Remembering: November 2013 prayer and praise update about meeting with a gang leader in El Salvador

Reminiscing about God's faithfulness and found this old update - the meeting went well and we thank God for His faithfulness!

We appreciate those of you who have been praying for us and sending encouragement and counsel our way... We have heard counsel to go ahead and also counsel to "flee" for sometime, we have also prayed and heard God thru His Word and thru the peace He has given to us and Samuel will be meeting with the gang leader in our community this Saturday...All of this peace that I feel has caused me to reflect, and I wanted to share with all of you, and especially with those close to us or who I know are praying for us:

As I look back over the timeline of my life, of my husband's life, and our life together, I am so thankful for all that God has brought us through. He has shaped us and prepared us for where we are at right now and I know that He will continue to do so - for our good and for His glory!

Some highlights (not including those that seemed good at the time) of things He has shown Himself through in Samuel's life are: surviving birth (a miracle really for each of us alive today!), helping with cattle as a toddler - many times he "should have" been trampled, living IN a battlefield from age 6-13 (not just in war or near fighting, but IN the battlefield, ie in the jungle with bombs exploding nearby, running through gunfire, being in a war camp with no food or water or housing for years, (where people were dying or suffering from disease all around him) having his home looted and property taken at gunpoint..), at age 13 being told to "eat Jesus, instead of food" and surviving off of less than a meal a day for a year, being unlawfully arrested and tortured for 3 + months, a few motorcycle accidents, including hitting a bull at 150km/hour and being thrown, mob "attacks" while working for Habitat for Humanity and when bringing relief as a Red Cross district youth director...

Those are just the "big" ones...but God has shown Himself faithful and strong and has moved in miraculous ways to keep Samuel alive so far, and I can't help but think that it is because He still has a purpose for him here on earth and will be more glorified by his living than by his dying (and I also like to think that He was saved just for me and for our children!). I trust God completely with his life and KNOW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that He will preserve his life until such a time as He decides to call him home. And when He does call him home, if I am "left behind", I know that God will continue to be a Husband to me and a Father to our children, even as He is now... I have NOT been given a spirit of fear...

So, as far as my husband meeting with the gang leader this Saturday and for our continued work in a potentially dangerous place, I KNOW that my God will go before us, that He will use Samuel's life for His own glory and that He loves each gang member and it is His desire that none of them would be lost - but that they would be saved!

We were called here with a vision...not just a vision to build a home and take care of a few orphaned children...but a more holistic vision, for the community, for discipleship, for sustainability, for Christian education and for training up a generation of children (our own included) to further the Kingdom of God; to love Him and to obey His commands.

I am excited to see what God has planned...and I know, that even through the trials, He will be faithful and He will be glorified (which doesn't mean it will all go the way I think it should, but that it WILL be perfect anyways!)

I also believe in the power of prayer and would ask that, if you know God and live in relationship with Him, that you would join us in praying...pray for wisdom and discernment and also for perfect Spanish for Samuel and pray that the Holy Spirit would draw the gang leader (and all those who are lost) to Himself - that He would lead them to Salvation. Pray for protection and pray that God would be glorified! Pray that we would be kept in perfect peace as our minds remain steadfast on Him...

And, as another little testimony of God's protection: a few years ago, we were also being told to fear for our lives in the community and never to walk alone there, etc. we prayed about it with some fellow missionaries here and the next time we went to the community we were met by Don Manuel (the elderly caretaker, recently become blind), saying that he could SEE our car driving onto the property and all around it were people dressed in white, ascending and descending & encircling the vehicle in chariots...and he knew not to fear for us anymore. Not only are there Angels all around, but THE God of angel armies is by our side!

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