September 21, 2009

• God is still in the miracle business...

  Updated...added a couple of things...
  

  
  We had an extraordinary day yesterday. Let me explain.

  Our church supports independent missionaries, and some from organizations other than the SBC. We are Southern Baptist, but we do not send our money to their missions board (not that it's a bad thing...we just prefer to know them). We support missionaries that we can get to know personally, and see evidence of their work. It makes it more personal. Our pastor is also a teacher at a Christian school, and many of these missionaries he has met when they came to speak at their chapel services. He then invites them to our church to speak, and we vote on whether or not we are going to support them.

  We support Mei-Mei Lee from Child Evangelism Fellowship. She was born in China, but came to America (she lived in the Los Angeles area) when she was young. Now she is in Macau, China, teaching children about Jesus. She came to visit us last year, to let us know how her work is going. This is Mei-Mei.

  We also support Sam and Kathy Nolasco. They are in Costa Rica. The churches they have started there are growing by leaps and bounds. I can't find a good picture of Sam. But this is their blog. They don't update very often. We have had 2 garage sales to benefit their ministry, including one to help pay some humongous dental surgery bills Sam had.

  We also support the Gideons and Southeast Area Ministries. "SeAM" is an association of churches in our area, that provides a resale shop, food pantry, and financial assistance.

  But my favorite of our missionaries are Bobby and Iliana Thurston. Their story is amazing. Bobby spoke in our morning service yesterday, and then we had a dinner afterwards.

  Bobby is 53 and grew up in Indiana. He got into drugs and was making a mess of his life. He was not a Christian. But there was a lady that kept telling him, "Jesus loves you and He has something special in mind for you." She bugged him. She'd call him in the middle of the night. He kept tell her he didn't want anything to do with her God, and used some very strong language to tell her so. But she didn't give up.

  Bobby moved to Texas and lived in Pasadena several years. He thought he'd get away from everything in Indiana, including the lady who bugged him. He didn't....she called him here, too. And  at the age of 22, he was saved. And he started preaching just a few months after that.

  The lady who kept bugging him....she had always said she was going to be there when it happened. She was present when he was ordained as a minister. She placed her hand on his head during the service. She died one month after he was ordained.

  He ended up going to Cuba as a missionary. Now, our country didn't allow travel to Cuba, so he went by way of Mexico and was smuggled into Cuba. That's where he met Iliana. He said he couldn't find a wife in Texas...he had to go to Cuba.

  He stopped once to pray for a man in Cuba, and he was arrested, and interrogated for 16 hours. He was threatened with prison. But as he prayed, God intervened, and they not only let him go...the military general questioning him told everybody else not to bother him again. God caused Bobby to find some favor in the eyes of some of the Cuban officials.

  Their story is very long (too long to type it all here), and extremely interesting. A few years ago, they took a break and came home for a short time. Bobby temporarily pastored a small church, and Iliana studied for her citizenship test. She failed the first time, because that test is tough. People who want to become citizens have to know so much more about our country than we do. And she did not know much English, although she is learning. Several years ago, we laughed when she told us one English word she knew well was L'Oreal. And that's not even English. It's French. But they told her to study some more and come back the next week. Bobby and Iliana prayed for a kind, compassionate interviewer, and boy did God ever answer that prayer. The lady practically gave Iliana all the answers. She passed.

  In Cuba, they have government churches and underground churches. There is an official in each government church, that reports to the government if the pastor deviates even a little from the prepared script given him by the government. But the underground churches are flourishing. They cannot be open about their churches, though, since they are technically breaking all the rules.

  And somehow in all this, they got permission to build another church in Cuba, because the one they had was too small. God works miracles.

  People here do not know how bad it really is in Cuba. The people are starving. There is so little food, and almost no way to cook it. The government took away all cooking gas from the people, so they are ripping apart their houses for fuel to cook. They cannot chop down trees...it's against the law. They cannot eat any animals that are work animals, such as cows. And chickens lay eggs so they cannot eat them. Each person gets a monthly ration of food, and it is so low, I don't know how anybody is still alive. Three eggs per month per person....3 lbs of sugar, 3 lbs of rice, l lb of beans, and no coffee. And if you have an infant, they can have a half liter of milk every other day. Things have gotten worse since Raul Castro took over for Fidel. They use to get 5 lbs of sugar and 4 oz. of coffee a month, too. That has been taken away.

  Farmers can raise hogs. Sounds encouraging. The government will give a farmer 10 pigs to raise. But he must provide everything they need to grow up, and when they are grown, the government takes back 9. He gets to keep one. And if one of them dies, that's the farmer's one that died. He gets nothing.

  Iliana's cousin's house in Cuba was damaged by a hurricane 3 years ago. It has no roof. The government is supposed to take care of its people, right? Well, 3 years later, her house still has no roof on it. They cannot get permission from the government to repair the house.

  They have no medicine for common folk. Bobby said even an aspirin is hard to find. When Iliana lived there, she had some surgery with no anesthesia. They tied her arms and legs down to the table and cut into her back with nothing to kill the pain. Bobby tells an amazing story of how he got $10,000 worth of drugs into the country a few years ago. Somehow his "luggage" was misplace when he had to stop for visa paperwork, and they thought it was lost. He was leaving the airport, and right by the door was his luggage full of medicines, that had not even been searched by the officials, which is customary. Think that was a God thing? Our youth and music minister's daughter is a doctor, and she was contributing drugs for him to take to Cuba.

  They have been trying to take food into Cuba. He asked one man there what their greatest need is, and he said food. Bobby said they are trying to "take the children back." Children in Cuba know no other way of life than what they have. He is trying to show them a better way.

  When Bobby first brought Iliana out of Cuba, he took her to a grocery store in Mexico. She cried. And that was just in Mexico. She was amazed by the street vendors in Mexico and wanted to know who owned it all. The abundance of things available to us here in America was mind-boggling to her. Right now, they are trying to cut back on the amount of food they eat, to get their bodies use to eating only a little, when they go back to Cuba in January.

  Bobby no longer has to be smuggled into Cuba. Our government has licensed him to travel there. They are in the process of moving their ministry to Toluca, Mexico. Their base will be there, and they will minster in Mexico, but they will also only be a short distance from Cuba.

  Miracles still happen. God is still in charge.

  This is Bobby and Iliana, at our Valentine Banquet back in 2003:

  

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