I have just returned from preaching at a little mission station ourside Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico. The church building was built by a mission work group from chicago in four days about a month ago. There were 10 adults and about 15 children in the service today. That is when a couple of the chidren were not outside shooting a unique form of slingshot made out of a lemon and a rubber band.
A young man of about 20 years of age, only partially trained by the Bible school, was leading the Education hour and then I was preaching. Even though my Spanish accent is horrible, they seemed to understand at least 1/3 of what I was trying to say. The young man did an excellent job of teaching the hour before.
what struck me was that here in a very out of the way small village, through very untrained leadership, and some work by foreginers to construct the building, there were people hungrily consuming the Gospel. Grace does come in unexpected ways through less than perfect means. Maybe that is something that we pastors who strive so hard to do things right need to remember. It would be interesting for a church to share in an exploration of how they have discovered moments of grace in the midst of imperfection. Maybe it would liberate us to not be so hard on ourselves.
One more week here teaching and then back to the states.
