An encouragement to parents...

We have our first team here!!! They have been awesome – for numerous reasons which we will get into in another blog. For their first day here, Sunday, we split them up and I went with three of them to a small village church called Okolasi. They shared their testimonies while Tim translated. Normally Okolasi's church services are pretty short - not this time! After the guys finished their testimony a lady got up to give “an encouragement” – which lasted an hour!

Despite its length it was still a good story, and I wanted to share it with some of you parents. Now I’m going to just give you the gist, because in reality that is all I got! She had a son who was bad, in and out of jail, and had people that wanted to kill him. She prayed and fasted for her son for three days and begged God to change him. Somehow he got the opportunity to move to another city here, Port Gentil. Before the flight his mom met him at the airport and he told her that he knew that she loved him and that God loves him. When she talked to a cousin of hers in Port Gentil, he remarked that her son was a changed man. Now if I understood correctly this story happened awhile ago and now that son is in the ministry, either a pastor or an evangelist.

Now comes the brutally honest part… as she was telling this story my thoughts immediately turned to wondering how she and her husband had raised him. Had they disciplined him like they should have? Shown him love? Etc… This would be the point where God gently reminded me of two things.  One - I had no idea how he was raised, especially since they raise their children much differently here.  And two - am I the one to say that the parents did a good job or a bad job - God reassured me that I was NOT the judge!

As each parent can testify… you only have so much control… which eventually dwindles to little more than an influence. You can hope that you have given them a good base of values and character, but at some point they start making their own decisions.

Well this whole episode just reminded me of God’s redeeming capability. He is a powerful God that can make dramatic changes in someone’s life, no matter what their upbringing or poor decisions!