By Sammy Yoder

Why do we travel 3000 miles to be among people whose language and customs are strange to us?

Why is it that after we have unintentionally brushed off a total stranger, a quiet remorse tugs at our hearts?

Why is it that after we have had casual fun with a neighbor or a friend who doesn’t know God, their face continually crosses our mind’s image with a hush of longing in our hearts, wishing we could somehow encourage them to know Jesus?  It is because the Holy Spirit lives in us, and he knows that if people do not repent, even good people, they really will cross from this life into the next with no hope of ever entering life again. They will enter the chaos, alienation, and torment of existing in what Jesus called hell. And most of them, sadly, don’t have a clue that this is so.

In Luke 13 Jesus touches on how real this is. A crowd had surrounded Jesus and brought up a group of Galileans who had been brutally executed and mutilated. Jesus responds by saying, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

There is a common theme that runs throughout Scripture when dealing with judgment – it is the suddenness of it, the ignorance of its seriousness, the inability to be fully prepared for it. I feel that these Scriptures are not so much warnings for unbelievers, but for believers. They sound trite and silly to unbelievers, but to us, they motivate us to share the good news of God’s love with more boldness. We share because the love of God has caught us, and we can’t imagine how things would have turned out for us without him. We want so much for his love to catch our neighbors and friends – good people who are patterning their lives apart from God and headed for destruction.

Later in that same chapter, Jesus gives us a flash forward of how it will be for those who cross over without him. It’s pretty scary ,actually. What has really shaken me is that, as C. S. Lewis says, these are real people; people we know, work with, play with, live with; people God can save and spare from this. Jesus says, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’…But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you are from. Away from me…’ There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets of the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.” Okay, that wigs me out, but it also helps me appreciate what God has done for me and will do. And it makes me want to do all that I can to help keep the people I know (or don’t know) from passing from this life without Jesus.

So let’s pray for the team that will be visiting Peru. Pray that God will use them to catch people and bring them into His Kingdom of His dear Son! Amen.

Sammy Yoder arrived in Peru in March 2004, after graduating college, sensing that the Lord had an international call on his life. Currently, he is helping plant another Iglesia de La Vina in a district outside of Lima called Pro. Sammy plans to return to his hometown of Campbellsville, KY at the end June of 2005 and reunite with his girlfriend., saying “I'd like to come back to Peru in the future (with her), but we'll see…”

Since I was taken hold of by the love of God at age 19, I have had a passion to see the whole Gospel. To see salvation, healing, and deliverance taking place as a part of everyday Christianity. On this journey I have seen things that I never would have thought I would see. I have seen people healed before my very eyes. I am excited about what God is doing on the earth today.

I am excited about seeing the Kingdom come in Peru. I am looking forward to being changed by the experiences that I will have on this trip. I am seeing heaven invade earth. Through all things my faith has increased and I am learning how to trust in Him more