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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest Rosemary Lokers and Jean Mixon
(M) So then afterwards, we wanted to see the house that was being built for Cristina through the funds that our listeners have sent in response to these stories of Honduras. So we saw it was amazingly close to the road. Well, on our way out back to come home, we wanted to take pictures so we could show you pictures, so we stopped the car across the road from the house and we pulled up to this little fruit stand and John got out to go take pictures. And I saw this woman look rather startled over in that direction, but that didn’t register with me. And all of a sudden she started toward the car and Rosemary said, oh my goodness there’s Cristina!
(R) We had checked first to make sure she wasn’t home.
(J) We thought she was at church.
(R) We thought she was at church, it was the Sunday school hour and we believed her to be at church. Then we checked and made sure that no one was around the house.
(J) And there wasn’t.
(R) Then we made the decision that John was going to get out and take pictures. So he got out to go take the pictures and we pulled forward, and then all of a sudden right in front of our car, there she was. (Laughter)
(M) And she knows Rosemary well, because Rosemary gave her a ride home from church last Sunday. So we didn’t know how to communicate with John, he was across the street.
(J) I was about a hundred feet down the street; I had walked down the highway.
(R) So I took off in the car to make it seem like to her that I just happened to be driving on that road, and that was the only reason I was there.
(M) And that didn’t work because we got stuck and couldn’t turn around.
(J) And you just happened to have this Gringo sitting in front of your house taking pictures with a nice camera.
(R) So,tell what happened from your perspective.
(J) See, I’m sitting there and I’m taking these pictures, and I’m trying to get it so you could really see it good and see everything, and get it close and everything. And I didn’t want to be invasive so I stayed on the other side of the highway, but I have a zoom, and I was zooming in and I was trying to get the right angle and everything like that. And I wanted to show the whole area of the property. So all of a sudden I just looked to my right and I see Cristina and that little boy, because all I could do is remember the pictures of Cristina and the little boy in front of the house. And I went of my God its Cristina! So I started going… what could I be doing, what could I be doing? So I’m starting to look around trying to find something pretty, and I’m going there’s got to be a flower, a tree, something you know. So I’m looking around and all there is is this rock cliff wall behind me where they’d dug it out to put the road through, and then her house. Then I’m going do I start staring at the rock and I’m acting like I’m taking pictures of the rock. I start looking at the grass and going is there anything special about this grass? (Laughter) So then I start moving slowly back towards where you are, towards her. I refuse to look at her and I’m taking pictures of the sign that’s next to her house thinking maybe she’ll think that I own the sign or something, yes, this Gringo down here. I just didn’t know what to do. I was totally beside myself. Then even when I saw you all, I knew she was coming from that direction but I thought, maybe she won’t make the connection. Oh yeah, duh, a Gringo, Gringo, car, yes there’s going to be a connection.
(M) She’s not dumb.
(J) I’m thinking..yeah, soI just kept walking around the curve thinking and with my hand I’m going come on bring the car over here, over here, over here.
(M) Just for those who didn’t remember it, we gave the gift of her house without her knowing the source, so she could praise God for it. So here we go blow our cover.
(R) Completely.
(M) Completely. Then we just laughed at it.
(J) Well you know, she was disturbed; she was like, what is this person in front of my house. Like if you were in front of my house taking pictures I’d say what are you doing? So it was the same thing.
(M) But you know, Fatima…. we talked about that, and Fatima and Juan’s church were the vehicle of this and Fatima said she had prayed for a house and she’d gotten more than she had asked for. And she got a concrete floor in her house, which is really a big deal. So she’s quite overwhelmed.
(J) It’s a beautiful little house.
(R) She’s already praised God for the provision of the house. So I said it’s ok if we blew our cover and the cat’s out of the bag.
(J) Well you never know. You don’t know if she’s going to make this connection. So what’s the next phase of this project? Is her house finished?
(R) It’s finished.
(J) It’s completed and the rainy season has just started. Can you please tell us the story about how God held off the rain for a week or two or whatever?
