God moves and prepares before we arrive.
John 4:38 NASB 1995
I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
The hand of our Lord Jesus has not failed, and over the years many laborers have been faithful with the work in Jiquilisco. They have sown seeds of the gospel that have been growing slowly but surely. And those seeds that have been slowly growing are changing a region.
Demographically, Jiquilisco was a place filled with young parents and children. The area was one of the most dangerous, witchcraft-filled and violent places in the country. A place where in the past the smallest children did not say thank you, and they swore and fought daily. The parents were even worse. So often parents that migrated to the United States left behind children that were ignored, abused, starved or even forgotten and left to sleep with the dogs by their own family members. And throughout the years many prayers have been lifted up to fight for a little canton that almost had a daily death count in the beginning. Slowly the town changed as an increased number of parents migrated and the children grew up and many just left town. The sad reality is that in the end most of the people who left were fleeing vengeful retribution or police in these more recent years. Many of the people who refused to change and do what is right, their time ran out. They were arrested and taken away in the more recent gang-related crackdowns by the government.
Forward and Onward
Nowadays as the dust settles, the fruit of seeds planted in rougher times are beginning to grow. Prayers that fought for the souls of this town are prevailing in changing the spiritual atmosphere. Jiquilisco again after much political and local turmoil looks like it did at the start. Demographically it has young parents and children, but those children now will say thank you, and rarely will you see them fight or even prone to anger. Though many of the parents are still hard hearted, we see the curses of generations being broken in Jesus’ name. So, we press onward in a place where we see many families where those kids who received no loving embrace from their parents are now themselves parents, and they are following the example they saw in their home growing up.
A story to tell:
It is of a young boy that comes to the church site in Jiquilisco. He was a problematic child, and for some weeks he had been behaving worse than usual. The situation was getting out of hand. Many of you know Lola, one of our pastors in Jiquilisco, who is like a mother figure to so many of these kids and has fed them at 4 am on Mondays before they go to work or school for many years. Well, she kept on trying to instruct and correct this young boy’s behavior, getting on to him and reprimanding him with little success. But during a Sunday service when Henry her son, a pastor from the central church site, was visiting, Lola mentioned the child to him. In their conversation, Henry felt led by the Spirit to tell her that the child did not need more reprimands, all he needed was someone to love him. After their conversation Lola did exactly that. When the young boy began to misbehave again, all she did was hug him and say, “I love you.” The first time it didn’t work, and in embrace he began to misbehave. So she kept on hugging him and repeated, “I love you”. Still, it seemed to not work, but God does not give guidance that fails. So, hugging him even tighter she said again, “I love you”. After that third time, you could hear a young child begin to sob sorrowful tears but healing tears. Pressing forward and onward many times we don’t realize that the seeds planted just take time and many tries.
God is not a man, that he should lie; Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Numbers 23:19 KJV
Thank you so much for all of your love, prayer and support over the years. We are excited because Jesus is moving things forward in Jiquilisco!
