Buses, Spanish, and Jesus

I was writing the title for this, and I almost typed in "Jesus!" but I realized I had already titled a blog that way. I wondered if I should get more original and stop having "Jesus" in my titles - but then I realized that that's exactly what I want! Jesus everywhere. Not that I want to throw his name around in a flippant manner, but my true desire is that my time here be saturated with Jesus.

The Lord has really been teaching me a lot. I have been thinking about how I limit my conversations and interactions with people to what "I can do." The truth is, I am not limited to what I can do. I have a God who is able to do "immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine!" So, I prayed for courage and for words. In the past twenty four hours, I have had two opportunities to share with complete strangers about Jesus.

First, I was on the bus, sitting by myself away from the other interns. I was behind two women with a young baby. The Lord kept at me, "April, babies are great conversation starters..." Eventually, after a lot of prayer for courage to venture out with my Spanish, I began talking with them. I started by asking them how old the baby was and eventually asked them if she was going to be baptized. In Mexico, it is huge to baptize children; it is tradition. Of course, they told me yes in a Catholic church. So I began to talk with them about what they thought baptism was. I could give so many details, but to keep the story short, we ended up talking through basic beliefs about Christ. They believed that they needed Christ to get to heaven, but they also said that their good works could get them in. I shared with them how the Bible teaches that nothing we do merits salvation, that only through believing that Christ died for us can we enter heaven. After a long conversation, they promised me that they would read John 3 tonight. They seemed to have a very elementary understanding of Jesus, and I hope that our conversation leads them into the Word. Since they already "believed" in Jesus, all I could do was try to steer them toward a correct understanding of the only Way to heaven. It's all up to the Spirit now!

Then today, I had a HARD conversation on the beach with a gentleman. Please be praying for him! He has some very wrong beliefs about reincarnation and such. He was definitely not open to any other beliefs, but yet he really wanted to talk with me about beliefs. I asked him (in Spanish), "If you were wrong, would you want to know it?" He told me he was certain he knew the truth. I told him, "La verdad se llama Jesus Christ." (The truth's name is Jesus Christ.) Pray for all of these people, please!

Please continue to pray for courage for me, for drive to go beyond my potential and trust God to give me words. I am starting to really fall in love with these people, as I pray more and more that God will give me a heart for them.

In His hands I stand - broken and content.