We don’t have to look far to find people with whom we can share God’s plan of salvation. In fact, often we don’t have to look at all but He drops them so to speak in our laps.
God has had us here temporarily managing the NTM guesthouse on our island. A few weeks ago the manager’s quarters was broken into during the night and there have been two men, Melvin and Toto, hired to upgrade doors and a bay window to make them more secure.
Toto is in his mid fifties. One of our pilots has had a long talk with Toto, and Toto expressed doubts about his religion – the primary religion here in the Philippines. Melvin is a young, single man. They both speak English – Melvin quite well, Toto fairly well. But, their heart language is Cebuano which is the primary language of this part of the Philippines.
A few years ago we had our Manubu’ forty two chronological, evangelistic lessons translated into Cebuano and had those Cebuano lessons recorded in MP3 format.
Two days before their work was finished, Melvin was working alone. Gene explained about our chronological lessons and asked Melvin if would like to listen to a couple of them. Melvin said that he would so Gene put them on an old cell phone and let them play as Melvin was working. Before Melvin left for the day he asked Gene to put all the lessons on his thumb drive. And that night he listened to the third lesson.
The next day, their last day of work, both Melvin and Toto were working. Gene offered to play the lessons for Toto, and he was interested in listening to them.
Gene was there with Toto and Melvin towards the end of the second lesson. Toto talked about things he heard and answered the questions at the end of the lesson. And before they left work Toto gave Gene an SD card to put all the lessons on.
Both Toto and Melvin kept thanking and thanking Gene for the lessons. Cell phone numbers were exchanged with Gene offering to answer any questions they may have about what is in the lessons.
So, please PRAY big time for these guys – that they will listen to all the lessons, be saved, go on with the Lord, and spread the message to others.
PRAY too for Dante. A couple of weeks ago, before Toto and Melvin starting work on the manager’s house, Dante delivered a new washing machine to the guesthouse and during the hour he spent testing the machine through the cycles Gene was able to talk with him about salvation. He is also a member of the primary religion here in the Philippines. Gene offered to have a copy made for him of the written evangelistic lessons next time we are in the city, and he was interested in getting them. At that point, Gene had forgotten that we have the MP3 recordings of the lessons. Gene plans to put the recordings on an SD card and give it to Dante.
Could it be that God worked it out that we would be temporarily managing the guesthouse, have evangelistic lessons in Cebuano, the manager’s house get broken into, and Toto and Melvin come to upgrade the security, and be interested in listening to the lessons? And how about the washing machine breaking down while we are here and Dante delivering the new one and having time to talk and become interested in the evangelistic lessons in his heart language?
Our being here managing the guesthouse and our opportunity with Toto and Melvin and Dante makes us think of what Mordecai said to Esther, “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this.”