“I will come by you into Spain.” (Rom. 15:28)
Ever since I turned my sights to South Providence, there was no looking back. While conversions have been slow in coming (O come, Holy Spirit!), yet there has been a striking openness, especially among the Hispanic community there. I have been invited into the homes of many families and sweet, little old ladies, proclaiming the timeless truth of Jesus with my rather flawed, Gringo-Spanish. I have many an open door to read Scripture, expound, exhort, and pray. And of course, I’m keen to introduce the richness of the Reformed faith where there is quite a range of sub-par ‘Christianities.’
The struggle, of course, has been that our regular services have only been in English. With our slender resources, we’ve done various things to bridge the gap. We’ve had special midweek meetings with translation. And we’ve attempted on and off to have our services translated into Spanish. But because I can’t predict when someone will take up the offer to worship with us, it has really put a damper on that project.
Well, in recent weeks, things have changed. One Hispanic family – we’ll give them the surname here, “Ortega” – has started coming. Last Lord’s day was the second time in three weeks, and they seem rather interested. A brother in our church and I had met them doing door to door a couple of years back, and they were quite receptive. Finally, something clicked. They came to our uber-Presbyterian, psalm-singing, KJV-reading church … and they weren’t scared away. They seem to track with and appreciate the preaching. It is a young unmarried couple with a little boy and a grandmother. The couple is evidently unconverted, whatever their opinions of their state might be. The grandmother seems to be a devout Bible reader, judging from her very used copy.
The couple is bilingual, but the grandmother is not. So we’re working on some kind of translation of my sermons, which is not straightforward. If you are bilingual, Reformed, and willing to help from a distance, please drop us a note!
And please keep these folks in prayer. They could easily lose interest and drift away. I’m quite prepared for that, as I’ve seen in my day many promising starts fizzling out. Please pray ultimately for a regenerating baptism of the Spirit of God, clothing the Word with power.
We were also struck that a Liberian sister who joined our church from the outreach saw the young lady and realized that they were good friends from high school. Perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into that. But a coincidence? I think not.
A brother and I were making our way through a street in our district some years back. We came up to a black fellow in his 30’s as he was standing outside his apartment complex. We struck up a conversation and spoke to him about God, the soul, and the judgment to come. Out of nowhere – or so it seemed to us – this fellow broke down and wept. He confessed a deep sense of his sin, especially his sinful and violent anger. It was very touching and a more hopeful sign that God was not done with this sinner and was striving with him by His Spirit then and there.
Went out in my nearby Lakewood parish Friday. Very encouraging overall. First, approached a couple of fellows who were talking in their driveway. Not wanting to interrupt, I handed them my literature. “Don’t let me interrupt you … unless you’re open to talking religion!” Well, they were. The one fellow, a 40-something biker type with a braided beard, told me that Christianity was suspect, having come down to us through the ages through oral tradition. He didn’t mention the telephone game illustration, but that was the gist of it. I explained to him and his friend the radical concern the early Christians had in bearing witness to the truth. Eventually, I gave the great ‘for instance’ in Saul of Tarsus. Open enemy. Jihadi type. A card-carrying, high profile Jew who hated the Christians. Then he claimed he witnessed the risen Christ, then began “preaching the faith he once destroyed.” At the very least, we should sit up and take notice. I invited him to church, and he indicated that I would probably see him someday.
them with dignity. We cut down trees for our benefit and harvest wheat for our consumption. Why wouldn’t we do that with humans? What makes some matter more valuable than other forms?
If you’re looking for a short, accessible, and engaging introduction to the life of Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), you should definitely pick up Sandy Finlayson’s 
West Port Experiment 