"The Power of Enemy Love" by Pablo Yoder

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Yeah, well, good morning, everyone. Uh, welcome to Strength of Strength. It's a real blessing to see, uh, many of you, lots of you this morning. We have quite a, quite a crowd on, on Zoom here, and that, that's a real, real blessing. Uh, we're excited to have Pablo Yoder with us, uh, today, with us this morning here at six, and again, um, this afternoon at, at three o'clock. And this morning, Brother Pablo was talking about the power and purpose of enemy love, and I'm really anticipating this talk. Um, this is, uh, I often get in conversations here with people locally talking about, uh, non-resistance or enemy love and, and the purpose of it and the reason for it.

And just like my Iranian friend told me the other morning, other day, he said, um, the ways of Jesus are counterintuitive. And, and we're gonna hear about some counterintuitive ways here today from a brother. Um, so Pablo Yoder is from Waslala, Nicaragua, as many of us probably know. Um, we've, we've read his books and probably heard him speak at times in the past. Um, he also, it has, Pablo, I was gonna ask you before the call here, do you have five children or six children? Six. Six children. Yeah. All right. And, um, I think two of them are still at home. Um, they're with them.

And, uh, uh, Brother Pablo is, is, uh, an ordained evangelist. So Brother Pablo, it's good to have you with us this morning. Um, before we get started here, why don't we just have, have prayer? Let's pray. God, Heavenly Father, thank you, um, so much for today. Thank you for your mercies that are new again this morning. And Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, your Son, the one who showed us the, the, the reason for enemy love, the one who walked it out, the one who taught us and showed us what it looks like to be your sons, to be your children, and to live your ways on this earth. And so Father, I ask, Lord, that as our brother shares this morning, that he would experience just freedom from you.

Um, he could think clearly, that he could just remember these stories, and he could share them, uh, under, under your, um, anointing, Father, and that he would do it for your glory, Father, and that these talks could be used, um, as a way to, to help all of us as we grapple with what it looks like to follow Jesus, uh, that we could understand better what that looks like. And so Father, I pray that you'll bless this, uh, talk this morning, uh, in a very special way. Um, just God, and direct us, Lord, and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. All yours, all yours, Pablo.

Okay. Good morning, everybody. Thank you especially, Bryant, for inviting me to join you here this morning. A little different way of worshiping in this hour. So, um, yeah, uh, I'm excited about the topic. Very excited about the topic because it's one of the most important topics in the, in the whole world, which is God's love.

God's love is so great and wonderful. This morning, I just overwhelmed, I'm overwhelmed with realizing just a little bit, um, what God's love is for me and for everybody. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever thought about it, you know, how big is God's love?

Um, in Ephesians, it says that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Have you ever tried to measure God's love? Has anybody taken a, a tape and just, uh, let's see, how big is God's love really? You know, how wide is it? How deep? How high? You know, the world talks a lot about love, but of course, they get things all mixed up. They get, they get, uh, last things first and first things last.

They talk about love and immediately think about romance and, and, um, things that pertain to immorality. And it, you know, it's about all they talk about here in Nicaragua, especially all the songs and a lot of stuff that people see on TV has to do with what they call love. And yeah, some of those things are, you know, in the right place is, are, are, are good. They're wonderful.

But unless we have the origin of love, which is God's love, the divine love, agape love in our hearts, all the other loves don't mean anything. It's all empty. So, um, especially for me this morning to talk about the love of God and how big it is, how wonderful, how great it is, it's very special. And when we have that love shed abroad in our hearts, it makes all the difference.

And it's big. It's really, really big. And we humans, um, I don't think we can even scratch the surface on, on what we have here, this, the greatness, the, the, the size, the awesomeness of God's love. We're just, we're so little, but God wants us to be rooted and grounded in this love. He wants us to comprehend its size to a certain extent. But then it says down a little bit lower there, it says it passes knowledge. It's way beyond anything that we could actually grasp.

But the thing that really impresses me and I wanna share with you this morning is that the love of God is big enough, great enough, real enough, strong enough to love your enemies. We could talk about throwing a pebble in the center of a pond. That little pebble makes a little splash, and then it creates rings. And, and the rings keep going out like this, you know, all the way to the edge of the pond. You know, when God's love comes into our hearts, it makes quite a splash.

And immediately the first ring or our response is to love God back. And oh my, I could talk all morning just about that, that love relationship, to actually be able to have a friendship with God and receive his love into my heart and then turn around and love him back. But the Christian life is a lot more than that. We know that it's not just God and I, but then he also commands us, uh, to love our spouses, another ring, to love our children, to love our brethren. We get bigger and bigger and bigger. Then we love our neighbor.

