8/10 - Day 9 - Outreaching and Preaching Practice

Enoch began the day by sharing Jeremiah 29:4-14, which is about the Lord's love and faithfulness towards the Israelite exiles in Babylon. Enoch likened the Chinese in Venezuela to the Israelites, who are living in a different country and being captured by the burdens and desires of this world. However, the Lord is compassionate and Jesus came to free us from our captivity. All of us need to accept Christ as our Savior. Not only we have eternal life, we can also cast our worries and burdens in this life onto Him.

Buying fried chicken at a Chinese Restaurant

Our lunch!

Today our visitations were scheduled in the afternoon, thus we stayed at IBCB in the morning to prepare for the upcoming programs. At about 2pm, we divided into teams and headed out.
Kevin, Pris and Nicole went to visit a friend of Lily's, who came from a Catholic background. She and her husband have a Chinese restaurant in Barquisimeto. Although she was born in Venezuela, she spoke fluent Cantonese and she was very willing to share about her life. She shared that she was kidnapped about 3 months ago. While in captivity, she kept praying and had faith in God that she would be released. Praise God that she was finally released after 12 days and her outlooks on life completely changed. Having been in a life-threatening situation, she realized that it's much more important to spend time with family members than making more money. Although she knew of God and had faith in Him, she did not have the assurance of salvation. Thus we shared the Gospel with her and invited her to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Praise God she accepted Christ right away and Lily prayed with her in Spanish as she invited the Lord into her heart! Later on her husband came to say hi to us but he was too busy to chat. At the end, we left him with some Gospel tracts and invited him, his wife and his mother-in-law to church. May God continue to protect and guide this family so that they will all eventually turn to Jesus!

Enoch, Eliz, Nathanie and Marion went to revisit Fong Siu Lam (the nail lady) and Eliz dedicated her nails to God's work and willing to get her nail job so that she could share gospel with the nail lady. The lady showed interest and willing to talk to us for 2 hours. She was so nice that she gave Eliz a free manicure. Please pray that she will be willing to receive Christ one day. Also, Marion guided us to a store where there is a Chinese there. Nathanie and Eliz went to share gospel with the Chinese guy called Wai and he was willing to receive Christ at the scene. Please pray that he will be growing in Christ and will be able to go to Church despite the poor safety in the city.

At night, there was preaching practice #2. It's brother Keung and sister Ling's turn! We paid close attention to them as they preached God's words in Psalm 8 with fervency and shared their personal testimonies with passion. Their faithfulness to God is exemplified by their humility and willingness to serve at the church despite their daily duties. We all learnt a lot from their sermons and constructive criticism from Pastor Wan. For non-preachers, it's equally important to learn how to listen to sermons so that we can understand God's words better and apply them in our lives.

Praise God for another great day filled with His grace and love!