Please Pray for Upcoming Bible Seminar
We are planning another Bible seminar for the 1st – 6th of April. Please be in prayer for us. So many many hungry people for the word of God. But our resources are limited here and that limits the number of distant villages we can bring people in from. We need wisdom on who to concentrate on and what villages we need to get representation from. Continue to pray for a continual movement of the Spirit of God here. So many many of our students are pleading for teaching from the word of God. Thanks to all who pray and give to make these seminars possible.
The following is part of a conversation I had with an indigenous man. He is one of our seminar students and this was the first time I had seen him in about 3 years. When they came to the seminars it would take them 5 days on the trail and then 2 more days by river to get to our village. I was embarrassed that I did not remember him when he came up to me in Esmeralda and asked about the seminars. Sort of jokingly I asked what he wanted the seminars again for and this was his answer. I was humbled and even rebuked a little bit in my heart at how hungry they are for the Word and how much we just take it for granted:
“I was born and raised in a village far far away. My village is called ‘Crying Toucan Village’ When I was in my teens I was out in the jungles with my friends and we were hunting and fishing the streams. Most of the adult men were off on a hunt trying to get a lot of meat for our bone drinking feast of the dead. That day while we were away, our village was raided by an enemy village. When we got home it was to the wails and screams of our mothers and sisters. When the raiders hit most of the women escaped into the jungles but even so 10 people including children were killed. When I entered the village the sight of horror that hit my eyes that will never be erased was the sight of my little toddler brother. He was dead impaled on an enemies bow. He had been picked up and driven on to the bow alive. It protruded out of his mouth. Anger and hate flooded my heart that day and I swore that I would kill them all.”
“From that day on I became a raider I lost all the joy of youth and I asked the shamans to have their spirits fill me with the most violent of all spirits. I became a deadly killer. And many many women wailed the death songs for their people that I killed in my hate and lust to revenge my little brother. I thought that as I continued to pour out my wrath on the villages of the people who did this that I would finally find peace. The more I killed the more in darkness I wondered. My nightmares intensified and never got better. In my dreams I would see the people I had killed to revenge my little brother and they were always begging for mercy. I was so filled with hate and anger that I really was no longer a human being, I was just an empty shell of a person.”
“Then Camilo, a friend of mine, went to a seminar in Cosh and came back a joyous and completely changed person. He told me about this Jesus who could change a person who could drive out evil spirits. The next seminar I went too. There I through the teaching of God’s word met Jesus Christ. He cleansed me he set me free from the hatred that dominated my life he drove out the violent wicked demons that controlled me. He then filled my heart with a love for my people even my enemies. These last few years I have been taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to all of the villages in our area. I even have made peace with my enemies, as even they are tired of all of the killing.”
“The sadness that we have today is because of the lack of fuel in the upper Orinoco there are not many seminars now. Oh how our hearts long for the word of God. Oh how we long to set under the teaching of God’s great book. I feel like a famished person and whenever I see any one from Cosh: Gary or Mike or Timi. Just anyone, I beg them to do everything they can to start the seminars again. I always hold on to every word they tell me and my spirit is lifted by the glorious truths of the word of God that they share with me in passing. Oh God please give us back the seminars so that we can once again feast on your word.”
Please please pray for us as we plan to do a seminar again. We need fuel and we need it badly. One 55 gallon barrel cost us about a hundred dollars. We usually use about 10 barrels for one seminar. Please pray and ask God what you can do to help out with the seminars.
-Gary Dawson