Now, this morning we have the gift to hear from one of our missionaries.
So we've been supporting a ministry called Impacto in Guatemala for the 12 years that our church has existed.
And so this morning, Pastor Luise is here and he's going to come and preach and share with us for a little bit.
I have known Luis for 20 years.
Soon as I got out of seminary, the first church that I worked for, we started taking trips down there.
The second church that I worked for, we took trips down there.
And now I'm in the third church that I've worked for.
And so for 20 years, I've been down there 10 different times.
And hopefully, our student ministries are going to be doing trips.
Hopefully, we're going to begin to do more trips.
What I have seen over those 20 years is I have seen consistent gospel proclamation paired with loving people and caring for people.
And it's in this beautiful Lake Adelon.
Here's a picture of Lake Adelon up in the mountains of Guatemala.
Beautiful but very poor area.
And we went last year.
Here's a picture of me and my daughter.
We went last year, and then a group's gonna go, student group's gonna go again this year.
What I've realized is we have we've given us as a church, uh, we send money to them every quarter as missions giving.
Uh we've spent time, energy, trips, but I personally have received so much more than anything we have ever given to them.
I always come back from time down there with Pastor Louise or Tony, who runs the ministry down there now.
I feel like I've been on a spiritual retreat myself.
A lot of times in the mornings, the morning devotional, Pastor Louise will get up and he'll say, uh, I have I have a verse for you.
And he he does this because they love the Bible.
They just love the Bible.
And they love Jesus and they love people.
After the service, he's gonna be out in the main lobby.
And I'd love for you to stop by and talk to him.
If you as an individual or your family is just looking for, hey, we would like to support, we would like to be a part of what's going on down there.
We as a church, we're gonna keep being a part of it, but as well, you as an individual or family could be a part of that as well.
And you can just stop by and meet him, learn a little bit about what they have going on.
I'm gonna pray, and Louise, you can come on up while I'm praying, and he's gonna share and open the scriptures for us.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have brothers and sisters all around the world.
We thank you that it is one church, one kingdom that celebrates Jesus.
We thank you for Louise, his ministry.
We thank you for Tony running the ministry down in Guatemala.
Thank you for the work they're doing to educate pastors, to plant churches, to care for children who are hungry, to care for the elderly.
We pray for your continued blessing on them.
We pray this morning, as Luis shares with us, would you open our hearts to what you have for us?
Remind us how lavishly we are loved by Jesus, and remind us of the great calling that we have in Christ's name.
Amen.
And let me tell you why I say that.
For two reasons.
Maybe three.
Uh one is when he invited me, he gave me a bad news.
He says, but you just have 25 minutes.
That is bad news for me because it is impossible to share everything in the 25 minutes.
But this but the other good thing then he told me, Pastor, I don't want to put you on the spot.
But I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
But I don't want to put you on the spot, but he says, the second people, the the second service, the people has more energy than the first one.
Yes.
But in my case, I love I I love better the second service because I can go longer.
No, no, no, no, no.
But but anyway, uh, my name is Louis Martinez, yes.
I married to Dinora, um, a wonderful woman that God gave me.
He she loves the Lord with all her heart, and and God gave us two daughters.
But um my real part of my testimony uh started before I got married.
Um I have we have uh five grandchildren, and um before I got married, I dedicated my life to the Lord, and I says, okay, I'm ready to go to the seminary, and uh God allowed me to go for many years to seminary to get all my degrees.
But yeah, I love the Bible.
I love I love God's God's word, and I love to teach that.
But anyway, before I go there, says, God, I am ready to be a missionary.
But do you know what, God?
I want for you to send me to the Mayan people in my country.
I love I love my Ma the Mayan people.
I grew up in the city.
We are no Mayans, but the Mayan, the real Mayan, 100% Mayans, and some of the villages they don't speak Spanish.
We have 23 different uh Mayan languages in Guatemala, 23 tribes.
And I I start thinking, and the Sutuhilas.
Sotujil, they speak Sotujil language.
Um, well, I went to the seminary, I'm thinking, and I'm going to the Mayan, to the Mayan people, to the to the mountains in Guatemala.
