On the Road to Mexico

This past weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to go to Mexico with my church family, parents, and sister. In a later post, I will be writing about the people I met in Mexico and the homes we built there, but this particular post is about a guy I met on the way there. I'll first start with a little background information.

One night this past summer I was in my room saying my prayers. All of a sudden my prayers for people I knew turned into a prayer for two people going through a divorce. I thought it was strange that I started praying for these people because I didn't know them but decided that God must have put it on my heart and so I kept praying. In the morning I asked my mother if we knew anyone going through a divorce and she said no. I kind of just let it go after that and didn't dwell on not actually knowing the person I was praying for. Every once in a while, I would keep praying for this family.

Last weekend at church we were commissioned for the mission trip this past weekend. Afterwards, a man came up to me and thanked me for going on the trip then asked me to look out for his friend John who had recently been through a divorce and was just starting to get back into going to church. I assured the man that I would look out for him and then began praying for him.

On Thursday the group picked up my family and me in Bellville. When I climbed into the van and I sat next to a young man - John. After a little while on the road we started talking with each other. I found out many things about him - most importantly that he was recently divorced and had just started attending church again. He came on the trip because he is an architect and the first day he went back to church they announced this housing project. He thought he might enjoy it since it's what he does for a living so here he was.After we talked, he fell asleep and I sat there and took in our conversation together then it hit me. Duh, this is the John the man I met at church wanted me to watch out for. This is the John that I had been praying for the last week.

Last night we shared with the group our experiences from the past weekend. John spoke up and talked about how he had the hardest year of his life this past year, hadn't been to church in a while, had lost everything he had worked so hard for and had thought about suicide...brought tears to so many people. After a little while, I spoke up and told everyone I was so blessed to work with each of them this weekend but directed my comments toward John. I told him the story of the man who came up to me after church and asked me to watch out for him, told him I had been praying for him and was so blessed by his presence on this trip. I gave him a hug and then someone else spoke up.

After everyone who wanted to share something did, it hit me. I had actually been praying for John since the summer, not just this past week. John is the person I started praying for the night I prayed for the family going through the divorce. Today I told him about my experience this summer and he was so amazed that someone could be praying for him that didn't even know him. He asked me what I prayed and how I prayed and how I knew to pray. But how do you answer that without saying, "It was God." You can't get around that. It was all God.

This afternoon on the way home I had the chance to talk to him about the Lord some more. He asked about a bracelet I was wearing and I told him what it meant. I opened my Bible and showed him where the story in Matthew was found - where Jesus says he will make you fishers of men. I told him how Jesus wants us to advance the Gospel and then I had the chance to talk to him about it.

It was so great to talk to him about everything, to find out so much about him and be there for him. God works in such wonderful ways, doesn't he? How great is our God!!