June 10: The labor

It has been a few days since I have put my thoughts down on this laptop. We have visited six different churches which belong to the ACIBEN, the Baptist denomination that we are working with here. It has been one of the longest weekends of my entire life. I have learned so much in the last few days about the church and about missions in general. In the U.S. we tend to judge the success of a church by the number of people who attend on Sundays. Success to me is not a figure. You know that one part of the Bible in Romans and 1 Corinthians where it says that the church should be a body, each member with a different gift…that actually happens here. That is success as a church, as a body of Christ. The church is dependant upon each of its members because everyone is important. All the congregations which we have visited have between 30-70 members. The churches go out into the communities to tell people about the Lord; in a couple of the churches, they even have a night designated for just door-to-door evangelism. At the end of each of the interviews, I like to ask the question “What is the purpose of your church?” A majority of the churches have answered by expressing their desire to bring people to the Lord, to have continued unity as a body, and perseverance for the labor of the Lord. There is nothing in my eyes that is more beautiful than that.