Well, uh, have you have you read in the book of Proverbs?
And the book of Proverbs says uh men do their own plans, but God moves those plants wherever he wants.
You better ask God when you're making plans because he is going to move your plants wherever he wants for your good.
Always for your good, because he's a good God.
And when I say to the Mohamptons, he says, not for now, Luis.
Now I'm going to send you to a different direction.
And I married Deonora.
When we married Deonora, we apply to be a missionary with global partners.
It's a huge mission organization.
And they have a policy.
And their policy is they never send missionaries to their own country.
Uh, this is why they say we need to send you to another country.
And guess what?
They send me, uh it sounds kind of weird to you, maybe.
Missionaries to America.
Have you heard that?
Missionaries to America.
They think America can be the third largest mission field in the world.
Do you know why?
Because 30 this month would be 30 years when we came to America with zero English.
Not English English at all.
Oh, actually, if I can open a parenthesis, uh, I don't want to offend, but this is a real story thing.
My brother, he used to be a pastor, but now he's in heaven.
He went to uh he married a lady from England, and this is why my nephew's first language was English.
Okay?
And uh, and I got one of these nephews.
Uh when I told them that we are moving to America, he says, Uncle Luis, uh, before you go to America, you need to um to learn some expressions.
But I don't trust this guy very well.
But but he started with a good one.
And the very last day at the air at the airport, the very last day he says, Uncle Luis, uh, zero English.
Remember, nothing English.
He says, when you're going to meet to meet a person for the very first time, you will say, How are you, Redneck?
And and I did.
I did with the pastor in Virginia.
Yes.
But anyway, you you have to pay the price when you learn a different language.
But anyway, and yes, in that time when we came 30 years ago, it was 31 million Spanish-speaking people in this country, and 3% of them they were believers.
And today, 30 years later, there is 62 million Spanish-speaking people in your country, which is a mission field, and just 4.5 of them, they are believers in Jesus Christ.
We need missionaries too.
And I I I am just talking about the Spanish-speaking people, but how about the other people from Europe, from Russia?
Uh, you have uh, according to the statistics and internet, you have 26 million people from Russia here, and 0.5% of them are believers.
And well, we came.
We came to Guatemala, to America, and miracles, uh, we start seeing miracles.
11, 12 months after that, we got our American citizenship.
We have all the American papers, uh, we are Americans in papers, we have the American passport.
I still waiting for blue eyes, maybe one day, but uh uh I don't know, but then maybe heaven, but uh my wife, because we were in Fredericksburg, Virginia, maybe some of you know Fredericksburg, Virginia, beside I-95, uh 47 miles south from Washington, DC, my wife got a wonderful job in Washington.
And she used to be the personal assistant of the general, the global director of World Hope International.
That means then my wife travels all over in Africa and in Europe and many other countries with her, with Dr.
Joan Lyon, and something starts happening with us.
We start thinking, um an expression, American expression that means a lot to you.
Comfort zone.
Yeah, I know that comfort zone.
What is the do you know what is my favorite thing in the comfort zone and here in the States?
To walk barefoot in a carpet.
I love it.
I love it, I love that.
And my room has a carpet.
Thank you for that.
Yeah, and uh, but anyway, we start we start building a comfort zone because my wife has a wonderful salary, excellent salary, and and because and my salary, and because that we were able to buy a beautiful house in Fredericksburg.
And we says, okay, America is going to be the last step in our lives.
We are going to die in America, we are going to do all social security, all these things that America offered, uh, Medicare, do you know?
And well, we are going to finish our lives in America.
We we were established in America and we were well.
Well, there is an expression in Spanish that you don't have in English, but maybe that makes sense to you.
And the expression is you can take the monkey from the jungle, but never the jungle from the monkey.
It makes sense to you.
I was the monkey.
And the jungle were and the Mayan people was my jungle.
They never took the jungle from my heart.
Never.
That means then every year in my 25 years in Virginia, every year I took a medical team to Guatemala.
Sometimes one, sometimes twice, sometimes three, four, five medical teams a year.
Because I love, I yes, I God allowed us to start three churches, Spanish churches, and all of them are growing beautiful.
