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Well we just finished with a happy fun filled park ministry. Once a month we help with a local church outreach to migrant workers waiting in Hayden Park for some work to come their way. On any given day there are 30 to 50 and often more Hispanic men standing around hoping for work .They come from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and everywhere in between. For the most part they are a good-natured group with only a few exceptions. Mrs. Park has been doing this for almost 8 years. We have been helping her for about 1/2 that time. We have seen Spanish preachers and singers come and go by the dozen, yet Mrs. Park or “Happy “ as she is affectionately called, is always there with her little band of 1/2 dozen or more helpers! She is quite a testimony to us all as to how effective just showing up time after time can be. Seeing she doesn’t speak Spanish except,” Dios esta aqui!”
Today was almost a comedy of events as we hurried on over to the park to do our part. Hopefully there will be a preacher or some singers or someone who can speak Spanish, but you never know what you will find! Mrs. Park said “well, I invited one who said he would come, but you never know.” Well guess who was the preacher, singer and prayer today? You guessed it… Yours truly along with my dear wife who speaks more French than Spanish!
So here we are with our little guitar and amplifier with an old CD player trying to plug into the inverter of the 12 volt system that is only partially working. Then just as we get the kinks out of the electric problem, the CD player decides to die on us. Yep, those Duracell, long life batteries went flat. And at such a time…so,I decide to just go ahead and tune my guitar and forget the electronics. So I pull out my battery little tuner to tune up and lo and behold, the tuner is broken and for the first time won’t respond. Adria had departed to purchase some batteries for the CD player at a store across the street, as the crowd was now gathering wondering if anything we brought would work?
Adria returns with the batteries and now the CD player decides to start skipping !!!
And to top at all off it decides to start sprinkling. ”That wasn’t in the forecast “Happy says .Well a lot was not in the forecast that we are experiencing was it! Ha!
So Adria goes to get an umbrella, and guess what? It works! So off we go singing in the rain for Jesus.
We quoted Psalm 23 together in Spanish and took off singing, preaching and praying as best we could.
I had my Spanish New Testament (the one that survived the burning of our camper van in 1988. See story in ”Daddy, the van is burning”. So we read from John 3 about “ye must be born again” I don’t know how but the whole crowd raised their hands and hearts to heaven at the end. Just as we begin to pray in our very broken Spanish, a young man from the crowd steps forward and says “I can help.” Where have you been all morning?
I think we have made some real friends today as we stumbled through our presentation. ”Triumph is 10% try and 90% UMPH” Seems God doesn’t use the qualified, but can qualify whom He chooses.
Many times God will use you, not because of your great ability, but just because you are there and others aren’t . So showing up is half the victory! Thank You Lord You have chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak, base, despised and are nots to do your work (1 Cor 1: 27)
Today was almost a comedy of events as we hurried on over to the park to do our part. Hopefully there will be a preacher or some singers or someone who can speak Spanish, but you never know what you will find! Mrs. Park said “well, I invited one who said he would come, but you never know.” Well guess who was the preacher, singer and prayer today? You guessed it… Yours truly along with my dear wife who speaks more French than Spanish!
So here we are with our little guitar and amplifier with an old CD player trying to plug into the inverter of the 12 volt system that is only partially working. Then just as we get the kinks out of the electric problem, the CD player decides to die on us. Yep, those Duracell, long life batteries went flat. And at such a time…so,I decide to just go ahead and tune my guitar and forget the electronics. So I pull out my battery little tuner to tune up and lo and behold, the tuner is broken and for the first time won’t respond. Adria had departed to purchase some batteries for the CD player at a store across the street, as the crowd was now gathering wondering if anything we brought would work?
Adria returns with the batteries and now the CD player decides to start skipping !!!
And to top at all off it decides to start sprinkling. ”That wasn’t in the forecast “Happy says .Well a lot was not in the forecast that we are experiencing was it! Ha!
So Adria goes to get an umbrella, and guess what? It works! So off we go singing in the rain for Jesus.
We quoted Psalm 23 together in Spanish and took off singing, preaching and praying as best we could.
I had my Spanish New Testament (the one that survived the burning of our camper van in 1988. See story in ”Daddy, the van is burning”. So we read from John 3 about “ye must be born again” I don’t know how but the whole crowd raised their hands and hearts to heaven at the end. Just as we begin to pray in our very broken Spanish, a young man from the crowd steps forward and says “I can help.” Where have you been all morning?
I think we have made some real friends today as we stumbled through our presentation. ”Triumph is 10% try and 90% UMPH” Seems God doesn’t use the qualified, but can qualify whom He chooses.
Many times God will use you, not because of your great ability, but just because you are there and others aren’t . So showing up is half the victory! Thank You Lord You have chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak, base, despised and are nots to do your work (1 Cor 1: 27)
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