"Church" by the Dead Sea

It's early morning now (Sunday, April 11). We are getting our backs ready to put outside the door in our hotel and are ready for a new day. Many of you are asleep back in the U.S. (and Brazil, and all the other countries where people are reading this) and will get up later, go to church and carry on with your lives.

I wanted to pause a bit to remind us that we serve a powerful God who can do anything. We are not going to be attending church today, something which I have not done in ages, but we can still worship God. Today I worship God by recounting His great care of us already demonstrated during this trip:

He has kept us safe (in spite of potential pitfalls, man-made or not);
He has given us gracious, knowledgeable and caring guides, who have contributed to made our journeys a great pleasure;
He has kept us generally in good health, in spite of several of us not feeling too well in the last couple of days;
He has given us indeed many windows that have opened some fresh perspectives that will help us as we continue to read His Word;

The Bible says in James 1 that God is the one who gives us "good and perfect gifts." I believe that with all my heart. Paul reminded even the Pagans at Lystra and Derby that it was God who gave them everything they had, whether they acknowledged it or not.

And this leads me to something I've been wanting to share with you for a long time but lacked the opportunity. (This is actually the first time I've had Internet connection that is reliable and fast at the same time, and it is the first time we've had a little break from the scheduled activities, thus the reason for several posts from this station).

Do you remember my story about our female guide from Egypt? Well, while she was being moved by Pastor Bob's offer to pray for her husband's complicated job situation in another country in the region, he was trying to reach her on her cell phone. She didn't take the call because she was busy trying to compose herself on the bus. Well, once she was able to make the call, she found out that her husband had won his case in the courts. I don't know all the details but she reported back to us that he will be awarded a good sum of money and will be returning home in about a month.

Now I know that some may question the timing of these events and question whether prayer had anything to do with them. But it is precisely the timing that will be remembered forever in the mind of our gracious guide. The next day our male guide was saying out loud that we should start praying for him too. The fact is, we've been praying as a group ever since we found out that we were coming for everyone we would be in contact with. We prayed that we would impact them for God and Christ. Obviously, God has been hearing our prayers.

And that's only one reason why I render Him my worship today.

Go to church and talk to God today!

Pastor Ivanildo C. Trindade
itrindade@woostergrace.org