And one actually, the second one that we started in our second anniversary, we got 214 people.
God was doing doing a wonderful thing among the Spanish-speaking people.
But my heart was in the mansion in Guatemala.
And I and well, 18 years ago, men do plans, but God moves those plans wherever he wants.
God changed my entire life.
Dinora never came to Guatemala with me, uh, with these mission teams, medical teams, because she was working in Washington.
But I took my two daughters because my two daughters came to this country when they were six and seven.
That means then they did all the elementary school, junior high, high school, college.
Um my oldest uh did uh um special need education psychologist, I don't know, that thing, but she graduated from that.
And my youngest uh she went a little longer because she fell in love with uh biblical education and she got her doctoral degree, and she's teaching now in Indiana, wasn't university with her husband, but she never back to Guatemala.
But anyway, and uh I and I took my two daughters every summer to help me as a translator because they are perfect bilingual.
And um 17 years ago, I got a medical team, and we provide worms, worms medicine to the children in the mountains.
Let me tell you, the news says this area in Guatemala is the third place and the worst attack malnutrition in the country.
Many children died every every year because of malnutrition thing and the very top of the mountains.
And we were there, and um the doctors provided worms medicine.
Five minutes later, I never seen that.
We have pictures, we never seen those pictures, we never show those pictures by respect, but we uh by five minutes later, we saw the worms coming through the nose and through the ears.
And two days later, um my daughter's friend, Jose, 12 years old, he passed away because of worms attack.
And Andrea, my oldest, came to me and said, Daddy, I will pray then you don't necessarily sleep well until you decided to do something for these kids.
Daddy, it's not internal.
That it's not a cancer.
She was crying and crying and crying.
Dad, it is something that we can do.
That happened 18 years ago.
And in that time, they didn't have access to doctor or to the medicine.
The nearest doctor was six hours away from them.
Not now anymore, praise God for that.
But in that time, yes, people were dying because of worms attack, because of malnutrition, because that kind of thing.
And Andrea says, I am very positive, that you can do something for them.
But Andrea, we we are established in America already.
Next week.
She told me that many years ago.
And she says, and do you know, do you know already, mama?
Mama told you all this already?
What, Andrea?
I have an I had a job offer, you say?
Job offer with$42 an hour.
And I says, You made it! And she says, No.
Daddy, and these five years in college, God taught me that he didn't send me to this world to make money.
He showed me that he sent me to help people, and this is what I want to do the rest of my life.
And he says, Okay, what I what do you want to do?
Send me to San Juan.
Are you sure, Andrea?
More than 80% of her life in this country.
Says, yes.
Who how who's going to support you?
And she says, that is not your problem, Dad.
It's his problem.
Because he's calling me, he's going to support me.
And Dinora, my wife says, You better give it give it to the Lord.
Give her to the Lord.
Because he she wants to do it.
Well, I took her.
When I came back, I says, honey, I think we need to talk.
And she says, What?
Honey, let me tell you, you need to know this context.
She loves with all her heart this country.
Oh my goodness.
She put so deep roots in this country.
She loved the comfort zone.
She loved to drive the beautiful car.
She loved all her office.
She loves all this American thing.
Honey, can you consider after 25 years?
Can you consider to go back to Guatemala?
We grew up in the city, but not to the city.
To the mountains, with the mountains?
And she says, don't even think about it.
Okay.
Honey, uh, can you please, Alice, can you can you pray about it?
And she says, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I can do that.
I'm pretty sure then Jesus is going to say no.
I says, okay.
Uh honey, uh, can we make a deal in here?
If you promise me to keep praying about it, I promise to you I will never talk to you about this object.
Okay?
Deal?
Give me fire.
Give you a deal.
Okay.
Eleven months later, she came back home from job and she says, Are you still thinking in those little ones and the mountains?
Oh yeah.
I still think in those.
They are in my heart.
And she says, I have a peace nail.
I present my resignation this morning.
That means then no more salary next month.
She says, No, no more salary next month.
Okay.
And I call my boss, my boss, and says, hey, and I share with him my dream, and she says, and he says, I'm sorry, Luis, I told you before, we don't send missionaries to their own country.