When the next we love our, there's a stranger. And last of all, God's love is big enough to love our enemies. And I think, uh, once we have that in our minds and in our hearts, we have decided that God's love is big enough. You know, a lot of people really get stuck on, on the Sermon on the Mount and some of this teaching. It just really get hung up. I mean, it's just like, that's impossible. I don't know if you've ever felt that way, but I'm just so glad to tell you this morning, it's not impossible because God's love is big enough. It comes into our hearts and transforms us. And no, we're not perfect.

We make mistakes, but when we have God's love in our hearts, it makes all the difference and, uh, changes our lives. And then we turn around and share that love with others. It's like we talk about plumbing, you know, we have the, the love flowing into our hearts and it flows right back. That's the way it should anyway, unless we've lost our first love and then we're really in trouble. But then also we open the spigots that go out into these ripples, you know, into these, into these rings, and we open the spigot. And sometimes our love seems like for God seems like it's drying up, but often it's a plumbing problem. There's blockage or sin or something in our lives that doesn't allow love to flow, or it's just plain, we're, we're skimpy with, with that love.

We're, we're tightwads. So we, we don't open our spigots to the others. Well, that makes a problem because then it dries up the fountain of that love. So to keep that love flowing into our hearts daily, we need to, uh, send it back, which is a beautiful thing, like I said, to be able to love God back and tell him how you love him and not only tell him, but live it, turn around and, and practice that love back to God, worship him, obey him. And oh my, we could just go on on that. But then we need to open those spigots all the way out to the edge of the pond. We need to open the spigots of love to our enemy.

And you know, you immediately see me and you think of robbers. Oh boy, robbers, you know. And, um, but you know, it's not just robbers. It could be the milk inspector or it could be your neighbor that makes life a little difficult for you, or maybe it's a brother in the church that just really seems like he has it in for you. You know, you ever experienced that? Unfortunately, it happens.

Well, this is, this is what the Bible is teaching us, is that God's love is big enough to turn around. You know, that's the only armor we have here in Nicaragua. We can't own a gun. I mean, you guys have them in your, in your, uh, living rooms or in your bedrooms, this whole row of guns. We can't have a gun because if we would, first of all, it would be a very, very poor testimony because everybody knows what guns are for. And here in Nicaragua, when they talk about guns, it's for defending yourself and shooting people.

There are not many animals left. They've shot them all. So anyway, here we go. And we can't have a gun. I don't want a gun. Plus, I'll tell you a little story later this afternoon when they, when we had a pellet gun and they turned around and used it on us. But anyway, that's another story. So the only arm we have, and, but you know, it sounds funny, the only arms we have is love. That is our, that is our weapon.

Um, and that is sufficient to be able to turn around and love your enemy in practical ways. I mean, try it. Try it. It works. Get that brother that's clashing with you or you're clashing with him, you know, whatever.

Uh, pray for that guy and, and, and watch and ask God for opportunities to hammer him with love and it works. It's a beautiful thing. That's my testimony this morning. Yeah. We'll be talking about some robbers, but, um, it's not only even for us. I mean, it's just one aspect of how we can, you know, God's love is so great in our hearts.

If we avail ourselves, if we live by faith, watch for these opportunities. This, this love is real. So now just looking at what the Bible says, we have, uh, those scriptures in Matthew where it talks about going the second mile.

Um, you know, some people just, you know, read these verses and you have heard it that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That's the natural man. That's the way we would naturally respond to, to people that are against us. But then Jesus said, I tell you not to resist an evil person. That's important to understand. We resist evil, but we don't resist the evil person. We're interested in that person. We love the person. That's what Jesus did.

So whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. Now, I don't know if any of you've actually experienced that. Uh, I haven't, but I have prayed. I have asked God that if he would want me to go through that and to, to be able to show the person that hits me, um, that there's love in my heart for him and get up if he knocks me over and, and turn the other cheek. I have prayed about that. I've thought about that quite a bit and I'm willing. Now, it's not like I want bad things to happen to myself, but see, it works. I know it works. Pray about it. Of course, that might not be always be somebody, you know, hitting you in the face, but this is what it means.

