Jason Beebout
Come
and listen, all you who fear God;
let me tell you what He has done for me.
Psalm
66:16
What began as a visit to see my parents,
who were spending three months in Paraguay helping the missionaries in Asuncion,
soon became a ministry of God to my heart.
I would not have guessed that by the time I reached the airport in
Paraguay, I would already feel integrated into a work team I had not met before.
Over the week that followed, God ordained opportunities for several of
the team members to minister to my life.
After spending a couple days in Paraguay, I discovered a hardness
in my heart which I was previously unaware of.
God began to soften me towards the culture through Benito, a native
Paraguayan, who taught me how to lay bricks despite the language barrier.
That afternoon, we took a ride into a rural area of Paraguay to visit a
school where Andy, one of the WGM missionaries, was training other missionaries
in the heart language of the Paraguayan people.
During this trip, I witnessed something that refreshed my heart.
Along the roads and in the yards, people were gathered together visiting
and enjoying the company of one another. It
was obvious that they placed a priority on spending time with one another.
The visit with my Dad on the way back helped me to acknowledge the
hardness that was present and to experience some of God’s healing grace.
One of the greatest highlights for me was spending time with the
missionaries. Tom and Ellen Dunbar, Joe and Ellen Kunkle, Andy Bowen, and
my Mom and Dad were sharing their lives so others could see Jesus in the flesh
and hear about God’s plan of salvation. It
was such a blessing to hear their testimonies of how God was using their lives
to build His kingdom. It was also a
reminder that God uses ordinary people in extraordinary ways.
God impressed a scripture passage from Matthew chapter 9 on my
heart while I was there. The first part of the passage tells of Jesus compassion as he
looks upon the crowds and sees they are harassed and helpless like sheep without
a shepherd. Jesus then tells his
disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers into the harvest field.
As I reflect upon the journey, this passage reminds me of the need to be
asking God for people to be His ambassadors to Paraguay and the ends of the
earth.
I want to thank all of God’s servants who were a part of
making this trip a ministering experience for me.
I would also like to encourage anyone who has not been on a cross
cultural ministry experience to invest a moment or two of your life and see how
God would use it.
“Come
and see what God has done,
how
awesome His works in man’s behalf!”
Psalm 66:5
You may e-mail Jason at: beeb1@iastate.edu
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