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Las Crucitas, Tegucigalpa Honduras
August 11 2006 / ShareHim in Honduras, Jul. 14 - Jul. 29 '06 #51by Tom Hall
Personal Testimony of Tom Hall.
I had a wonderful time in Honduras and I am very thankful for Global-Evangelism/ShareHim.
Las Crucitas Church is in a very poor and gang infested section of town. Yet God works in the hearts of many people there. The first night we started with 70-80 people and the last Sabbath there were over 200. Ten were baptized during the meetings but another 14 made decisions to be baptized as soon as they can be prepared. It was also a blessing to see church members taking notes and writing down texts every single night. Many of them didn’t miss a meeting.
The sermons and the graphics are extremely well done and I believe everyone was blessed. I feel like I was the one who was the most blessed.
There was one little girl that won everyone’s heart. Her Daddy had been shot and killed a few weeks before the meetings started. This happened just down the street from the church and was thought to be gang related. Some say he was shot for his cell phone.
Each night this little girl would come into the meeting and give the Pastor’s wife a big hug. It wasn’t very long before I too was the recipient of a nightly hug too. Her little brother was always close behind and he too gave us an affectionate hug each night. They were both very cute! Wendy is 5 years old and Enoch is 2 years old.
On the last night Wendy gave me her Teddy Bear. She said I could hug it if I got scared on the plane. Now I was in a quandary as to what to do. She was so poor and had just lost her Dad and now to give up her Teddy Bear too, but I felt if I didn’t take it she might be hurt and offended. I have it and I will treasure it. Before I left I gave the pastor and his wife money to go buy Wendy a new Teddy Bear and bless their hearts they also thought to get something for Enoch too.
That’s not the entire story. The next Sabbath after I got home Wendy’s mom told the pastor and his wife that every night Wendy prays that Brother Tom and her little Teddy Bear would be safe.
Except ye become as a little child ye shall not see the Kingdom of God! That still isn’t the full story yet. Wendy was praying for her bear and me before I left and I am glad she did… The plane ride home was the scariest I have ever been on and I have flown quite a bit. We blew into turbulence that caught everyone off guard. The stewardesses were picking up the cups from refreshments when suddenly we hit an air pocket that threw them and the cart up into the air. One stewardess came down and bloodied a passenger’s nose. The other landed on the arm of one of the seats. People were screaming and crying and praying. It seemed certain to all of us that the plane was going to crash.
The lady next to me bowed her head and wept and prayed for a long time even after the turbulence ended. Later I went to the back and asked the stewardesses if they had ever experienced anything like that before. They each said, “Never in my life!”
It is times like that when I am thankful for a little girl’s prayers and for a knowledge of the truth. You see I knew that my life was in God’s hands. I knew that He could save me, but more importantly if He chose not to… I knew death is only a sleep and the next face I would see was that of Jesus and a host of the redeemed along with a great multitude of angels! What a comfort. Even more
comforting that a teddy bear.
I want to say again how thankful I am for ShareHim. Also I want to say a special thanks to Bob Folkenberg Jr. for doing our orientation and to Bob Halstead for being a great coordinator.
Take care and God bless,
Tom
Las Crucitas Church is in a very poor and gang infested section of town. Yet God works in the hearts of many people there. The first night we started with 70-80 people and the last Sabbath there were over 200. Ten were baptized during the meetings but another 14 made decisions to be baptized as soon as they can be prepared. It was also a blessing to see church members taking notes and writing down texts every single night. Many of them didn’t miss a meeting.
The sermons and the graphics are extremely well done and I believe everyone was blessed. I feel like I was the one who was the most blessed.
There was one little girl that won everyone’s heart. Her Daddy had been shot and killed a few weeks before the meetings started. This happened just down the street from the church and was thought to be gang related. Some say he was shot for his cell phone.
Each night this little girl would come into the meeting and give the Pastor’s wife a big hug. It wasn’t very long before I too was the recipient of a nightly hug too. Her little brother was always close behind and he too gave us an affectionate hug each night. They were both very cute! Wendy is 5 years old and Enoch is 2 years old.
On the last night Wendy gave me her Teddy Bear. She said I could hug it if I got scared on the plane. Now I was in a quandary as to what to do. She was so poor and had just lost her Dad and now to give up her Teddy Bear too, but I felt if I didn’t take it she might be hurt and offended. I have it and I will treasure it. Before I left I gave the pastor and his wife money to go buy Wendy a new Teddy Bear and bless their hearts they also thought to get something for Enoch too.
That’s not the entire story. The next Sabbath after I got home Wendy’s mom told the pastor and his wife that every night Wendy prays that Brother Tom and her little Teddy Bear would be safe.
Except ye become as a little child ye shall not see the Kingdom of God! That still isn’t the full story yet. Wendy was praying for her bear and me before I left and I am glad she did… The plane ride home was the scariest I have ever been on and I have flown quite a bit. We blew into turbulence that caught everyone off guard. The stewardesses were picking up the cups from refreshments when suddenly we hit an air pocket that threw them and the cart up into the air. One stewardess came down and bloodied a passenger’s nose. The other landed on the arm of one of the seats. People were screaming and crying and praying. It seemed certain to all of us that the plane was going to crash.
The lady next to me bowed her head and wept and prayed for a long time even after the turbulence ended. Later I went to the back and asked the stewardesses if they had ever experienced anything like that before. They each said, “Never in my life!”
It is times like that when I am thankful for a little girl’s prayers and for a knowledge of the truth. You see I knew that my life was in God’s hands. I knew that He could save me, but more importantly if He chose not to… I knew death is only a sleep and the next face I would see was that of Jesus and a host of the redeemed along with a great multitude of angels! What a comfort. Even more
comforting that a teddy bear.
I want to say again how thankful I am for ShareHim. Also I want to say a special thanks to Bob Folkenberg Jr. for doing our orientation and to Bob Halstead for being a great coordinator.
Take care and God bless,
Tom