chris

field service update:

for about a week, every day on the bus in the morning we saw this white gringo guy.   one day we ended up sitting behind him and he started chatting with us.  his name is chris, my guess is that he's in his early 40s (i really have no idea actually) and he's a southern baptist.  he is taking spanish lessons and living down here with his sister, they are starting some sort of business together.  he said he loves working with the local people and is looking forward to his spanish being better.  he asked about what we are doing down here, where we live, how long we've been here, etc.  we try not to be too "preachy" with the gringos down here... we of course tell them we are witnesses, but totally don't push it.  we figure we run into them enough, and since we live here, we want them to see that we are "normal" people, not always witnessing and not always offering literature. anyway, chris thought it was cool that we are living down here and able to spend more time in our ministry here than we would be able to at home.  then he says "i've always wanted to ask, something my pastor always said about the witnesses is..." and then josh and i (like total dummies) are like "oh this is our stop we have to go, we'll see you another time, sorry to run!" and we get off the bus.  and then we're like "did we seriously just do that?! what is wrong with us?! why didn't we stay on the bus and talk to him?!  so what if we would be late for service?!"  total dumb move.  anyway we ran into him AGAIN a few days later and we were able to talk more.  he said that his pastor always told him not to talk to the witnesses, but he never explained WHY.  so he says "why am i not supposed to talk to you?" we told him that we can't know for sure why his pastor would say that, but that we hear that a lot.  so we ended up having a really nice conversation.  then probably 2 weeks went by before we took the bus again and then the day we took the bus we saw him again.  he said "i thought you guys were avoiding me!" (joking of course).   we chatted about the past few weeks, his spanish lessons, etc, then he started talking politics and how he can't believe that obama won, and how he had been praying for romney to win, he wanted a "good godly man" in the white house.  so he asks what we think... we said that of course we don't get involved with politics, explained how our confidence is with god's kingdom.  we explained about daniel chapter 2 and he said he was going to read it when he got home. told him we have some literature that helps to explain in detail about the prophecy of the image and how we can know we're living in the last days before god's kingdom will come. he said we better take the bus again so that we can give him the literature for him to read.  gave him our phone # and said we should meet up in cotacachi for a coffee, and we're happy to answer any bible questions he has.  so far we haven't run into him again but we are equipped with an english bible teach book and a print out from the daniel book about the image prophecy...
so anyway, it's been nice to chat with him and preach in english for a change (man, it's SO MUCH EASIER!!!) and we're interested to see what will happen.  most of the gringos we meet down here are either tourists, or hippies, or retirees who are NOT interested in the bible at all (think typical USA).  so it will be nice to see what comes of this. we will keep you posted!