It means literally. So it might be your wife is not in a very good mood one day and she gives you a slam, you know, with words. I hope she doesn't hit you. Mine never has, but sometimes she gives me a little slam and, and then how do I respond? See, uh, naturally, well, you whack back. I mean, you slam back and you make it a little harder, a little harsher than what she did. You, you just, you just lay it on. Okay.

Is that gonna really be produce anything good? Is that gonna really make you feel good and make you, you know, have peace in your heart and the love of God grow in your life? No, but you turn around and you respond with love and you say, woo, here you are, give me here too.

But sincerely and honestly, it makes a difference. If anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asked you and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away. This stuff is, I shouldn't say stuff. These things are literal. These things are real and they work. I wanna tell you just a little story to help understand this in context. I had a friend talk to me one day. He was a fellow missionary, an American, and he had a, a farm and he had his motorcycle and he had two helmets, one for him and one for the person that's taken going with him.

So he came to me one day and he said, brother, what do I do? One of the members from your church stopped by and asked me for my helmet. So I gave it to him. And then he said, but now he came back and he's asking for the second one. What should I do? And he's the kind, this missionary is the kind that takes these things literally. So he turned around and gave the brother in my church a helmet because he asked for it. Well, then now he comes back and asks for the second one. And I said, oh brother, you have to know who you're working with. This guy's trying you out. He's gonna give that first helmet back.

And don't you dare give him that second helmet because that's not really what the Bible's talking about. In the context, we're talking about people, our enemies, people that are against us. Those are the situations when we don't say no because we love our enemy. Now, this fella giving my brother helmets is not gonna help anything. And I don't think that's what God is talking about here. I, I, I think I forgot, but I was gonna scold the brother because he was testing this missionary. Anyway, in the context of people that are against you, your enemy, these things are real and they work. Don't bat an eye. Just give it, loan it, and show love.

Then we have down below, it says, you have heard that it is said, you show love your neighbor and hate your enemy. In the Old Testament, you know, it was, it was hate your enemy. It was eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But you know that even in the Old Testament, Jesus, I mean, God would allow little peeps of what non-resistance is like.

Isaac with all those wells. Oh, there's so many of them. And one of 'em that really blesses me is when Elisha, uh, trapped, you know, the, was it the Assyrians? He trapped them. He had 'em in Damascus, had 'em inside on the courtyard and the, and the king is just hopping up and down. He's saying, let me, let me kill 'em. Can I kill 'em? I wanna kill 'em. I mean, finally we have these pesters here. We got 'em trapped and, and I just, he just wanted to whack their heads off. That's Old Testament. It wouldn't have been surprised if he would've, but Elisha got his answer from God and he said, no, no, don't do that.

Make a feast and feed these people. Open their eyes and here they are in the middle of the, of the, of the city trapped. And now all of a sudden, you know, God says, feed 'em. And they had such a wonderful party. I don't know. I can just imagine they fed these people. But you know, the thing that blesses me, and that's what my testimony is, it works. It says they never came back to, to bother Israel again.

If they would've killed those men, the others that were left would've, would've come back. You know how it goes. Revenge creates more revenge. Hate creates more hate. And it just snowballs, but love stops it in its tracks and makes things change. So the Old Testament, it was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but it was the same God. God already then knew what his plan was. He knew what he was gonna do in the New Testament. Then it says you should, but I say to you, love your enemies.

Now maybe you're some one of those that say, you know, that's impossible, but it isn't. It is not impossible. It is actually very, very possible. And it is a blessing. Then it says, bless those who curse you. Some of you probably read the book, Deliver the Ransom Alone, when Eli Glick in El Salvador was, was kidnapped and all night long they had him, uh, they were mean to him. They tied him up and the ants were eating him up. And, and, uh, he was saying, would you please give me a drink of water? He was so thirsty the next day and all night and no food. And, and into the next day, the sun was hot, the ants were eating him up.

And every time he'd ask them for something, they would bark back in ugly tones and, and they cursed him. And then he would say, God bless you. God bless you. All night long, he won their hearts. I think it was one o'clock in the afternoon when they turned him loose. They actually gave him some oranges because they knew he was very hungry, almost 24 hours without eating and very thirsty. They gave him water and gave him some oranges and turned him loose. Well, my wife knew that story.

And one of the stories that, that, uh, I'm just gonna really briefly share here was a time that the robbers came to our home in Kusuli and they hauled me off to the neighbor to get his, to Tim Shropps, to get his money. While I was gone, these men had the women down on the floor in the, in the upstairs bedroom and, uh, Bokawaho, we say they had 'em face down. And, uh, here in Nicaragua, um, the ladies often carry the money on their bodies.

