This was a month with a lot of work, but also a month in which the Lord gave the undeserved gift of seeing so much grace poured out in the lives of our brothers and sisters in the churches of the Napo River Basin. We spent several days with a group of pastors in the jungle studying the doctrine of man using Paul Washer’s workbook.
After the days of study together, we met one final time with all of the pastors to discuss a plan for how they would continue studying after we left. During that time, one of the deacons from a village called Mazan approached me. With tears filling his eyes he shared with us the burden that he has for those regions of the jungle, and his sense of impotence. His desperation was due to the fact that he had seen many villages along the Napo River where there are no churches. As part of his job, he has to travel and visit those villages, and he told us, “I am happy that you are here to help us learn about the Bible, but even as we are here learning, there are people that are dying without Christ in those towns. There is no one to go preach to them. Pastors, please help us! I’ll accompany anyone who wants to go and preach the gospel to those towns.” He wept as he spoke.
It’s amazing to see how the Lord is touching the hearts of these brothers and sisters in the Napo River Basin. We feel impotent. We want to help, but we are unable to do as much as we would like. So, we want to ask you, brothers and sisters, to please continue praying that the Lord would provide what is needed to reach these places.
When our time together had come to an end, it was an emotional time as we watched the brothers depart to began their travel back to their towns. These were marvelous days together. Despite their own need to pay for gasoline to travel up the river, still, the brothers insisted that we take 15 dollars from them as a gift. With sincere love they asked us to accept it. We could not say no in the face of such grace at work in their hearts. After they gave us the gift we used it to purchase gasoline and we distributed it to each of them.
We were humbled by the time we spent with these brothers. Not only did we see such grace of the Lord working in their lives, but we also saw how limited we our in everything. Please, pray that the Lord would continue guiding us and that he would help us equip these pastors. Also, pray that each of the pastors that studied with us will be able to now teach the truths they learned to their churches. We are thankful for the support that HeartCry gives to make these trainings possible, and we hope that it continues to be for the glory of God.
