Another breakdown...?

Wednesday I (Dave) met with a couple of young men from the church to debrief their visit to a village last weekend. Their visit had been the first in a few months due to vacation travels and other distractions. They had intended to attend the Sunday morning service but arriving at 9 AM they were disappointed to find only one person in the village. He informed them that because it was harvest season, they had met around 7 AM to sing and pray before heading out to the fields. We began to discuss potential strategies as they made observations concerning the exodus towards the city of most of the men in the village.

My meeting with the two guys almost got cancelled just as it began. We had just ordered lunch when Jennifer called. “I just filled up the car with gas and now it won’t start—it won’t even turn over.” It was already 1:30 PM and probably over 40 degrees.  Do I call the meeting off and go rescue my wife? “Call the mechanic and get him to come,” I decided. Something about the timing seemed fishy.  It reminded me of when we started a prayer group in our church back in Caistor Centre. The second week we met to pray,  Jennifer and I arrived extra early at the church and waited for the other ladies to come.  And we waited. Finally I felt that we needed to pray that people would be free to come. No sooner did we finish praying than the ladies started to arrive. “Did you just unlock the door?” they asked. One woman had tried the door and sat in her car in the driveway for ten minutes because when she tried it the first time it was “locked. ” Another who lived next door had been over and tried once and gone home because the door was “locked.” Both decided to come back and try once more while we prayed for their arrival. Suddenly the door that had been “locked” was now open—though no one had touched it in between times. On Wednesday, our faithful mechanic sent a couple of his workers over to rescue Jennifer (I am useless when it comes to fixing cars). When they arrived they tried once more to start the car, even though Jennifer had tried several time while waiting and even had a gas attendant look under the hood. It started immediately when they tried before they did anything else. When I called the mechanic later to ask about it, he said his guys thought maybe the battery clamps were a little loose and so they tightened them, just in case.

Please pray for the church as it seeks to find new avenues to reach out and show God’s love. Pray also that we would have wisdom in mentoring and developing leaders in the local church who will take up the challenge of reaching their communities.