(R) Well the rainy season usually begins early to mid-May. And this year it just wasn’t starting when it normally does. At the very end of May, the last few days of May, we started to get some rain, and this time of year it’s just afternoon thundershowers. Then Fatima told me that when they were doing Cristina’s house they had originally decided to just build one little room and then move her from her shack that was falling down into the little room, and then continue to build another little room onto this same house. They were frantically trying to get the roof done before the rainy season would start, and thought that they weren’t going to meet their goal of doing that because of the timing factor. But because it didn’t start raining the middle of May, they actually were able to get the roof on it. And supposedly they got the roof on, and like the next day or within two days the rains started and they were actually able to move her into her little house before the rains started. And Fatima reminded me that the one thing the woman had prayed, her prayer had been a very, very simple child-like prayer, and it was just, God, don’t let me get wet this rainy season.
(M) It’s just so hard to grasp how they live, because Rosemary told me the two rural women in the hotel room, that their whole house was about that size of one hotel room. We just can’t even comprehend the ways that they live, and are used to living that way. Well I have asked Rosemary a number of times to tell about their real life, and she’s making a delightful video about the market, which will be very different from our Kroger. I want to tell you that we come down to this glorious event, and it is such a privilege and it’s such fun, and it’s such fun to try to give the Loker’s a little bit that is beyond their rather meager mission life. But I want to tell you a little bit about the warfare that we go through.
(J) This time it was unusual.
(M) This time was an unusual warfare, but in one form or another is always there.
(J) Well the reason it was unusual was because it hit all three of us.
(M) It hit all three of us; usually it hits me, or John. But it was Jean Mixon, John and traveling down and as we were going down from the mountains to Atlanta to get to the airport the next day, I realized I had an eye infection blooming. We tried to find an eye doctor and there wasn’t one. Finally one of the nurse said you will have to have a medical doctor. And I just couldn’t imagine coming to Honduras, and I knew in the big city I’d be fine, but in Santa Rosa I didn’t want to come down and have to have medical treatment. So I was going to try to take care of it. And I was praying and I felt like I was coming down with the flu; I was achy and miserable and my stomach was upset, and I had an eye infection. And I just kept praying and praying and praying. But I did find a wonderful woman who told me how to take care of this problem, gave me the medication; we went to the drug store and got that easily. And she told me if I didn’t have hot water she told me what to do. And I said well, I think I can manage. So we go on down, and we stayed in a hotel. We have to go the night before, so we don’t have to contend with Atlanta traffic. So I went to bed early and woke up the next morning much better. We get on the airplane and make our flight. After the flight I am severely bent over with a strained back. John had has a severe earache and he feels like he’s burning up with fever. Jean begins to develop a sick headache and we’re here in San Pedro Sula, another night in a hotel before we go to the countryside to the mountains. And we all three are debilitated. So I’m feeling wretched, and I say I think if I could walk, we’ve been so crunched, I think if I could walk and if we could keep standing against this assault. The Lord had awakened me at midnight to tell me where it came from; I knew exactly who had cursed it. So we just prayed against that specific source. So we decided we three staggering people were going to start walking. We started and went to this local little Mall and just began to walk and walk and walk, and by the time we went to bed, Jean was fine, and I was pretty much over it, and John was better. And by the next day we were completely well, weren’t we?. But it was a real lesson for me that we decided that we were not going to give in to it. It wasn’t some soulish thing that we were going to fight it in the soul, but we were simply not going to be stopped.
(J) Right, we’d been called to come down.
(M) We’d been called to come, and it told me how crucial this conference was in God. Now this is a remote area, these are poor women, abused women for the most part, obscure people in the whole world, very obscure. But to God, He wanted them ministered to. And it was somehow very important to the Lord and it had been orchestrated by Him. It had been provided by Him; and the enemy tipped his hand at how very important it was. But we had all been praying enormously for it for weeks. Still, that size of an assault was the evidence that we were on track. But it was exciting because we went through the whole conference and we were all three very well and energetic and happy and joyful. But that’s the part of the story of this thing that we don’t tell usually; it’s a great joy and a great privilege and a great warfare. It always is in one form or another.
(J) It is.
(M) And I tend to forget before we go that it all has to be covered in the blood, and it all has to be fought before we begin. So hopefully I’ll remember that. That is part of the preparation, not just praying for the women, but praying for us too, that we will be protected. And we had lots of people praying at home and in different places, praying. We got thankfully, a lot of support and confidence in the Lord in our behalf. We did sail in the end, but we had to get our wings before we could do it.
