Our World Just Exploded

We are in a wonderful place and God is doing something for us that I cannot truly comprehend.

We are engaging well and in a new place of wonder as we discover what life can be in our city. It is truly a diverse transcultural world.

We are soon to be moving to a city-centered location in June and God has given us a Christian Chinese Landlord who has opened the door to us to a whole new environment. God placed us in an apartment building that is almost all Chinese renters who are successful business people. What a mission field! We are the only Caucasian people in this building. We are so excited to see who God will appoint for us to meet in the future. He is creating a mission field that is growing!

He has placed us in a world of diversity. This past Sunday we met a couple that the pastor from our Alliance Multicultural Church has been building relationships with over this past year. They are Hindu and lost their daughter to suicide last year, but have found a place of peace in the church and are in the beginnings of their understanding of the love of the Father. It is remarkable that they are so open to worshiping with us at our church.

I was privileged to meet a friend of our pastor’s wife who is a Bangladesh Muslim. She freely shared with us how her children are starting to take part in Ramadan and what it means to her and her family. We are learning so much about culture and beliefs; without judgement, and with a mindset of building relationships of love. I am looking forward to getting to know her better in the coming months.

Curtis has had a remarkable time with his Arabic Lebanese tutor learning language and culture—which in the Arab world is the same thing.  His tutor is open to sharing coffee with myself and our new resident at Samuel House. What an open invitation to build relationships.

In our new culture, we are learning about basic beliefs and root values, about what the mindset is of the people here, and what God is doing through our pastors in this culturally diverse city. There are forty-one people groups in our city, with a mixture of cultures and beliefs, it is unlike any other place.

Last weekend we had the opportunity to give out shoe boxes for Samaritan’s Purse in two locations. The disenfranchised children that are church neighbours, received a shoe box party. Then we were able to visit a local Guaraní community where the people are even more impoverished. We had another shoe box party where we had a great time with the community. The Guarani are one of the least-reached people groups (LRPG) in our country. What a joy to share God’s hope and love to this community! It was an incredible day and we have been invited by their leader to visit them once a month.

Working with the church people, building relationships, can get almost humorous as we spent time last week preparing goodies for the children, sharing the common language of laughter as our group was speaking in Bolivian Spanish, Chilean Spanish, Paraguayan Spanish, Portuguese, and a smattering of English.

We continue to build relationships with other friends in the community who are Lebanese Muslim and continue to pray into how we can demonstrate the love of the Father to them.

Life is full and we are rejoicing in how the Father is giving us opportunity to work the soil of His mission field—what a mosaic!