“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.” (II Chronicles 16:9)
I know God is in control. I know that nothing escapes his eyes or takes him by surprise. I know he has a purpose for everything that happens. I know and believe with every ounce of my being that Romans 8:28 is true, and that “…all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” It is OK to ask questions of God, but we can never question God – and I hope you understand the difference in those statements. So as I share this latest story with you, I will readily admit that I am often puzzled by these things, while at the same time I am curious and interested to see how God moves to work this one out.
As many of you know who read this blog, we have been involved with a group of churches in the Central American country of Belize for a number of years. We actually took our first trip there in 2001, one month after the attack on theWorldTradeCenter. That was 11 years ago. We have developed some very wonderful relationships as a result, and have watched churches grow and seen people “grow up” over those many years as well. We met Artemio and Noemi Cal on our very first visit. They are some of the most passionate servants of Jesus Christ I know. Temy (pronounced “Timmy”) is a pioneer. He has done church planting in Belize for many years. About 5 years ago, they bought a piece of ground in a village called Copper Bank, a fishing village on the very northern tip of Belize. They knew absolutely no one there. They dug a well and built a house and started going through the village sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. They were met with immediate resistance and hatred. It took a long time, but they finally got a few of the women in the village to trust Jesus as their Saviour. The men of the village became even more obstinate because they thought Temy and Noemi were upsetting their world. In a way, they were. Jesus stirs up controversy everywhere he goes. But his changes are always for the better. They have been threatened with everything you could imagine. One of the men came to their house with a machete. He was swinging it around and threatening to kill Temy, but Temy just stood there and held his ground and talked to him about Jesus. The man said, “I would kill you right now, but I know I can’t. If I did, you would go to heaven and I would go to hell.” He finally backed down. A couple of years ago, Temy and Noemi got there first male converts. A couple of the men in the village finally realized that Jesus loved their souls and trusted him as Saviour. Their church is growing and thriving, and they have started outreach church planting missions in a couple of other villages.
One of those villages is Santa Marta. After Sunday morning services in Copper Bank, they grab a quick lunch and drive an hour to Santa Marta and go door to door sharing the gospel. A group of people in Santa Marta has trusted Jesus as Saviour, and they are in the process of buying a small plot of land there to build a church building. Temy and Noemi’s oldest son Ahiezer (that’s a Bible name – Numbers 1:12) is 22 years old and he was going to move to Santa Marta and become the pastor of this new young group of believers. On January 3, he was on his motorcycle trying to dodge one of the ubiquitous pot holes in Belize when he lost control and was hit by an oncoming truck. It tore up his leg so badly that he has not walked since. Medical care in Belize is “third world”, and they did not help the matter much. An infection set in and caused enough damage that he now needs a total hip replacement. The doctors in Belize told him, “Wait five years for our technology to catch up.” If he waits five years, he will never walk again. So we are “nosing around” in the medical world here to see if there is anything we might be able to do. It is a long shot, but pray with us that God would direct us to some answers. God does indeed “show himself strong” in cases like this. We have seen Ahiezer grow up to be one of the finest young men I have ever known. We eagerly await God’s strength to meet this very serious need.
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