On Friday we had scheduled to show the Jesus Film in the lower part of Bellavista. We invited Letty and her friends to come pass out invitations with us and they eagerly came to help. When we began passing out invitations we were dismayed to find that since we had been there on Tuesday, the water from the river had risen and started to flood this area, literally cutting off most of the street.
You see, for about 3 months of every year during the rainy season, there are parts of Iquitos (the poorer areas) where the houses are built up on stilts because the water from the river rises, literally flooding everything and making it difficult to get around. Our plan to reach a large amount of people seemed to no longer be a reality. Dalila and I still felt strongly that in this area we were supposed to be showing the Jesus Film that night. And so, with our 4 eager helpers, we began climbing scary bridges made of scrap pieces of wood to pass out invitations to those whose houses were now above a river. A little ways down we reached more dry ground and continued on. We were able to pass out 250 invitations in all.
My partner and I were so encouraged by Letty and her friends. They could easily be future leaders in the church plant in Bellavista Nanay. What we didn't expect, was how moving of an experience this would be for them. Three of the women are from the capital city of Lima and have lived fairly comfortable lives. Because I am working in it every day, I think I sometimes forget that even in Peru, there are people who have never seen real poverty. After we finished with the invitations most of the women were choked up in the realization of how blessed and lucky they are. That they have running water, enough food to eat every day, kids who know comfort and safety. They also were full of ideas of how we could help people here. They told us how they want to help in any way that they can, and that they want us to teach them to evangelize so that they can share the greatest gift, God's love and hope.
We finished and the ladies left a little after 5. Dalila and I still had a little over an hour before we needed to start getting ready for the film, and so we decided to spend that time in prayer for the night. We prayed over the houses and for God's anointing of the night. We prayed in faith, that even though it seemed unlikely we'd be able to reach many people, that we knew this was no real obstacle for God.
When we first started setting up the equipment there was literally no one around. But we had faith. We played a short 10 minute kids video to try to attract some more people and announced over loud speakers that we would start the film. By the time we started the movie we had only a handful of kids, and one of our contacts. Slowly however, people began coming out of their houses. Many watched from windows and distances from far away. About halfway through I looked around and the numbers had greatly grown. Almost every house had people sitting in the doorway, and there were about 15 adults and 20 kids sitting closer to the screen. More people than we could have imagined were there watching. We paused the movie with the scene of Jesus on the cross and one of my team mates gave an invitation. I had chills as I could feel the Holy Spirit moving. I love seeing answered prayer.
There were 6 of us there who went around taking down names of people who wanted visits from us so that we could continue to share with them. After having so many doors shut to us previously I was a little nervous about this. But the people were open and also eager for us to come visit them. We walked away with 15 names to come and visit. This is a huge number for us!
God worked against all that we saw as "obstacles" on Friday night. It was an amazing and encouraging day and night and my heart is soaring with the possibilities and opportunities that are still to come with sharing God in Bellavista Nanay.
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