I can send you to South America if you want, Peru, Colombia, wherever, but not to Guatemala.
In this case, please accept my resignation because I think God is calling me to something different.
And he says, You have my blessing, Lucy.
Please obey God, wherever He's calling to go.
Well, and 40 days we sold the house, we sold the cars, we sold everything.
We took seven pieces of luggage and moved to the mountains, Guatemala, and a very small room half like this.
And because we didn't have too much money, I I bought those falling beds.
You say cats, maybe, I think.
The camping beds.
See, and we remember the big rats running under knee cats, and we start feeding seven kids every day from our pockets.
And guess what?
Because 20 minutes, I think.
Um because the time it's a long story, but make it short, praise God, until today, we got 422 kids every day.
Coming, every day, coming.
To God be the glory, amen.
And my daughter Andrea says, I got the name for that ministry, Daddy.
And what is the name?
Happy Tommies.
And because there is a lot of sad Tommies in the mountains, and we call happy Tommies.
And people love happy Tommy.
That is happy Tommy's.
People love that ministry.
It's a beautiful ministry.
They come after school.
School in Guatemala starts from 7 a.m.
and goes through 11:30 noon p.m.
And children come to our Happy Tummies around 1 and they leave Happy Thomas until 4 o'clock.
Why?
Because we serve a nutrition delicious lunch every single day.
We teach a real Bible story, not any Bible story.
Actually, Tony and all the Happy Tommy's personnel, because now we have seven Happy Tommies in different villages.
And Tony sit down with them, my son-in-law, and he and he says, Hey guys, we are going to teach the world.
Because I told Tony, Tony, I'm very sorry.
Andrea, don't say that I am mean, but the Tommy is not priority number one for me.
The heart is priority number one.
Because we need to tell these children about Jesus.
We need to tell these parents about the Lord.
And do you know what happened when and our second happy Tommies?
A pastor, we bring, we brought the pastor, and the pastor started the happy tummies with 50 kids.
He connected with 50 kids plus the parents of the kids, and the church just exploded.
Let me tell you, in the last five and a half years, God allowed us to start 18 brand new churches for his glory.
Brand new churches, brand new people, people that came to the Lord through Happy Tommy's.
That means when you sponsor a child in Happy Tommy's, you don't sponsor just a child happy Tommy's.
You sponsor the possibility, the big potential to start a brand new church through Happy Tommy's thing.
Do you know what?
Happy Thomas is not the final thing.
It's one of the steps to God.
The final dream is to bring people to Christ through Happy Thomas.
And I really want to ask you to pray.
I don't know if I told you in the beginning.
I'm coming from a Christian home.
All my brothers and sisters, we are full-time in the ministry with brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.
My dad is going to be 106 and six months.
And he started 53 churches in his life.
He believes in multiplication.
He always believes and says, healthy church needs to multiply.
Healthy church needs to multiply.
And praise God, 18 churches already.
And guess what?
And the next two months, yeah, in the next two months, we are going to open our Happy Tom is number eight in Santa Clara.
That means uh Pastor Julian, he has kind of 80 kids in the list already in Mansons in Santa Clara.
But in six months, we are going to open our number nine.
Guess where?
Where?
And the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa.
Do you know what is the name of that country?
Equatorial Guinea.
Yes, we were, we were, we went with Tony uh two months ago.
And we sit down with a good friend of mine.
He is one of the highest authority in the evangelical churches in Equatorial Guinea, Dr.
Damien Azumu.
And Dr.
Damien calls us and says, can you please come?
And there is a communist country.
I can't give you more information about that for security purposes, but it's a communist country.
They don't have internet.
They have internet, but they don't have an access to uh YouTube, Facebook, something like that.
Just WhatsApp.
And we call by WhatsApp, and Dr.
Damien says, please come and help us, please come and help us.
Do you know?
I started a Bible institute in Guatemala because my biggest passion is to teach the Bible, to teach people how to teach others and send people to start churches and evangelism.
And but the problem in the mountains is I would say 90% of my students and the Bible Institute in Guatemala, they never finish high school.
