Honduras II

Six weeks ago, two young men were caught in a web of deceit and spiritual treachery. Their lives were being pulled into a morass of degredation and the sin was eating them alive. The secrets were killing them and the shame in it all was more than they could bear. As it was the mercy of God that exposed them, and as full confession poured forth, each discovered His grace, forgiveness and reconciliation in strong measure and their resulting thankfulness has spilled out in one long strand of miracles (read the “Mad No More” posts).

One such miracle is that these young men just spent ten days in Honduras sharing Christ with natives and being Jesus to the lost and undone in this remarkable little country. My son, Graham, and his friend Jacob were among a group of thirty courageous individuals who went into the deeper recesses of Honduras and offered medical, dental and spiritual aid for an unreached people group, the Toulapan. These are a people so primitive their language is far from developed and unknown even to their neighbors.

The niece of the tribe’s chief came to know Christ (through a miracle) and she became the ad hoc evangelist of her tribe through interpretation! When I think of this, I remember another woman of the Bible who became her people’s evangelist: the woman by the well in John 4. In the last Honduran mission, eight Toulapani received Christ as Savior, making the ground very fertile for a harvest. Indeed it was, as over thirty Toulapani were added to their number last week! Over all, 145 Hondurans opened their hearts to Jesus on this trip and the medical teams ministered to upwards of 800 in the clinics.

Another miracle is that the Lord used Jacob to lead 25-30 people to the Son of God. Last month, he was a stone wall and wanted nothing to do with God and was drowning in a whorl of spiritual darkness. The Deliverer set him free and indefeasibly set his feet in a foreign land scant weeks later, where he was aggressively offering the good news of redemption to all comers.

The Lord used Graham in powerful servant ways. He was often by the side of the team’s leadership, offering himself to do whatever they asked of him, no matter how dismal or difficult. One day, he witnessed a 93-year old woman being treated for a horrendous skin ulcer. The entire lower leg was necrotic, and she told the medical staff that the skin had been dying for 57 years! After addressing the leg, the team focused on her heart and this woman received the Life of God in His Son, Jesus Christ! It is completely unheard of for a woman of her age, steeped in man’s religion, to come to the Lord, but there it was!

Her home is no larger than our living room, and even though she has had to beg for everything in her life, there was a happiness in her that defied all logic. This woman really touched Graham’s heart.

There are other stories to tell, even one about a young lady who became so smitten by my son, she told him she loved him and sobbed like all get out when he had to leave. He, not yet seventeen, told ’Yenni’, a 23-year old that he might come back with another team in January. She said, “no, not might, but WILL!” I think we’ll start looking for another field for Graham…

Our son’s heart is taken by Honduras. He would live there tomorrow if God called him and he looks forward to going back again and again for no other reason than to see God finish His perfect work in his life and because he loves Elmer, Eddie, Meily, Christy and all the glorious souls he has met there and those he has yet to encounter. The night he came back into his home country, he told me that just a few weeks ago, Jacob would bring up his (first) trip to Honduras (in June) and Graham would scoff and say, “I’m not gonna do anything to raise money for it. When the money doesn’t come in, I won’t have to go!”

“Dad, I was so stupid!” he confessed. “Look what I would have missed out on if I got my way!”

What a difference, and Christ has done it all. To Him alone belongs all the praise and the reward of His suffering.