It would be difficult to tell you the story of today at San Antonio El Rico without first telling you of our prayer time together last night. Pastor Larry was really struggling with a decision of whether to go to a VBS site or to stay and teach the local Pastors and their wives. He had good reasons for doing either, so choosing one or the other proved to be a difficult task. So our group prayed over him, seeking God’s wisdom for the decision.
As it would turn out, Pastor Larry (PL as I affectionately call him) decided that he should go to the VBS site with us. We arrived at our location, which was really nothing more than a dusty field, complete with stray dogs, and even a few cows and goats! We strung tarps from trees to provide some shade from the glaring sun and VBS began!
Not long into the morning, a grown man arrived at our location, dressed in very tattered clothes, smelling like he had not bathed in quite some time, and bringing with him a very, very strange request. He asked me if I would write down the Star Spangled Banner for him . . . the Star Spangled Banner. So, I obliged.
It was pretty funny because I had to sing it as I wrote it down and at one point I simply could not remember the words. And up walked PL. “PL, “ I said. “What comes after o’er the ramparts we watch?” And in the best soprano voice I have ever heard from a man, he sang the rest of the words to me as I wrote them down.
Once I had given the song to the man I thought, “I should witness to this man.” So I asked, “Sabes Cristo?” (“Do you know Christ?”) and he said no. Panicking, because my Spanish is TERRIBLE, I grabbed Sophie Chavez, who is quite fluent in Spanish, and Pastor Larry, who is quite fluent in Jesus, and I told them both that the man did not know Jesus, and I thought they should tell him about Jesus.
What happened after that was so incredible. Picture the scene of this man (Jose Luis), Pastor Larry, and a teenage girl, standing in the midst of a dirty, dusty field and eternal life change happening. As fast as PL could talk, and as fast as Sophie could translate, they talked of God’s love and the saving grace of Christ to Jose Luis. And Jose Luis became our brother, our “hermano”, in Christ.
-Carol Jones
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