At the end of the road... (the ends of the earth?)

It is amazing how God can completely alter your entire plan, but still work it out perfectly. We finish camping and spending time with a completely unreached people group. After a night of rest, we meet up with Brandon, a man who has been on the field for maybe 7 months. But he is so fired up to share the Word. It is amazing. We go with him to see some of the ministry projects that he is working on, with the idea that we were going to continue through the day following where God led us.

So we go to the river, where a man supposedly live that we wanted to greet. Well, apparently he only lives there for about 3 months out of the year. But that is okay, because going into a village while trying to find this man allowed us to meet and pray for another individual that we met.

With a new set of instructions as to find this fisherman, who was thought to live ten minutes from town but actually lives about and hour from town, and keep driving. Throughout the day, we meet and interact with people as they direct us to this fisherman. Even when we couldn't remember the name of the village, God provided ways for us to figure out the little details.

By the time we find the right village, we encounter a large group of men who claim to know the fisherman. They direct us to his home. But as soon as we enter through the door, Brandon immediately knows that it is the wrong man. Turns out that this man has the EXACT same name as the fisherman we were looking for. And on top of that, both men live in the same village. I don't know how that didn't get extremely frustrating for all the people in the village!

We were literally a translated sentence for asking permission of this older man to leave his house and continue searching for the fisherman. But out of the blue, this man said that he had met some people in Caracas that had the same faith that we have, and that our faith was much better than his, because followers of the Lord keep their promises and show mercy and love. Bam. Within five minutes we had an open invitation to explain why we can be so loving and merciful to the people of Venezuela. He was very open to the concept that we share the love that our Father shows to us. He was an older man, and it was obvious he had lived his life, and realized that his faith just didn't work. But he wasn't ready to jump on the Salvation Wagon just yet. He was still apprehensive to the concepts that involved turning away from his old faith. Pray that Brandon can make many more visits to this man to share the Word of God with him. 

After a spiritually exhausting day, we crashed in our room and drove to Caracas this morning. Now I am Skyping with the fam, and waiting for Raquel and Jaime to take us to dinner. So for now... rest...

-Burt