Summer has ended. Group session is finished. But the work is never done. I have sat and pondered about this past session. What the lessons are I have learned, what stories have changed my life, what people I will remember forever?
Today I want to share a story from my own experience, something that has been in the making for over a year now. It has now been one year that I was a summer intern here at Mission Lazarus. During that summer I spent the majority of my time with groups on construction sites. I spent weeks working on bathrooms or roofs; sifting, mixing, pouring cement. Besides the occasional fear of having man hands, I spent every moment loving the work, loving the process, loving the people. Being on a construction site, most of the people I met were male. Some of the men old enough to be my grandfather others younger than myself, but all growing to become dear friends.
We would spend all morning working, play soccer during our lunch break, and then go back to work. It was a dream. It was my dream. Then one day, a thought crept it’s way into my mind. The thought was simple, but potent. And I am sad to say that once it was formed I could not erase it from my mind. The thought was this, “How many of you are men of faith?" From that moment on I have sent my prayers up to God above for my friends here in Honduras. I ask that God raise up true Christian Honduran men. That God would revolutionize this culture, one man at a time.
One year later, I was working with a group from King of Prussia in a town called Santa Anita. We were doing construction on some new classrooms, as well as running a VBS in the afternoon. It was during the morning work I met a man from the church. We spent the morning digging rocks out of the sand and then sifting it for the cement.
When began talking about the usually things, “How old are you?” “Where are you from?” “Is it hot like this where you are from?” And then the conversation took a turn. He began talking about the church, and how much he loves being a member there. He talked of how he loves God and Jesus, and how he loves to sing church songs. And then, he began to sing his favorite church song. I’m not going to lie, I might have gotten slightly embarrassed when this 50 year old man started singing a church song in the middle of a work site. Then I realized what was going on. All the other noises around me were silenced because through that man God was showing me an answer to my prayer. God gave me that moment. God answered my prayer. This man, right here in front of me was an answer to a prayer, and God isn't just going to stop with him. God will continue to hear my plea I started saying one year ago, and raise up more men of faith. All I could do was praise the God who hears and answers our cries. How beautiful are the ways our Lord works.
That is what I wish to share with you today. That is the lesson that God has been trying so desperately to teach me. Our God has, is, and will continue to answer our prayers. Our God has not forgotten His children. He has not closed His ears to us. He is fiercely striving to find new and glorious ways to share His love with His children. That day in Santa Anita I took one step closer to understanding how great our God truly is and how closely He listens to the cries of His children.
wsl,
Mallory K. Kornegay
