Don't Give Up!

One of the only villages I visited every time I traveled down the Amazon river was a little village called LIDA. There are many distinct memories from that village, but I believe the overarching story of our time ministering to that village is the most important.

I remember very clearly the first time we walked back from Irlanda where we were staying to the little village of about 13-15 houses called LIDA. We did our activities with the kids, played games with them, and then I remember very clearly one of the young men there giving his life to the Lord. The next year, we visited again and I remember our pastor (who went with us that year) saying about that village, "I have never encountered an entire village so closed to the gospel as this group." He went on to say that everyone they talked to pretty much outright said they didn't even want to hear what they wanted to talk to them about.

The next two years we continued to visit them and minister to their people. Both of those years the young man that I remembered giving his life to the Lord our first year, started saying he wanted to learn more and that he wanted to become a pastor. After I moved in with the Arimborgos in Iquitos, some of our group leaders and I started talking to them about this young man and his desire to become a pastor. The next time one of our teams came down to go minister in that area, they told the young man, "This is the time. If you really want to do this, get your stuff together and come back with us tomorrow." He did! The very next morning, he had gathered a few belongings and left his village with our team and returned with them to Iquitos. He spent the next three years in the Arimborgo's Pastor training school learning more about how to be a pastor. He was also able to work on his GED equivalent with them in the city.

As amazing as it is that he made that choice and stuck with it all the way through, that is only a small part of the story. After he completed his first year at the pastor's school, he returned to his village and the area around them and brought back around 14 young men who also entered the school. Several of them were part of his family. Now, not all of those young men made it through the whole program, but that didn't dissuade this young man who has continued to share the gospel in his home area.

In November of 2019 he, his brother, and a couple of his nephews traveled back to LIDA with a group from the church and they evangelized to the village. I was sad that I wasn't able to go on that trip, but the stories and pictures they brought back were so encouraging and brought a lot of joy to my heart. In all of the pictures I saw everyone had such big smiles of joy on their faces. I don't have it, but one of the most impactful pictures I saw from the trip was of them baptizing the young man's grandfather.

This village, that had been so closed to the message of the Gospel, was now completely changed by one of its own members. I think we can get discouraged so often by what we see in short term efforts. But the story of LIDA reminds me that the overall story is so much bigger than just one person, or one group. Our missions teams, in partnership with the Arimborgo's, were able to do what neither could have easily done alone. You may feel like your efforts are small, or that you don't see any results on the surface. But maybe your job is simply to plant the seed and others will come behind and water and harvest it. We all have our part. Don't be discouraged, but continue in faith! Have you ever thought you weren't making an impact only to find out later that the other person/people involved were hugely impacted by you?

Photo credit: Yazna Bueno