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Topic: Pastor (11/30/06)
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TITLE: 'ELVIS' WE CALL HIM. | Previous Challenge Entry
By Malin Boman
12/03/06 -
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We had just arrived, my husband and I after an overnight boat trip and then a three hour bumpy bus ride.
It had been ten months since we had visited the little Bible School out there in no mans land where hardly any foreigner’s stray and new students had enrolled in the school since our last visit.
A few of the young students had built up enough courage to come and join us as we enjoyed the slight breeze that swept one of the corners of the school building.
Shyness soon left as the politely started to answer our intriguing questions.
Without a word spoken, we all seemed to understand that this was a precious moment that we had together and so they willingly shared their life stories with us as the sun was setting.
Their smiling faces soon revealed a different part of their lives, their lives before hope and love and peace had come into their lives.
During this time of revealing of past pains he joined us from under the tree canopies.
Another smiling face was added to our little gathering.
Like the others he was still in his early twenty’s but much had already happened in his life. He had once been a feared drug pusher and user with a strong smoking addiction; in fact the local police in his village were planning to kill him because of his bad influence on the neighbourhood.
His addictions had affected his body, stopping the blood flow to many parts of his fingers and toes and one of his legs was smaller and thinner than the other.
His biggest dilemma was his right big toe that had become so painful and part of it had just died off. That toe kept him awake every night and in great pain for over two years.
Trying to save her son, his dear mother had arranged for him to leave the area and go and live with her sister in another location. This aunt happened to be a Pastor of a church.
During a prayer meeting the members asked to pray for his toe and to his surprise, the pain left.
It was such a relief to get healed that he dedicated his entire life to Him.
Seeing him telling the story was overwhelming, just like all the others. We felt so privileged to be sitting on those wooden chairs in the middle of the back waters of the Philippines that nobody knows about and see these young men’s dedication.
Still in their twenties their lives had been filled with horrendous things but God had snatched them out of the fire and now they were willing to give back their lives to Him, even if that meant a life of poverty as a Pastor in some small village somewhere.
These men would never be able to preach in a big church building with all ‘the trimmings’.
With God’s grace there would at least be a small bamboo building with a vinyl roof in the first year and maybe an even smaller parsonage for them to live in.
A single guitar would be their first instrument with one set of strings that sooner or later would turn into five or four strings.
The mud floor would one day be cemented and another concrete block be added to the half built walls. The building would slowly become finished maybe four or five years later, maybe longer.
There would be times of starvation and times when there would be no money to go to the district convention or the local doctor.
I knew it would most likely happen to them just as I had seen it happen to so many before them, still my heart rejoiced with theirs as they shared their desire to serve Him.
This were the new generation Pastors in the making. My hidden heroes I call them.
Despite their hardships, the true love of worship fills these bamboo shacks.
Those four string guitars can sounds better than any Western worship conference with all its technical equipment and their voices express love and gratitude that seldom can bee heard in the West.
Slowly the group heads back inside for the night.
As quick as it happened, the moment is gone.
We too get into bed after an exhausting day, but our hearts are filled with wonder of His goodness.
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