The unnamed congregation

Today we had 15 medical patients. It was a busy day but not over-whelming.

One of the health-promotors from Mactzul II was at the clinic wanting to learn. He sat in during the consults, which the majority were diabetics. He saw how difficult it was to teach the patients. He finally ask if he could try to explain and I was eager to have him do so. I wanted to see if he could explain it in an easier manner and if the patient understood better hearing it in K'iche'.

When he finished with his explanation, he nodded to me and then I asked a question or two. The patient was not able answer and he said to me in frustration, "Sheri, I told him that! I explained that to him!" I assured him that it was not his teaching but that the patient needs to hear it over and over again and we need to have more patience with the patient. Yes, I was talking to myself as much as I was to him.

When I came home after clinic, I had an email waiting for me from the brother in India. I have blogged a few times about him and the work he is doing there. He had been asked to preach in a near-by town that had a congregation that worshiped God but did not have a name. They are confused on what they should call themselves and which doctrine they should follow but they know that they need to worship God. They have called themselves the unnamed congregation.

When I received the photo and the email from Raju, I thought of the story in Acts 17, where Paul is addressing the people over their unnamed god. In this chapter, Paul had a perfect opportunity to teach them about the true God........the only God.

Raju has the same opportunity today as odd as it may seem. Raju is in a place where there is not a church chuilding on every corner nor a telephone book that has listing after listing. There is a group of people here that only want to hear of the true God. They do not want to worship or serve a god that their family serves but they want to study The Bible. I am excited for him over this wonderful opportunity.

Is it easy for us to worship where our family worships and not know why we do things the way we do? Maybe we have done them a certain way for so long we do not have a Bibical reason for the way we do them. Just something to think about.

I will keep you posted on Raju and how things go between him and the "unnamed congregation."

Tomorrow and Friday, we will have Klay and Lisa Bartee here from Arkansas. He will be teaching a seminar on how to counsel people to the church leaders from different communities.