God is working in the nations!

Yes, I know we all know this, and I knew it too. At least, that’s what I thought. Then I went to Brazil, saw it for myself, and then I understood – God is working in the nations! Right from the moment we entered the church in Monte Mor and the people were worshipping Jesus, my Jesus, I figured it out. It was like a revelation that dropped from my head to my heart. Jesus was there, in Monte Mor, in Brazil, just as He is here in the Isle of Man, just as He is in South Africa, Australia, Switzerland, and everywhere else!

He is in the nations and I finally understood what that meant.

I went with a willing heart, asking God to use me and push me out of my comfort zone.

The trip was amazing from start to finish. I went with a willing heart, asking God to use me and push me out of my comfort zone. And, of course, He is faithful and didn’t disappoint!

I have so many highlights I could write a novel, but I’ll narrow it down and tell you about my favourite moment:

We were invited to a churrasco (a barbecue) at the house of a family from the church, they wanted us to go there to pray for the grandfather who had throat cancer. We went, we ate, we drank Guarana (a Brazilian soft drink), we talked (mostly using Google Translate!) and we laughed.

Then we saw God and the amazing way He works.

We began to share testimonies. As it turned out, there was only one person out of 13 at the barbecue who could speak English well enough to translate: the youngest son of the family in his 20s, and he wasn’t saved. He translated 3 testimonies from our team, and then his mum asked him to translate her story into English for us. While he was translating, I felt God tell me we needed to pray for him. So after his mum’s testimony, I told him he had blessed us so much by translating for us that we would like to bless him by praying for him. He accepted, and we were blown away by what God did next!

While we prayed, God spoke to him deeply, with words and pictures that he couldn’t deny could only have come from God Himself.  He broke down and accepted Jesus! Then he opened up and spoke about his parents’ divorce, his feelings of depression and loneliness. His mum said to me afterwards that she had never heard him open up like that before.

God spoke to him deeply, with words and pictures that he couldn’t deny could only have come from God Himself.

For the duration of the barbecue, his older brother had been standing on the other side of a low wall, and while he was speaking, I felt God tell me to tell his brother that God sees him hiding in the shadows. So we invited him to come forward for prayer too, and he stepped out from behind the wall and let us pray for him! Again, God was so faithful and spoke to him clearly with words and pictures through these people he’d just met, and just like his younger brother he also broke down and received salvation!

I’m sure you can imagine the joy in that backyard! Their mother and the church had been praying for these boys for a long time, and God used these crazy gringos (foreigners) from the across the globe to answer their prayers!

This is God in the nations.

…my husband and I both completely fell in love with our hosts, and the feeling was mutual – God knitted our hearts together!

Now that I am home in the Isle of Man, a little piece of my heart remains in Brazil. I’d heard people talk about God ‘knitting hearts together’ after such a short period of time and didn’t think it’d happen to me. Yes, I knew I’d make some friends out there, but never in a million years did I expect to meet family. But then we got there, and my husband and I both completely fell in love with our hosts, and the feeling was mutual – God knitted our hearts together! In our case it was so obviously God, because we don’t speak any Portuguese and our hosts don’t speak any English. So to connect in the way we did, with only the use of Google Translate to communicate, it could only be a work of God.

Now I know for myself that God is ‘working in the nations’, and I know for myself He is ‘knitting together’ the hearts of the saints in the Four12 churches. If you think you know this but haven’t been to the nations yet, then you need to go! Because until you go, you don’t really know!