And I would say 70% of them never finish sixth grade at elementary school.
That means that they say we want to learn, but there is no Bible institute in Guatemala and the whole country that accept us because with our low, very low education.
He says, Oh, I'm here.
And this is why God sent me here.
That was that is exactly the thing that I was looking for.
The opportunity to teach people that they don't have opportunities to do it.
And I started the now.
We have 127 students in the Bible Institute in Guatemala.
But when I came to Africa two months ago, Dr.
Damien, I present 10 different ministries than we do in Guatemala, that I don't have time to share with you because it's 25 minutes.
But uh and Dr.
Damien says, Do you know, Pastor?
I says, okay, what is your priority number two of these 10 ministries that I present to you?
And he says, two.
Okay, tell me, Bible Institute.
Yes, yes, we can help with Bible Institute.
Do you know what?
We we can hide some uh student uh textbook, you say textbook that we use in Guatemala with our students, and we can bring at least three or four teachers' books, and we can stay, we're we're planning to stay for one week and a half to train every single day at least from eight to four, to train three or four leaders to be the teachers of the Bible Institute in Africa.
But also, what is the second one?
And he says, Happy Tommies.
Please, can uh people are dying in Africa because of the malnutrition, too.
And can you please start happy tummies with us?
I says, we can find fish because they are beside the water.
We can find fish.
I'm sorry, we can find monkey.
They eat a lot of monkey, but we can find that, but it's very expensive.
Fish and monkey and iguana, very, very expensive.
But he says, Well, I don't promise anything, but I promise to knock doors.
I am here to ask you to help me.
Yeah, I'm here to ask you to help me.
Uh a friend of mine says, ask equal humbleness, don't ask equal pride.
And I am asking you because I can't do it by myself.
But if you want to sponsor, that means then with the new Happy Tummies and the Mantis in Guatemala in two months, Pastor Julian, plus the Happy Tommies in Africa, we have a list already the names of 119 children waiting for a sponsor.
If you want to sponsor one of them with$35 a month, please come to my table and pick up one of the prayer cards, Happy Thomas Prayer Card, and you can sponsor your.
Oh, I have the this is the Happy Thomas prayer card.
When you come to my table, because I am myself today, take this part, this picture, take it with you.
I am prepared.
I have a magnet.
You can put this magnet in the fridge with the picture, and everything, every time when you're hungry and ready to eat something, pray for those sad Tommies in Guatemala.
But this part, take it away, put your name, your email address, your mailing address.
Why?
Just to put your name in the in our database, and twice a month, twice a month, we are going to send you an e-letters to with pictures in it to tell you how the children are doing and how all the ministries are doing, and that kind of things.
And please visit my table.
And Dinora, my wife, says, honey, how we can empower the mamas of happy Tommies.
Because very, very poor.
And she says, Do you know what?
Uh how about if we ask the churches that support us and the states if she if they want to donate a sewing machine?
Because she loves to sew.
And I says, I can teach them how to sew, and maybe they can help their husbands with a little extra income.
And guess what?
Now, every year, every single year, we start with 30 machines, all the machines are the same, of course, to teach in the class with 30 women.
15 of them are believers, 15 of them no believers, but we have seen many of them coming to the Lure and each class, and Dinora teaches some machine classes from January to October.
If they finish okay, all the projects and everything, uh we have a ceremony thing, graduation ceremony, and we give them the diploma, but also the machine for free.
They take home.
In January, we start with a brand new 30 machines again.
And that is another opportunity, and another 30 women too.
But we have a lot of ministries.
We have the abuelitos too.
I don't know if you do you understand abuelitos, uh, grandparents?
Uh, these grandparents, uh, Mayan, they don't speak Spanish.
Their own family keep them out from their house and they don't have a place to eat.
And this is why, uh, like my dad, he says, I don't like to see empty buildings, guys.
Let's do something else.
Well, children come some noon.
How about the abuelitos comes around 9:30 for breakfast?
And we have 165 abuelitos now.
And 100% of them, they are not believers.
They practice the I don't want to offend with this, but it's true.
If you want to ask me after service, it's okay.
