“We warned them,” Esa said to me after getting off the phone one morning. She had just talked to a lady visiting us during our time in Mexico with her family from Indiana. Their seven-year-old daughter had picked up a parasite in her digestive tract the first day in town and was running a high fever and vomiting. A child can get dehydrated within a few hours and can even die if not treated quickly and properly. Prior to their arrival, we had suggested they might want to leave their children home but they wouldn’t hear of it. They spent a month in San Miguel and as things turned out, they took their Spanish courses, had a good vacation, their kids loved it (the child recovered), and the whole family was an inspiration to us.
Just a few short years previous, we traveled full time with our children singing and speaking in churches all over the country. We had faith for it, though at times it seemed as if it might kill us. We believed we were called to it and that meant the kids were too. We used to tell them whenever they complained (which wasn’t often), “You know, we could have been dairy farmers. You should praise God you don’t have to get up at 4:30 every morning to milk the cows!” The logic ran something like that.
So when the Greiner family made up their minds to come to Mexico with children in tow, and with rock-climbing gear to boot, Esa and I had to marvel. “We want them to have this experience even at the risk of their getting hurt or sick,” John and Irene told us. “We can handle it.” Then we kind of backed off from the email and looked at one another and grinned and said, “I didn’t know there were people out there willing to take those kinds of chances. That’s just what we would have done.” In our advancing years, perhaps we were getting too cautious. They inspired us not to be that way.
In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where the spiritual landscape is saturated with humanism, shamanism, and idolatry, it was refreshing to receive Christian visitors from other places. These folks came for periods of time varying from a week to a year or more, and then return to familiar surroundings to enjoy their own home churches. Many were surprised and excited to find us in the middle of a culturally rich but otherwise spiritually dark and challenging environment.
While they came, these brothers and sisters were glad to contribute their talents. Their presence among us was stimulating and encouraging. Many times they could see how the Lord was moving in ways we weren’t able to. They helped us see what God had accomplished and reminded us of another of the many reasons we occupied that outpost, to provide English-speaking fellowship for visiting Spirit-filled believers and other non-believing curiosity seekers.
A number of these folks came at just the right time. There was Charmaine who did an interpretive dance to a song Esa sang for one of our League of Christian Artists’ events. Michael, an elderly Italian man, full of the Holy Spirit, blessed us with his good humor. Tony, a Jamaican by birth and at the time, an art teacher in the Caicos Islands, spent a summer there studying for his Masters degree. He was also associate pastor of his church back home. He added enthusiasm to our worship with his singing and calypso clapping. The Spences from Tucson, Mike, a retired Washington attorney and Carolyn, an artist, visited several times and we remain in touch to this day. Mike Ruffert, the executive director of Youth For Christ in Colorado at the time, came only briefly but spoke words of faith and encouragement. And many others from all over the world came for varying lengths of time and contributed life to our gatherings.
Years ago, there was a lot of teaching going around about spiritual gifts, those that are spoken of in Romans 12 and First Corinthians 12. The list in Romans is what many teachers refer to as “motivational” gifts. These are gifts each of us is born with and were activated when we came to a knowledge of Christ as Lord. When each of us operates effectively in our particular gifting, we help strengthen the body of Christ. Most of us are stronger in one gift than in the others.
We recognized early on that if our ministry is characterized more by one of those gifts listed in Romans 12:6-7 than the others, it is the gift of exhortation, that is, encouragement. There’s nothing more rewarding to us than to have the opportunity to exhort brothers and sisters to do what they want to do for the kingdom of heaven, then watch that actually happen in their lives. It’s what moves us. We are motivated to encourage people to fulfill their callings and operate in their own gifts. That’s how the body of Christ is strengthened.
Once, after ministering at a church in Wisconsin, at lunch the pastor was describing various ministries that come to his church. He mentioned one man in particular whom the congregation really liked because he seemed so transparent and real and touched people’s hearts in a very distinctive way. Then he said, “As a matter of fact, this fellow saw you and your family minister at a church in another state in the mid-eighties and was so moved, he began to prepare for the ministry himself and is now an itinerant preacher!” This brother found the strength and faith within himself to do something for the sake of Christ he had considered beyond his ability. We count the fruit from his ministry as part of our own. It’s the multiplication principle.
Be an encouragement to someone and be willing to take a chance for the sake of the gospel. You never know when you might inspire someone to greater things for God and His people. It doesn’t matter where you are or what your age is. Don’t worry about what other people think. You don’t have to be conventional. Jesus wasn’t. Paul wasn’t. Neither were the saints from the early church. Actually, neither are you. You extend your ministry by helping others extend theirs. When you do, their rewards also become yours. And you can do it from right where you live!
Terry Everroad
lionsheadcafe.com 