The Sweetest Offering

    
A couple months ago, I shared the story about the largest gang in Chichigalpa coming and wanting to give their lives to Christ. (Read the full story here: Riots, Gangs, the Church & Redemption). Many people have been asking since then what has happened with these young men. So, here is a long overdue update on the continued redemption that the Lord has brought out of tragedy, repentance, and the church being the church.
     Since then, the Lord has continued to move in the lives of these young men. It has been beautiful to watch the pastors and church leaders commit to discipling these men and to see their hunger to know the Lord more.  
    Sadly, the gang leader Julio has recently made the decision to return to his old life. For many young men in this community, the pull to drinking, drugs, and gang life in strong. We had noticed that Julio hadn’t been coming to the church or to the discipleship time in their community. The other guys from his old gang told Tommy that Julio had returned to his old life. He had been trying to persuade the others to return with them. Thankfully the other young men proclaimed, “NO! We are finished with that life. That life is nothing but brokenness and destruction. We have found something better and we will not turn back.” Julio was one of two gang leaders; he is asking men to return to gang life with him, but the other leader is leading the way to real life.
    So, Tommy and the local pastors are continuing discipleship with the men who are really ready to give their entire hearts to the Lord. We are praying that Julio will really see the LIFE that the Lord offers as opposed to the death and destruction that will come from his current choices. I pray that he will truly abandon himself to Jesus, but until then we are continuing to walk alongside those who are ready for a change.
    We are seeing more young men and women coming from Marvin (the community where these men live) to the church every week. We are praying now for a bigger truck because soon we won’t have room to hold the growing number of people who want to come to the church!
  As Tommy has been teaching these young men the Word of God, he has also been teaching them to begin reaching out to their community with the love of Christ. These men already carry a lot of influence in the community so to see them begin to use that influence to love people to Christ is going to transform their community. The men begin to look at what they could do within their community. They all love to play soccer so they have begun to coach a soccer team for the young boys in Marvin. It’s beautiful to see these men begin reaching out to young boys who, if unreached now, will likely fall into the same traps of gang life as teenagers. The men have been spending time with these boys, loving them, and teaching them soccer. Their team even won first place in their local league.
    On Sunday night I saw one of the most sincere, loving offerings I have ever witnessed. Two of the men came before the church. Tommy shared about the work that they had been doing in their community and how their boys had won the soccer tournament. The two men were standing before the church with their trophy in hand. One of the men took the microphone and said, “We have brought this trophy as an offering to give back to the Lord. He has changed our lives. None of this would be happening if He hadn’t saved us. We want to give this back to Him.”  I sat watching this incredible display of love for the Lord and I just kept thinking of the story from Luke 7 where the woman broke her alabaster jar of perfume and annointed Jesus. The disciples all condemned this outrageous display because of the sins of the woman and because of the seeming wastefulness of her offering yet Jesus applaudes her sacrificial love for Him saying “Therefore I tell you her many sins have been forgiven- for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” ~Luke 7:47