(J) We had to deliver His message; there was a message that He had, that He wanted to bring to these women to build them up, to build their house of their own heart up, in Him; and it was awesome, it was really awesome. I appreciate it, because He is completely involved with us from beginning to end, He is completely involved with us. He doesn’t just give us financial support. We men sometimes believe that if we will just offer up financial support that proves our love. Well, we have a God who doesn’t just stop at financial support. We have a God that supplies all of our needs, and that’s become a trite thing…. I’ve heard it so many times, God supplies all our needs, and we go oh there’s another cliché.
(M) Christian cliché.
(J) Christian cliché. But I am seeing that He had in His heart and in His mind to go and build them up, you know, and go deliver them, show them the value. I’ve been listening to a gentleman speaking and he said one of the things that we as human’s, just human’s, need to know is that our pains matter. It doesn’t matter in particular what the pain is, we just have to know that they matter. You don’t even have to have the pain eliminated, but it needs to be known that the pain matters to our Father. It reminds me of…. I thought I said this, but he said he had his little daughter and he was teaching her how to ride the bicycle, did I say this on the podcast?
(M) No,
(J) He was teaching her to ride a bicycle and she’s riding around on the bicycle and she falls down and it’s a major wipe-out and she just picks herself up and she’s bloody, and she’s running to him, and all she wanted to know is that her pain mattered to her Father, to Daddy. He couldn’t stop the pain. It’s not that God can’t stop our pain, it wasn’t about the pain, it was just let me know that my core matters enough that you are aware of me. And so it was like God came into this village and into these ladies and He says, your pain matters. Ok. He’s not saying I’m going to deliver you out of all these pains, because these pains are really… I’ve seen this beautiful woman. I love her to death. There’s a little older lady…. She’s an older lady, but you know something? You look at her face and she doesn’t look like her age. And especially in this country, the people especially twenty and thirty years old look like they’re fifty and sixty. This woman does not look like she’s in her sixties. And she’s had twenty-one children; and her names Naomi, and she’s beautiful. But He’s willing, He’s so willing to extend to us and let us know. I look at Naomi and I say, the sufferings that she has gone through , that she’s endured, are the very things that have allowed Christ’s life to come forth from her. So, to the point that she looks radiant and young. If she was in a totally different situation, that might not have come out. So He didn’t want to take her out of that situation. He just wanted her to know I really do care about that.
(R) Because she has learned to hope in God.
(M) Yes. And I told the women He wants to take you up, not necessarily out.
(Jean) That may have been the wall, the wall that you experienced may have been the wall that these women have. They have had Christianity presented to them in such a way, and I couldn’t help but think, are they expecting from this conference what they usually hear from Christianity? Are they expecting the same stuff that they get on Sunday in their church? There’s a wall that has to come down, that we have not come to bring them that kind of message. We have come to bring them a message of this personal God that John is talking about, who cares very deeply about every facet of their lives. And that wall may have been the wall that has to be broken down, and why God started you on the stories. Why He turned you, and you said He turned their brains; but He also turned you at one point in the message toward a relating of yourself, a relating of Martha and Martha’s dilemma’s as a woman in a way that…This is totally new to them. What they normally her is from a man.
(M) And what they should be and do.
(Jean) Yeah. And I wonder if that’s not the wall that has come down. That this is not the usual fall-de-ra, religious-ness.
(M) It’s not going to tell you what to do, but tell you who He is for you.
(R) In the message on Friday night, when you stressed about Abraham giving Sarah to Abimelech and to Pharaoh, that as far as she knew she was stuck in that situation for the rest of her life. And you said to them, could you imagine her pain, her crying out, but God was there with her. It was the message that John just shared; I mean it was the message that God cared about Sarah. He was with her all the time, He cared about all the things she was going through and He was there to deliver her out of that situation two times. And that was really a powerful moment in the conference, I think because the women that are there that are suffering, it was saying, your God cares.
(J) Right.
(R) He cares for you as a women, He knows you’re in a situation that you have no control over. That’s what you taught, you said a woman lots of times is helpless in these situations just like Sarah. That’s a great point, John.
