On the way back from doing ministry in the villages today, our host nonchalantly mentioned we would be preaching on the mountain on the way back. He told us he had a speaker in the car and we would put it on top of the car and preach from there. Our host is very funny so we honestly thought he was pulling our legs. But then on the way down the mountain he literally stopped somewhere seemingly random and proceeded to remove a speaker from the trunk…
Our team immediately went to our Bibles as we hadn’t really prepared anything, but sometimes that's when God does His best work, when we are unprepared and ill equipped! I don’t know if I have shared this publicly yet but back in August, before I launched on the Race, I got my first tattoo! It is the word “Love” written in my Mom’s handwriting. I did this as a daily reminder that I am called to love, everybody, always. Also as a reminder that God loves me and I have people who love me here on Earth too. So in this moment I turned to love. I opened to 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and also Ephesians 3:16-21 where it speaks of God’s love for us and the attributes of love: it is patient, it is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not arrogant, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not irritable, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love never gives up or loses faith, it is hopeful and it endures all things.
As I’m preparing and trying to hear what God wants me to share in this, it just started to come to me. The mountains that these people are surrounded by is a great picture of how big and wide His love is for them. God made these people just as special and beautiful as the mountains that are surrounding them. And that, just like love, God is patient and waiting for them to turn their hearts toward Him and let Him do life with them in peace.
I was eager to grab that microphone now! It was different then how I had shared in the past, we looked like we were preaching to no one essentially. But it was powerful when the kids gathered up the road and many passersby stopped to listen. Our host also said when he goes house to house in the villages surrounding where we stopped (they do not have a church or established ministry in these specific villages yet) that they almost always hear “we heard the preachings on the street”. So for me it was win-win-win. I could preach my heart without people staring at me, it was reaching people further than if we were in a building, and it was the most beautiful mountainside to be awestruck over God’s creative beauty!
This mountain side experience was certainly a spiritual high, and not just because of the altitude! “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.” Ephesians 3:18
