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 A Baptist preacher of 27 years prepares to be baptized into the Adventist church. |
 Sandinista "propagandamobile" blaring campaign slogans on the street. The ideological warfare is very real in this country. The last time the socialists held power, all Adventist pastors had to be evacuated to Costa Rica for safety. |
Paradigm Shift
August 11 2006 / ShareHim in Nicaragua B, Jul. 14 - Jul. 29 '06 #50by Jay Richards
Personal Testimony of Jay Richards.
My experience in Nicaragua was not what I expected it to be. Anyone who has not traveled outside of Canada and the U.S. needs to consider going on a mission trip with an organization such as ShareHim, in order to fully grasp what is really happening in this world. It is not enough to see the sanitized images on the nightly news, to have a full appreciation of the obstacles and hardships that our brothers and sisters face in different countries around the world. What you don’t experience on the nightly news is the reality of political instability, and the feelings of insecurity and anxiety. You come to realize in countries like Nicaragua, that your decision to become a Seventh-day Adventist could cost you your life after the next set of elections, depending upon which party takes control of the presidency.
Ministering to these people was not as simple as preaching to poorer people with a different language; it involves a complete paradigm shift in the thinking of the speaker. The war for the minds of all worshipers, that is laid out for us in the book of Revelation, percolates just below the surface in Nicaragua. Every once in a while, a warning sign will pop up that this war is almost upon the people, such as a hate letter given to one of the speakers, that blames Adventists for all the troubles in Nicaragua, At the same time, it demanded that our church stop spreading seeds of discontent among the populace. If you go on these trips with any preconceived notions, you will be mistaken. A paradigm shift will hit you, no matter where you travel, and it will wake you up to reality. Prayer is necessary in every part of every day in this country, because you can never take your safety on the roads for granted. The pastor and I prayed every 35-minute trip down the highway, and regardless of the obstacles that we witnessed along the way, God kept us safe from all of them. Remember, this is a spiritual war zone, and you cannot be effective without the covering of prayer.
Having said that, we did persevere because of God’s protection, and many minds were won because of His providence. What you quickly come to realize, among all of these realities, is how the people persist in their hardships and still manage to experience joy. When you visit the people who attend the meetings, you immediately discover that they want practical answers to their life problems, and they want those answers from the word of God. Many who attend the meetings come from a Roman Catholic background. When they approached their priests in the past to ask about truths in the Bible that seem to conflict with the dogma of the Roman church, the standard answer those priests give their parishioners is “You are confused.” So, having been deprived of the word of God, the Nicaraguan mind is a fertile ground indeed for our end-time message of hope and direction.
If you arrive in one of these countries with limited preaching experience, you will become an animated speaker by the end of the meetings. If your prayer life has not been what it should be, you will learn to pray. If you have some hidden sin in your life, God will work on that, too, while you are there in obedience to His ministering spirit. All in all, these trips are a win-win situation for everyone. The host church gets a boost of energy, the people who get baptized enter into Christ’s kingdom, and the speaker (you) will take one more step in your journey toward Christ that you may never be able to take while in your cozy home environment.
You will also make lasting friendships with God-loving people that you’ll never be able to develop anywhere else. They say that the strongest ties are made between people who persevere and go through hardships together, like ties which are formed between buddies in the midst of a war. This work puts you at the forefront of a very real spiritual war. If you’ve lacked that closeness with your fellow church members to this point, then I highly recommend an evangelism trip through ShareHim. You will emerge on the other side a more complete and healthy member of Christ’s body, and it will help you understand how to draw closer to those church members at home.
When God calls you to go on one of these missions, you will know it. Don’t resist that call, because it may be THE call. I resisted that call a thousand times for my first two years at school, but God arranged all the circumstances in order to make it possible for me to go, even though I have a young family at school, and I’m working as a Bible worker for the Alberta Conference. When I realized that there were no obstacles between me and this trip, even though there should have been many, I made my decision in less than thirty seconds to go. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
Jay Richards
Ministering to these people was not as simple as preaching to poorer people with a different language; it involves a complete paradigm shift in the thinking of the speaker. The war for the minds of all worshipers, that is laid out for us in the book of Revelation, percolates just below the surface in Nicaragua. Every once in a while, a warning sign will pop up that this war is almost upon the people, such as a hate letter given to one of the speakers, that blames Adventists for all the troubles in Nicaragua, At the same time, it demanded that our church stop spreading seeds of discontent among the populace. If you go on these trips with any preconceived notions, you will be mistaken. A paradigm shift will hit you, no matter where you travel, and it will wake you up to reality. Prayer is necessary in every part of every day in this country, because you can never take your safety on the roads for granted. The pastor and I prayed every 35-minute trip down the highway, and regardless of the obstacles that we witnessed along the way, God kept us safe from all of them. Remember, this is a spiritual war zone, and you cannot be effective without the covering of prayer.
Having said that, we did persevere because of God’s protection, and many minds were won because of His providence. What you quickly come to realize, among all of these realities, is how the people persist in their hardships and still manage to experience joy. When you visit the people who attend the meetings, you immediately discover that they want practical answers to their life problems, and they want those answers from the word of God. Many who attend the meetings come from a Roman Catholic background. When they approached their priests in the past to ask about truths in the Bible that seem to conflict with the dogma of the Roman church, the standard answer those priests give their parishioners is “You are confused.” So, having been deprived of the word of God, the Nicaraguan mind is a fertile ground indeed for our end-time message of hope and direction.
If you arrive in one of these countries with limited preaching experience, you will become an animated speaker by the end of the meetings. If your prayer life has not been what it should be, you will learn to pray. If you have some hidden sin in your life, God will work on that, too, while you are there in obedience to His ministering spirit. All in all, these trips are a win-win situation for everyone. The host church gets a boost of energy, the people who get baptized enter into Christ’s kingdom, and the speaker (you) will take one more step in your journey toward Christ that you may never be able to take while in your cozy home environment.
You will also make lasting friendships with God-loving people that you’ll never be able to develop anywhere else. They say that the strongest ties are made between people who persevere and go through hardships together, like ties which are formed between buddies in the midst of a war. This work puts you at the forefront of a very real spiritual war. If you’ve lacked that closeness with your fellow church members to this point, then I highly recommend an evangelism trip through ShareHim. You will emerge on the other side a more complete and healthy member of Christ’s body, and it will help you understand how to draw closer to those church members at home.
When God calls you to go on one of these missions, you will know it. Don’t resist that call, because it may be THE call. I resisted that call a thousand times for my first two years at school, but God arranged all the circumstances in order to make it possible for me to go, even though I have a young family at school, and I’m working as a Bible worker for the Alberta Conference. When I realized that there were no obstacles between me and this trip, even though there should have been many, I made my decision in less than thirty seconds to go. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
Jay Richards