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Marina
Menzies, Missionary to Honduras as told to Gini Moreau Copyright © 2001 Gini Moreau A HUG FROM GOD JUST WHEN IT WAS NEEDED On a day when I was tired and worn after an intensive, three-week-long meeting in Guatemala, I had a most unusual experience. And now, I wish to share this experience with you: I had just come back from Stateside Assignment three days before. Those attending this meeting had worked from 7 a.m. until midnight or later, everyday, learning how to research and make plans for Church Planting Movements. I was at a high frustration level, near exhaustion, and on "brain over-load." So, I took a break and decided to ride into Guatemala City, with some local missionaries. I went to the Post Office to buy stamps for my stamp collection. There a woman told me about a shop that sold envelopes of used Guatemalan stamps. I prefer to collect these, rather than mint stamps. Not wanting the other missionaries to wait long for me I ran to this shop only to find that it was actually a coin shop and didn't have any stamps that I wanted. This only added to my fatigue, and frustration. Then I walked to the Baptist Bookstore, where my missionary friends were waiting. One of the missionaries introduced me to a Guatemalan Baptist pastor, Josue (Joshua,) who was from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. "Where do you live?" Josue asked me. "Comayagua," I answered. His eyes got a far-away look. He said that he had lived in Comayagua briefly when he was in a live-in teachers' training school for boys, probably in 1978. I brightened. "Did you know Misael Marriaga?" I asked. "I remember Misael well," he said with a big smile and much animation. "I have seen him several times over the last few years." Misael is the president of the Honduras Baptist National Convention, and is also on the board of the Baptist Spanish Publishing House. The two men had been in several meetings together in Guatemala. Then, I asked Josue if he remembered Carlos Alvarado and Miguel Cabrera. With even more animation Josue said that Carlos had been influential in getting him into the "Youth Comandos," which was a group of believers that met on Tuesday mornings for prayer and Bible study. He once met a lady missionary there who came from Tegucigalpa once a week on Thursdays and... He noticed that I was smiling and pointing at myself. "You are the lady!" he cried. He leaned in close, laughed and hugged me - BIG TIME! "Thank you!" he continued. "When you and the boys started the Youth Comandos in the boys school, I was 15." He continued saying that he had been raised in the church, but getting into the Comandos really set him on the "straight and narrow," and after that he became a Baptist preacher! Now he lives and pastors in Guatemala. We talked until the other missionaries were ready to return. Josue hugged me three more times and thanked me again. What a precious moment! What a message from the Father to me at the very moment when I was so tired, frustrated, and needed a big hug. It was a bigger hug than I needed or would have thought possible. THANK YOU, LORD!! |
