{"id":32,"date":"2008-09-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-27T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-09-27T19:01:56","modified_gmt":"2008-09-27T23:01:56","slug":"the-first-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/2008\/09\/27\/the-first-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aaron<\/a><\/p>\n

Butch had just finished teaching about Noah and the first rain. He had explained God’s patience and mercy toward mankind in waiting 120 years while Noah preached repentance and the impending flood. However mankind had refused to believe God’s message and believe in God Himself. They had continued on in their daily lives filled with self gratification and sin until the day God fulfilled His Word and wiped them from the face of the earth.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

From the back of the group a man stood up and began to quietly address the group. This was the same man that had been opposed to us teaching in the village. “The people of Noah’s day were sinners,” he began and started listing some of their sins. Then he continued, “The people here on New Ireland, we are just like the people of Noah’s day. We fight, we kill, we do bad things, and we don’t want to hear God’s message. It would be good if we all came to hear this teaching of God’s Word because we are just like those people of Noah’s day that drowned in the flood.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

There are so many stories that I could tell like this, but I want to share how I believe God is answering your prayers. Last week I sent out prayer requests. I am going to restate them this week and share what has happened since you started praying.<\/p>\n

*\tRain – all our water tanks are very low, and the rivers where the people get water are getting dry. — Since then: On Tuesday I had collected two buckets of water from the creek. That afternoon I took my 3 girls down to the creek to bathe in about 6″ of water, wondering what we would do if the lack of rain continued. On our walk home, I felt a drop, then another, then another. Within fifteen minutes we were being pounded with the first rain in several weeks. Almost everyday since then we have had beautiful, dry, sunny mornings for the teaching and rain in the afternoon. Our water tanks are overflowing and the rivers are filling up.thanks for your prayers. *\t“Grandma” the villages’ oldest woman is in very poor health and we are praying she will come to understand the Gospel before it is too late. — Since then: “Grandma” has improved and on Friday proudly showed off her strength to us by lifting her feet 6″ off the ground while seated on a bench. Our applause made her smile widely. More importantly though, both Butch and I have had the chance to re-teach her the Old Testament stories we have been teaching and from there share the Gospel with her. We have been encouraged with her coherence while we talk and she has been very receptive and though its not always easy to understand, her mumbling seems to be accepting and believing the message that we have shared. *\tContinued illumination by the Spirit of the Word to the hearts of the hearers. – Since then: Each day after the teaching, instead of leaving right away, the men and woman have continued to sit there and begin to talk about the things they have heard and learned and what it means for them. *\tThere are many who are only coming occasionally and some who have not yet come to the teaching who are within a short walk of the meeting place. – This is the area we would like you to continue to pray for. We continue to have a steady group of folks coming and are encouraged with their faithful attendance, but we’d like to see those periodic “attenders” come regularly.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Coming this week:<\/p>\n

*\tThe promise of the coming Deliverer restated to Abraham. *\tThe sin and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. *\tAbraham told to sacrifice his only son Isaac, but God provides a replacement sacrifice. *\tIsaac and his sons Jacob and Esau and God’s sovereignty and wisdom. *\tJoseph goes to Egypt – a prophecy fulfilled and a people saved from famine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Thanks for partnering with us during this time!<\/p>\n

Aaron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We fight, we kill, we do bad things, and we don’t want to hear
\nGod’s message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/aaron-luse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}