The Night Mexico Became My Samaria

The Spreading Order Of The Great Commission

"And he (Jesus) said unto them .... Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Acts 1:7-8.

In Luke's record, of the Actions of the Apostles, in the first few paragraphs, he quoted the Great, Good News Commission Jesus gave his disciples to preach His Gospel. They were to begin where they were, in Jerusalem first, and then spreading outward into all of Judaea, their homeland, and from there into their bordering, neighbors' lands, and finally   "unto the uttermost parts of the earth".

After Bettie and I moved our family to Florida and founded a new church, which I pastored for nearly 30 years, it had grown large enough to expand our outreach with several additional ministries. The congregation was ready to spread out and we founded several extension ministries in and around Tallahassee. These included three Christian Schools, the City Food Bank, a TV station and Lighthouse Childrens' Home. The real purpose of these ministries was to reach the people of North Florida with the Gospel. 

Our church membership had become a missions minded body of fantastic disciples of Christ and gladly supported these ministries. They were always ready to reach out, beyond the church, to obey the Great Commission and to reach the lost  with the Gospel of Christ. We were already supporting Bible Schools, foreign Missionaries, and helping found new churches, but I felt the need to put the next step of our expansion into our southern neighbor, Mexico.
Being a pragmatic man, I could see several advantages in missionizing Mexico.  It requires the least effort for the most results; It could be easily visited by our church members on missions trips; I could stay better informed on exactly what was happening in Mexico with our Church's missions investments. The Mexican people already knew who Jesus was and Christianity was not some foreign religion to them, but the vast majority of them thought more of Mary than of Jesus and didn't really know how to put what they knew about the Bible and God all together, or how to be truly born again. So they were prime prospective candidates to accept Christ as their personal Savior. It appeared to me to be the most fertile, receptive and productive place for our sacrificing members' giving.

So as a the Pastor, of a very supportive church, I began to look to Mexico as our next, major, ministry. About that time, Missionary Ralph McCoy called me to asked that I come down and join him on an outreach into a mountain village, not the one I mentioned in my last blog named Tlapa. This one was unique in that it had no Catholic church or priest and strangely was inhabited by light skinned, almost pure Castilian Spanish DNA. Most of them had blond, brown, even red hair and many had blue eyes. Their village was located in a high mountain valley within driving distance of Cuerna Vaca. I went. When I arrived, we drove to within three or four miles of the village and had to walk in on a trail. We took two lanterns for an evening service. When we arrived, we met with the leader of this enclave who were scattered in the nearby mountains surrounding the village. He was thrilled to welcome us and asked that we take his little shack of a house for the rest of that day and sleep there that night. His family would sleep outside. We didn't want to do that but he insisted. Then he chose an open spot at the edge of the village and we strung a rope between two trees and hung the lanterns on it. The word, that "two men of God" would speak in the village that evening, was carried by a bunch of boys to every corner and person on those surrounding mountains. Just at sundown, an interesting thing began to happen. Ralph and I were sitting on two boxes awaiting the arrival of whoever was coming. I was concerned that those who came down those mountains wouldn't be able to walk, in the dark, over such rocky trails, as we came in on, and I asked the Leader if they had flash-lights. He simply said none of them had flash-lights but they would be there shortly with "no problemo". As it got dark, we saw one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. There were a couple of hundred little lights bumping down those hills on a couple of dozen trails. I could see they were not flashlights and must be candles. As they began to pour into the village, we saw short little candles about an inch high and half an inch wide stuck on the big toe-nails of all the adults. They extinguished them with their fingers and left them where they were for their return home later.

I preached Jesus to that crowd; Ralph translated, and probably improved on my words, and nearly every one of those precious, Castilian Mexican people came to Christ that night. Ralph's two sons were there, with their father, to receive the converts, and strengthen their commitment and faith in Christ. Again, I must repeat ... truly, my life has been a blessed, interesting experience. Praise God.

From that amazing night, Mexico became my Samaria; the "bordering nation" at our back door.  Another of the tremendous blessings God has given me, for many years, through Mexico, is the story of my friend and fellow laborer Armondo Lopez. Armondo, who pastored our first church and mission station in Mexico, and whom some of you have met, when he shared that ministry with our church, in Tallahassee. A dozen of you men also helped us built that church building. God willing, I will share the story of Armondo soon. 

A Common Sense caveat:
Yes, I love the Mexican people, but we cannot survive, as a Socialistic nation, which we have become, with an open border to the many, desperately poor and poorly managed nations south of us. We can send the Gospel and food and material to build their need for Bible churches. But, Socialism's free everything  for everybody, will soon enough destroy a Socialist nation, and even sooner if that nation has open borders to the the world's billions of poor. We will all soon become equally poverty stricken and empty all the built up resources of our forebears ... even in the United States. We are already 21 $trillion in cash loan debt and another 150-200 $trillion of unfunded, contractual, debt liabilities such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal retirement programs, etc. etc. To fulfill new Democrat proposed promises would require more than the total value of the United States, land, infrastructure, all the buildings, homes, vehicles, and all the stocks, bonds and savings of all our citizens. Trying to fulfill even a tenth of those promises will soon result in a dysfunctional nation which cannot repay its debts or fulfill welfare and other commitments ... much less protect our people from foreign warmongers. Even the debt our government now has will do so in time if not defaulted on or inflated away by printing enough monopoly money to pay that debt. Pray and Vote. RB