someone's angel.. (story continued)

so i left off that i had just got the note from martha and had a brief talk with her outside of the church. i told her that i would call her and try and set up a time to meet, bc i really didn't know when i would be able to being that i was still working with the team. the good thing is that she was staying at her uncle's house so it would be easy to meet up...the bad thing about that was that she didn't want her uncle to know that she was meeting to talk to me about this. apparently he doesn't know the situation, and she was very adamant about him remaining in the dark for whatever reason. i didn't argue with her, so i told her maybe we could meet the next night after i was done with the team.

the next night i got done a little later than usual, and the plan was for martha to meet me outside of her uncle's house so we could talk about things without her uncle knowing.. (which i still didn't feel comfortable about keeping her uncle in the dark but i felt it wasn't my call to say anything..) since i was a little later getting back, we really didnt talk but for like 5 minutes. she just gave me the gist of what the problem was, and said she would go into detail later on...

she told me that she had a 19 year old daughter who ran away a few weeks ago and that she hasn't heard from her outside of one email since she left. she told me she wanted to tell me more later on when we had more time to talk, but she just wanted me to know what was going on so that i could be praying...

i walked inside the house completely lost and confused about what i should do or needed to do to help. i didn't know why she came to me, and i don't know why god brought her to me. i still had a few days with the team, and we were planning on meeting for coffee as soon as the team left. but the last night the team was here, i got pretty sick, and i was throwing up most of the night. it took me a few days after that to get my strength back and to fully recover so martha and i had to postpone meeting for a few more days...

i used the time to pray a lot and seek the lords counsel. we finally agreed to meet on a sunday evening at a coffee shop near my house. that sunday, after church i went to eat with ronnie and his family. after i got home i started to feel sick again. i just didn't feel good at all. i felt like i was trying to come down with a cold or soemthing. my head hurt. i was pretty warm too. pretty much i wasnt very excited about meeting with martha bc i was feeling so bad. we were supposed to meet at 6:00ish and i was there pretty much right on time. i got a coffee and went and sat down at a table. i was still feeling pretty bad. and i was extremely nervous. i didn't really know what i was supposed to say. i was really nervous about not having all the words in spanish to clearly express what i should say...if i ever figured out what i needed to say... and, i know i posted this before, but i really do have spanish ADD. it is sooooo hard for me to pay attention for long periods of time in spanish.

amidst me feeling sick...and having fears and doubts about the ensuing coversation...god was giving me such an overwhelming peace about being there. i knew i was there for a reason. i knew this was of god. even though i had no clue what i needed to say, i knew that god would fill my mind with the exact words, and that he would give me wisdom and discerment in that as well.

martha came in about 20 minutes late (in typical ecuadorian fashion no less).. then something amazing happened. the moment that martha walked into the coffee shop, i mean literally the exact moment... my headache went away, and i didn't feel any cold/flu symptoms at all. none. it was almost as if god was telling me, "matt, i told you, im in this..im with you!"

we both sat down at the table i was already at, i was sipping my coffee i had, and martha was eating a piece of cake and drinking some coffee she just bought. she told me how thankful she was that i was able to meet her and help. she reiterated again to me how she knew without a shadow of a doubt that god brought me into her life to help her..she told me that prior to meeting me, she had been praying to god that he would send her an angel to help her through this. then one morning she walks into her uncle's house and sees some random, strange, punk 24 year old drinking coffee (she didn't use those exact adj. but you get the picture)whom shes never seen before in her life. martha told me that when she walked out, she asked god," god, is this him? is this my angel?" she told me that she knew that i was. that i was the angel...

we must have sat for a good hour and a half maybe two hours just talking there in the cafe. well, it was mainly martha spilling her heart. it got pretty emotional at times... she told me all about her daughter inez...who she was.. what she was like as a little girl. how when she was 4 she accpted Christ in her life, and then immediately told her mom that she wanted to put four locks on her heart because she never wanted jesus to leave. how when she was a little girl she would invite her neighbors over for bible study, and how she insisted on always having a snack of some sort. how she made her mom find prizes for her so that she could give those prizes away to the neighbors who memorized the verse of the week...

she went on and on about how her daughter had such a passion for he Lord. i was not expecting to hear that at all. i had this picture of some drug addicted, alcoholic, rule defying teenager who ran away. not someone who loved the lord. martha went on to tell me that inez had been hurt many times by the church. people within the church claiming to be someone they werent. leaders even. martha said inez was fed up by all this. she was tired of "friends" claiming to be christian and not actually living like it... i guess inez couldnt take it anymore, and she just left the church completely. eventually left her family. come to find out that she hadnt been gone for just 3 weeks, but for over 3 months.

