Turn on the Light

Turn on the Light 

Newsletter, March 2014                      

Dear Friends
What impact these first 2 months of the year had on you? Please don't worry about the seemingly "bad things" that happened already, or the things that "could have been better". This year is going to be a blessed year; you just have to turn on the light.

Switching gradually our thoughts from bad to good may involve a lot of prayer and time with Jesus but it's well worth the effort. The book of Psalms it's always a positive influence for good. Many of those prayers in Psalms were actually prophetic prayers of Jesus (Psalm 16, Psalm 22, etc.; Acts 2:29-31; Acts 13:22). Jesus went through a lot of difficulties but He overcame the world (John 16:33) and He is inside of you so the force for good in you is stronger than the force for evil (1st John 4:4).

Prison Ministry

There is a group of prisoners that meet every Friday morning. They are about 30 men. First they sing, share testimonies of answers to prayer and of God's guidance in their lives. Then it's our turn to speak and share what we have for them.

If we count by numbers, what's 30 among 1,000 men? It's the seed of the Gospel and God is not limited by many or by few (1st Samuel 14:6). If we count the success by numbers then Jesus was a failure. The Son of God only manage to get 12 strong followers?! And He almost lost them after His sermon of drinking His blood and eating His flesh (John 6:25-71). That's what we told them last week.

A lunch bar, a bag of chips and a thank you note

A few days ago, I went to the prison to visit my friends. I decided not to preach at all, just sing with them and listen to what they say, watch, learn the songs, and even a bit of their language. No pressure for me or anyone else.

Around 10 am I had to tell them that unfortunately I couldn't stay any longer because I had an appointment that I could not miss. I said goodbye and one of them accompanied me to the patio and gave me on behalf of all a lunch bar and a packet of chips saying that he, on the behalf of all, just wanted to thank me for my visits and encourage me to continue to come. It was a gesture of gratitude sincere and profound.

But it wasn’t all. Half an hour before that, when we were still in the room and someone was reading and commenting on an interesting verse of the Bible (Ecclesiastes 7:16-18), a young man left his seat and came over to another man seating near me. I knew they were talking about me because they kept looking. I tried not to get involved nor pay much attention and instead focused on what was being discussed. Soon after that the man by my side handed me a piece of paper with the following message written in broken English: "we thank God with you are a blessing to us".

It was inspiring to read that and I realized what had happened. The boy approached the man beside me and asked him for a piece of paper because he wanted to write something for me. The only piece of paper was already scribbled with comments on the verse but nothing else was available. He wrote the message and asked the other to hand it to me.  It touched me to know that they were so thankful for my visitation.

I believe that they value the fact that I visit them much more than what I say to them, what they appreciate is the time I spend with them.