Catholic mixed with Mayan religion, they sacrifice roosters inside the Catholic Church and they smoke a big cigar and they dance around this rooster and they drink the rooster blood and that kind of things.
None of them are believers.
But I says, God, guys, God didn't call us to convert people.
God called us to send the message to their ears, from my mouth to their ears, and the Holy Spirit is going to bring the message from their ears to the heart.
Do you have your Bibles with you today?
I let me finish with one of my favorite stories in the Bible, 2 Kings chapter 6.
2 Kings chapter 6.
And I will start with verse 24, and because we don't have too much time, I'm not going to read it.
I'd rather to memorize the scripture.
And as starting in verse 24, it says uh Benadad, king of uh Syria, Syria, uh collect all his army, and he says, we are going up, guys, and to kill the Sumerians.
But we are going to use, uh I told them at the First Service this.
There is words in English.
Pronunciation in English is a pain.
Pronunciation.
Somebody told me that English is a heavenly language, and it's because it takes an eternity to learn it.
But one word that I am very sure that I will never, never learn how to say.
Strategy.
I don't know how to say that word.
Whatever he says.
The king says, guys, we are going to use a new strategy.
Thank you.
Yes.
And we are not going to use the weapons to kill them.
We are going to surround the city and kill them by hunger.
And 20, well, nobody can come in into the city.
If somebody tried to come in, kill him.
If somebody tried to go out, kill him.
That means then in 2025 days, they will going to start very weak, weak, weaker, weaker, weaker, and we just jumped, killed them, and got everything from the city.
We'll be easy.
Relax, guys.
All these soldiers around.
Okay?
And what happened?
I think verse 25 says that it was a big famine in the city.
That the donkey's head was solid for 80 shekels of silver.
A donkey's head.
Why did they they didn't want the donkey's head?
To eat it.
Because no more food in the city.
But that wasn't the words.
Listen, verse 26, I think it is, it says five ounces.
This morning I asked permission to say this word.
Five ounces of dove's poop for five shekels of silver.
Why didn't one dov's doves poop to eat it?
Can you imagine the little ones coming to mama and say, Mama, mama, I'm hungry?
And mama says, I'm sorry, honey, we have nothing to eat today.
Open your mouth.
I just have a doves dunk.
It's a real story.
Don't believe all those preachers, then this then they say, Oh, it is a symbolism.
No, this this thing is not a symbolism.
No.
It that happened.
But that wasn't the worst.
Eating poop.
No, no.
The worst is coming.
Verse 28, I think it is.
It says, one lady was crying and crying and crying so loud that she saw the king passing in one of the walls, and she started calling the king, help me, help me, my king, my lord, help me, help me, please help me.
Crying, crying, crying.
And he says, What is going on with you?
And she says, I have a situation here with my neighbor.
She came yesterday to my house and she says, Give up your boy, your little boy today, and we can eat your boy today.
And tomorrow we are going to eat my boy.
And yesterday we killed my boy, and we took his legs, arms, and we ate my boy with the between the two families.
And now she has guided her boy, and that is not fair.
Can you see that?
And because I recommend to you, because I don't have time, to read the story before you go to bed tonight.
Let's finish your story, Second Kings.
But let me go to the end of the story, chapter 7 and verse 3.
It says that they were four guys with leprosy and outside of the city.
And they four guys with leprosy, they were Samerians.
And they were so hungry, waiting for families to come with food, but they couldn't because the enemies around the city and they were dying by hunger.
And they said, guys, we are going to die here.
If we try to go into the city, there is nothing in the city.
They are eating each other.
They are eating poop.
There is nothing.
If we stay here, we are going to die.
There is no food in here.
The only chance that we have is how about if we go to the enemy's camp?
If they have mercy on us, we are going to survive.
If they're going to kill us, we are going to die anyway.
Let's go to the enemy's camp.
And they did.
They start walking, the four of them started walking to the enemy's.
And God performed a miracle that day.
Hey church, let me ask you this.
Do you believe in miracles?
Amen?
Amen is not a bad word.
You can say the man.
I believe in miracles.
I have seen many, many, many miracles.
But what what what what what was that miracle that day?
God sent noises to the enemy's camp.
