Self
I took a long hiatus from telling others about the awesomeness of Jesus. My health was suffering over the last few months by both sickness and injury, and I wasn't in very good spirits. I wasn't really connecting to the Lord, and that was purely my fault. Again, I'm a real person. God also led me to the wild, the actual wild forest, to be formed again. To state all of the ways I have been called to repentance would just take up the whole post and not really glorify God. Suffice it to say, God is amazing. When the world and your own body steal your purpose, God is relentless in pursuing you and giving you back your purpose.
For me, there is no use in trying to connect others to God when you yourself are not connected to Him. Otherwise, you will disciple "twice a son of hell" as yourself.
Network of Prayer
God really worked on us to show us that nothing moves in history without Him doing it. So we developed a faithful network of people who would just ask God to bless our efforts (which are clearly in His will to do) to spread God's good news.
The difference is night and day. Whereas before things were slow and hard, things are much more smooth. We can see the story God is writing on people's hearts much better; we can also rest better than before knowing that we don't have to push too hard since God Himself is working. I really don't know if that makes sense, but it certainly does to us. Thank you Lord, and thank you brothers and sisters who have been faithful in praying for the lost.
Family
My wife and I shifted our focus from random people to our family members. We were able to lead one member to dedicate their life to Jesus after a focused Bible study and also answering her own questions. She was a student and was being taught a lot of illogical and disrespectful things about religions and how to relate (or not) to God. I covered this in an earlier post. Follow up and discipleship has been slow, but that doesn't bother us. We pray she would continue strong in her journey, and we praise God that she's moved from death to life!
My wife's mom was able to lead another family member to Christ, and the follow up has again been slow. Praise God for saving her!
We also had the joy of baptizing a member of my family. Yay! Their life was immediately challenged/attacked spiritually, but he is doing amazingly well and there has been a complete change in him. I mean, it really is absolutely nothing I did. God is doing this great work, and it is amazing to see Him work.
Neighbors
We also shifted how we approach our neighbors, and he's slowed our pace way down. We began simply using a cultural practice of taking food to neighbors. For instance, we had an ice storm paralyze our city. Everyone was stuck inside. This was a perfect opportunity to bake and take some cookies to our neighbors to meet them. It was really fun. We hung out with one couple, but they soon moved to a different city.
However, another not-yet-believing family we met are what we think are "people of peace", c.f. Luke 10:5-7. We have become pretty good friends. It's an ongoing and slow process, but there have been great doors opened this very week with them, including worshiping with the church together. God's also given grace for me become closer to the man of the house, which is a pretty amazing to me to see that God is working with men. Men are pretty difficult since they tend not to see the world through spiritual eyes. I strongly believe that God will use this family to let us spread the good news to many people who are their friends.
Other Cases
We began a small business with Guatemalan artisans to help develop an impoverished area there, but also to sell some really cool stuff. The artisans we partner with disciple youth in danger of being inducted into gangs. Their shop is in the middle of a very very dangerous area. Of course, this project has many purposes, but one big one is to disciple others in the workplace and to support these type of grassroots companies around the world.
I've been pleased to pray with a couple of my patients and coworkers in my new job working with cancer patients. Emotionally, some of these relationships have been very hard to be a part of because of the brokenness and great need in their situations. My previous clinic allowed me to pray with others, but I work for a hospital now, and this is pretty much prohibited. Oh well.
Lastly, I have been friends with a man from my old clinic for a few years now. He has a very sad story of his family falling apart, and he is now a bit of a nomad. He's been unable to work. He still sees the good news as an academic, historical type story rather than a story that actually means something to Him. This has been one of the most painful relationships I've ever had in my life, seeing this man's steady spiritual and physical decline. Pray for God's great mercy on Him. Pray that He would be driven to drink of the presence of God and be satisfied.
Lessons Learned
So many things have happened that are simply joyous to experience. We learned that God doesn't want us to do anything without Him; sounds weird, but it means that nothing will work unless we are close to the Lord. In His kindness, He loves us so much that He wants to always guide us and lead us and shepherd us.
We learned we need to use food. We learned we need to be satisfied with a slower pace. We learned we have to be open in our schedules to let others in. We also learned that some people need more structure than others when studying the Bible. In short, we needed to learn to just love people.
Going forward
We still don't know how to get people into follow up, but we suspect it has to do with there being a need for a stronger foundation of friendship before leading someone to Christ. We are satisfied with a slow pace, but we also watch for the opportunities that the Spirit is creating, such as spiritual questions, whacked out movie plots, friends of friends, time folding laundry with people, teaching others to build fires in the woods, etc.
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