He is real and He is here… what a joy!

The first week that we split into three groups, on Sunday night in Aningas, was chaotic. The littlest kids were frozen in place and didn’t answer Mark’s questions, Caroline finished her lesson in 5 minutes, and my class had a hour’s worth of questions!

But this Sunday was one I’ll never forget. We had just separated into our groups when a car drove up to the Galpão, with loud, blaring, obnoxious music. Then, the volume increased. Suddenly, it stopped and four young men came in. They sat down, so I handed them each a paper, with the lesson I had prepared, on it.

Thou God seest me” (Genesis 16:13) was across the top of the sheet in bold print. I had written some discussion questions about this verse and supplied the Bible references that answered the questions. One of the questions asked whether God sees more than just our actions. The scripture reference was: “Man looks on the outward, but God looks on the heart.” (1Samuel 16:7)

One of the men looked at me and said, “We came here to make trouble, but this verse is talking to me and I’m going to listen now.” The other three agreed, so we talked about how God knows our motives, our thoughts, and He still loves us. He loves these four men enough to turn their bad intentions into an opportunity to show them Who He is. The end of the verse, “Thou God sees me,” in Portuguese says roughly, “and can it be that I have seen the One Who see me?”

Then Nildete said, “But now you have to choose whether you’re going to accept Him or not.” Then Layane said, “You will choose. If you leave without accepting Him, it means you said ‘no’ to God.”

Then, Natalia said, “There’s a verse here that tells you how you can accept Him.” This segued right into the last verse on the page: “What must I do to be saved? Believe on The Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” (Acts 16:31)

Rodrigo, Anderson, Jeferson and Cleiton gave me a hug when they went out and said, “There’s no way we could touch this place. This is God.”

I love when He leads us. It’s so much joy, just knowing He’s real and He’s right here.

Don’t forget to pray for these four men. Cleiton is a crack addict.