at the end i had the opportunity to pray over martha. she gave me her daughters email address and ask me if i could write her an email.. just something. anything. i took the next day to really just pray and seek the lord, and figure out what the email needed to say. i mean what do you say to a runaway girl that you don't even know, that doesn't speak the same heart language as you do? exactly. i didn't know either. God eventually gave me the words and i sent her an email... then i waited. and prayed. and hoped that she would respond. and then waited some more...

one week went by. nothing... another week...nothing. i started to question god at this time.."God if i am this so-called 'angel' why isn't she responding? am i doing something wrong? am i not doing all that i need to be doing? i really want to help this family, but im not sure what to do anymore."

i never did hear from inez.

but something miraculous happened. i got a call from martha a few weeks ago. out of the blue. i wasnt expectig to hear from her.. she just wanted me to know that inez contacted her and that later on that day she was going to meet up with her daughter for the first time in months! i couldn't believe it. i cannot explain to you how excited i was to hear this news. martha said she just wanted me to know bc she knew i had been praying for them...

even when i felt so helpless, god was in control. when i had my doubts that this situation would ever be resolved, god was in control. to be honest, i don't know if my two hour conversation, or my email had anything to do with inez coming back in the end.. but it doesn't really matter. i guess the thing that i took away from all of this is what i can imagine god saying to all of us.. " hey, im about to go do something absolutely amazing over here..something that you couldn't dream up..something that will show how big I really am...do you wanna join me??"

thank you Lord for letting me tag along with you on this one...

im back...

hey everyone. its been absolutely way to long since i last posted a blog. i apologize. but at the urging of mis padres and others, im back and i hope to be more regular with my posts...i wanna share a recent dad story with you guys...(sorry this is gonna be long..)

like i said in my last update, the end of july i worked with a team out in the valley. the missionary i was working with had arranged for me to stay at a local pastor's house who lives out in the valley, near where we were working. this saved me from having to travel close to an hour each way back to my house in north quito. i didn't know the pastor or his wife prior, so i was a little nervous being thrown in a house where there was going to be nothing but spanish being spoken. but to be honest, staying there turned out to be such a huge blessing.

one morning during breakfast (which consisted of freshly squeezed juice, bread, fresh fruit, and coffee) a middle aged lady walked into the kitchen. i didn't know who she was but she quickly introduced herself as being the pastor's niece. (the pastor and his wife both tienen 70 years). her name was martha, and she seemed like a very nice lady...

ok so fast forward a few days... its evening time and i am with the team at the church of the pastor whom i was staying with. the team was talking about purity, and actually this night one of the youth interns from the group was the one speaking. after the guy was done speaking the pastor got up and asked if anyone from the group would like to share a testimony. immediately everyone started to look around, wondering who was gonna be brave enough to get up there. i really didn't wanna speak, just bc i mean i live here, and i really wanted the younger members from the team to have an opportunity to share. anyways.. their youth pastor ended up going up and sharing. after he was done the pastor asked for another volunteer. but this time he didn't wait for anyone to volunteer, he just called me out! at this point i was kinda regretting staying with him at his house, bc had i not, he probably wouldn't have called me out...at least that was my logic...

so anyways the pastor called me out, and im thinking, (sorry dad but i was) "crap, what am i going to say? i got nothing. nada." so i get up there not really sure what im gonna say or where i wanna take this exactly. but then i just felt overwhelmed by the lord telling me just to share my testimony about how i came to ecuador..the process...the struggle of it all...so thats what i did. when i tell that story, or i guess just in general when i share something that the lord has done in my life, i tend to be very transparent. i just lay it all out there. thats kinda how god made me. so i was very very personal up there... i shared from mark 4 three things that the lord so clearly spoke to my soul during a time of desperation.. god cares/ god is in control/ and remember who god is and what he's done.

after i got done sharing i went and sat down, and then one more person got up and shared their testimony. after we were done with the service the lady i met during breakfast, martha approached me and handed me a piece of paper. she took my outside and told me that she really needed to talk to me and that she wanted me to read the piece of paper. but she was very adamant about me not telling her uncle (the pastor) about what the note said. she told me that the lord really spoke to her through my testimony and that she knew that the lord had brought me there to share for a specific reason... the note she gave me pretty much said that she had a problem with her daughter and that she felt like the lord brought me into her life to help her with the problem...

after the brief conversation with martha, and after i read the note, i was floored with so many emotions. i was in awe that God was orchestrating something so much bigger than me. i was afraid that i didnt know what i should do say. i doubted that i was the right one for the task.. but i was also excited for this opportunity to join god on this adventure.


(ok so this is getting kinda long and i am about to leave to go teach english, so i will finish this story in another post soon...hopefully tonight!)