. After the weekend Galen told me maybe he would try that trip again. Going down the mountain was much easier than the climb up. The truck carrying the worship team and equipment reported that five times they pushed to get the truck through the mud.

Phyllis visited with the health worker that she had trained from that community. She appreciated the work he was doing in providing needed medicine in that far away community. She enjoyed teaching the children Bible stories. This took up her time of waiting for the services to start on Sunday morning and provided some occupation for the children whose mothers were busy preparing the noon meal to serve the 500 people plus children that attended the meetings.

Monday morning we attended the first meeting of students and parents at Bezaleel School. Special prayers were offered for the administration, teachers, students, and parents. A mother told us of four students from the Cahabon area that has no evangelical church in their community. Pray that the Good News would be heard and understood and more churches planted.