It happened long ago....

Sister Alvear · #1 05-15-2010, 01:04 AM

How Beautiful Are The Feet

Soul winning is largely a matter of consecrated feet! Walking comes before talking in God’s plan. How can one preach except he goes first? Of what use is a mouth with a message so dear, unless the feet carry it? How beautiful are the feet of the soul winner?
It’s hard to imagine beautiful feet could be so painful, I thought as I lay down in the hammock. It had been a long day, and we were tired to the bone. We had been up since before daylight. We had traveled by bus, ferryboat, and walked all day. Night found us at a little village in the jungle of North Brazil. They did not know that we were coming, but word spreads fast, and soon we would have a service for them.
We were hot, thirsty, and tired. Brother Anisio, Brother Jose Roberto, Brother Nathaniel, Sister Veta, and a trinity pastor and his wife that I had met on the journey, were with me. The trinity pastor, Brother Jea and his wife, Sister Raiminda had pastured a four-square church in an interior city along the sea coast. I had met them on my arrival in the north, and had preached at their church, and they received the Jesus Name revelation. So, they were coming along to be with us, and learn more of our doctrine, and to be baptized.
We walked out to little lean-to to see what we could buy to eat. There were dried fish covered with flies, sweet, unwrapped bread in a counter full of roach bugs and whatever, and there were eggs on the counter, that was all. So we bought sweet bread and eggs. The lady where we would spend the night took it home with her to prepare for us after church.
By this time it was getting dark, "Are you not going to baptize us?" Pastor Jea asked. "Well," I said more to myself than anyone, "I don't know where a stream is." A bright eyed little boy looked at me and said: "I'll take you all, follow me."
We did not have flashlights or candles or anything to light the way. The cover-growth from the jungle covered us from the moon. It was so dark I shuddered. "Don't be afraid, Missionary." The little boy said. "There are not many snakes crawling at night, they're lazy." I hope they are all lazy tonight. I thought. A huge lizard fell from a tree on Brother Jea's back; from there it dropped to the ground.
We arrived at the edge of the water. "Go ahead and baptize them." I said to Brother Anisio. "Oh no," the trinity pastor spoke up. "You won us, missionary, and we want you to baptize us." As I stepped into the unknown water, I whispered to the little boy that had become my friend, "Are there any alligators in the water?" "Just a few." He replied. I then remembered the words often sung by missionaries. "Oh, Jesus if I die upon a foreign field for thee, could be no lesser sacrifice, no more than love demands. No greater love hath mortal man than for a friend to die, and the I him say so tenderly."
Suddenly I felt objects swim past me. I wondered if they were fish or alligators. Brother Alvear was in the States. I imagined him eating a nice steak in some restaurant and here I was about to become steak for an alligator! If he only knew where I was. No, I thought, it is better that he does not know for the time being.
Those on the bank had finished their song, and quickly I baptized Brother Jea, Sister Riminda and two more from the village that had asked to be baptized. We walked back to the village in our dripping wet clothes, and conducted a service with over one hundred people present, all standing in the open air.
When the service was over, we started our journey to Sister Maria's little bamboo hut where we would stay. It was so hot. It seemed to be over one hundred degrees. We walked through high grass to get there.
There was no electricity at her house, and the only light she had was a tin can made into a tiny lantern (sometimes that can be a blessing!). The light was on her little table. Beside it was a plate of eggs that she had scrambled for us. Water bugs were crawling on the eggs. The bread was dirty and grimy from the start. Since things are blessed in Jesus Name, we blessed it and began to eat.
We hung up our hammocks, the men on one side of the banana leaves, and the women on the other. I sat down on my hammock; the tiny lantern was still burning on the table. In the small area that was lit up on the wall, I noticed a huge spider. "Oh, Vita get up and kill that spider." She jumped up from her hammock and went to kill it. Sister Marie tried to shoo it away. "Kill it, Vita!" I said. Sister Maria didn't say anything, but her look said, Oh, how cruel. "Get the light and see if there are any more." I said. That was a mistake. Vita ended up killing several huge spiders, a scorpion and several other bugs. I was almost asleep when Brother Anisio cried out, "Missionary, are you covered up?" "Covered up," I said, "I'm about to melt." "Missionary, you must cover up, there are vampire bats flying around."
Vita had never been in North Brazil, so she had brought a small wool blanket. She jumped from her hammock and got the blanket from her backpack and gave it to me. I covered up and thought: Well, I escaped from the alligators, the spiders haven't bitten me yet, but I will suffocate under this blanket. Sweat pored down my face. Mercifully, I drifted off to sleep.
"Just wait until the Missionary wakes up." Were the first words I heard at sunrise. They laughed as they stood over my hammock. Slowly, I uncovered my head. Hanging over my hammock was a larger spider in her web, right above my head. I don't know how lady-like it was, but I quickly made a descent from my hammock.
As I looked around at our surroundings in the daylight, I saw why the lady thought it was useless to kill the spiders the night before. The hovel was infested by spiders! Spiders on the grass roof, the bamboo walls, crawling across the floor. I quickly suggested that we pray with the people of that home, so we could go on our way. That was one time that I took the scripture literally that says: "Watch and pray."
There wasn't much to do to get ready to leave a village like that. There was no running water, no bathrooms. We slept in our clothes. So, after we had some dry cassava flour and a banana for breakfast, we were on our way. A great victory had been accomplished; four precious souls had been baptized, and a preaching point strengthened. Sometimes people were ask: Are those sacrifices worth it?" Jesus answered that by saying, "One soul is worth all the riches of the world." How rich we felt that day.