What kind of noises?
The Bible says, and the enemies heard and they say to each other, hey guys, listen, the king of Israel, he put together all the armies around.
And can you hear the chariots coming?
The horses, thousand horses, and can you hear the soldiers louding and they are gonna kill us like our ants?
Get out from here.
And they left the camp.
What happened with the four guys with leprosy got the camp?
Nobody was there.
And they opened the first tent and says, Oh my goodness.
They were bread, food, wine, cheese, gold, silver, and they jump in the first tent and they ate and ate and ate and ate and ate.
And they jump in the second tent and they did the same thing.
And they jumped in the third tent and they seem did the same thing.
And the Bible says in the third tent they opened four holes in the ground and start bringing all kinds of goodies to hide in the ground.
Gold, silver, many other things, and they found, and but let me finish my story in verse 9.
And verse 9 is very important.
Very, very important.
And then they say to one another, guys, we are not doing good.
We're not.
Because today is a day of good news.
If we keep it to ourselves, punishment is going to take over us.
Let's go at once and give the news to the king and the city.
Because our families, they are eating poop.
They are eating each other.
And we are eating here delicious.
No, that is not right.
Let's go at once and give the news.
And the Bible says then don't don't get that they didn't give the news and this way.
Hey, there is no more enemies around.
No.
The Bible says that they cried, hey guys, there is no more enemies.
Good news.
The Bible says that.
Listen, with all my respect to you, it is my first time in this church.
Pastor Russ, God is the goodness of this.
He never told me nothing about you.
But I compare these four good these four guys with leprosy with the general church, the Christian church in the world.
What is my comp comparison between these two?
Well, I says every Sunday you come to this beautiful church and you sit down in those chairs.
And Pastor Ross, I'm pretty sure that he spent hours to prepare a good sermon.
And please let me know if that ever happened to you guys.
After service, you go to the parking lot and you start your car and you turn your head, tell your wife, your husband, wherever, and you say, It was a good service today.
That ever happened to you?
Because it was a good music, it was a good sermon, and you're full spiritually, and you said, What a wonderful service.
And you come back the following Sunday and you sit down again and you eat and eat again.
Pastor Ross gives you to eat from God's word and another good service and another good service and another good service, and you go home and come back, go home and come back.
But do you know what?
People around you, they are eating poop spiritually, drugs, pornography, unfaithfulness, alcohol, illegal sex.
They are eating dung.
And we have the good news, guys.
I I will ask you to be courageous and open your mouth in Walmart.
Why not in Walmart?
Do it in the gas station.
Hey, do you know Jesus?
He loves you.
And the bank with the lady.
Hey, I just want to live with you a verse.
God loves you.
Things like that.
Says, I want to invite you to my church.
This is the thing that I do in San Juan, in the village.
My dad is 106, and he loves to go to the, you say to the deck to see the boats and the beach, and I pull him with the wheelchair, and every single person, really, really, that say goodbye.
I says, hey, do you have any plans for this coming Sunday?
No.
Do you know what?
My church started at 5 o'clock.
Please come.
We have a wonderful music, wonderful sermon, because I have a pastor.
Let me tell you.
The best preacher.
And my every single Sunday, first row with my wife.
Because I love to eat, to eat, to eat God's word every Sunday, every Sunday, every Sunday.
And every single person in the street says, Do you have any plans for Sunday afternoon?
My my church starts in San Juan at 5 o'clock p.m.
Because it is the cultural, a Mayan cultural.
Everybody goes to the market in the morning.
And this is why not churches in the morning, just in the afternoons.
But everybody and people come.
Just open your mouth.
Just don't be don't be ashamed to share about Jesus.
The Bible says, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God.
And that power means salvation to others.
You have the good news already.
But please, church, it is time to start proclaiming, to share your faith with somebody else.
Can you pray with me?
Father in heaven, thank you so much.
And we love you so much.
Thank you because you call us not just to be your children, but you call us to be your servants.
We love you.
And we pray all of these things in the beautiful name of our Savior Jesus Christ that is coming soon.
Maybe today.
Hopefully today.
In that name we pray.
Amen.