So they checked the ladies. And of course, this caused trouble and they started thinking of other things and they molested my wife. This green hooded man, um, molested her. It was not a rape, but it was bad enough that you can imagine the terror. And she cried out and, and, uh, pled for the blood of Jesus to come and cover her. And, and the man backed off.

He backed off and walked out the door and he looked back. She remembers very clearly, lights were on. She was, uh, he was in the doorway and he looked back and she said, God bless you. Now that's absolutely crazy that a woman having experienced some of the worst things that can happen to a woman would turn around and say, God bless you. She remembered Eli's story.

But I have a question for you. Do you think that guy ever forgot that? Do you think that robber could live his life the same after that, after having encountered love? And there's other things that happened that night. I'm sure that man went home or to the jungle or wherever he lived and his life was not the same ever because he encountered love when it's the hardest to love. You know, that's not, that is so unhuman. That is so unreal to love your enemy that it impresses people that you have something real.

And all the time we had all these robbers back there in Kusuli between 1995 and 2000, you know, there weren't that many robbers converted. There were a couple, but what really, really happened was that the people watching on our neighbors, the people in the community are the ones that watched this and saw it happen. And even the, uh, Protestant people did not practice non-resistance in this country.

It's not taught just like a lot of, like, uh, other churches, you know, they, they don't have that in, in their doctrine. Well, then seeing this lived out became, uh, a tremendous, tremendous testimony. And I, we believe that the success in, in the conversions in the beginning had a lot to do with this. I remember my son came up to me one day and he said, daddy, I was keeping track of the robberies. He said, daddy, did you think about it? We've had 15 robberies and we have 15 members.

Some years later, when we were ready to move to Waslala, the number had went up to 40. I was keeping track of all the robberies and I stopped that. The Lord kind of got that outta my system, said, don't do that. So I stopped it. But I remember he came to me again and he said, Paulo, daddy, we've had 40 robberies.

We have 40 members.

Brethren, does that cost too high? If we realize that the worth of a soul is worth more than everything in the whole world, the Bible says that is a robbery per soul too much. You know the answer. So this is real. Bless them that curse you. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

And then we have, um, the scripture in Romans, just real briefly there because time is running for us here. Um, in Romans, it says, Romans 12, it says, bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Don't allow anger to come up into your heart. We struggle with anger. I had a, we had this, uh, metal baseball bat that the children used. We couldn't play baseball in Kusuli because everything was too steep. The ball would go down the gully and we never used it. We never did. I never did teach my children how to play baseball. Oh, they'd be so embarrassed if they ever have to bat a ball with a, with a bat.

But I had this bat back in the corner and between robberies, I got this thing. Satan put this little thing in my mind, what I could do with that baseball bat. Now we're talking about 20 years ago. I was a lot younger than I am now and I hadn't had GBS and I hadn't had my back operation and I was in good shape. I worked on the farm and, and, uh, I started thinking what I could do with that baseball bat. So the guys come again, you know, they keep coming, come again and I say, and they say, yeah, give me your money. Okay, come on. I'm gonna show you your money. And I go to that corner where the baseball bat is and I act like I'm digging down in there to find, to find the money hidden there and that w where the baseball bat and all the other junk is.

And, and while he's expecting some big cash, all of a sudden I haul out this baseball bat and man, he saw stars and, and I got his gun away. You know, those things started coming into my mind. Sometimes nights I'd lay awake, I'm scared and, and I'd scare myself making all these stories. I had to renounce that. I had to totally renounce that. And, um, I started praising the Lord when I woke up nights and couldn't sleep. I'd hear a noise and right away it'd just go into the robber mode and, and you know, what's coming next?

But, uh, I learned that if I would be awake and I'd praise the Lord, I'd go to sleep pretty fast. That's, that's, that's bad. I should stay awake to praise. But anyway, I renounced that. But I wanna tell you tonight, I mean, uh, this morning that never in the robberies would these things come to us. I praise the Lord for that, partly because of the decision. Ever since we moved to Nicaragua, we knew what we might face, although we had no idea, uh, really to the extent of it. But the decision is no violence, never.

So all those things we went through, I praise the Lord that I never, I never thought of that baseball bat. I never thought of using violence. God gave us grace. We would step into these robberies and, uh, oh, it's incredible. The grace and the peace and the strength that we'd have during those times.

And even, you know, even extreme situations and I, they were gonna had us, they had us hostage, had me tied up for two hours and, and they were gonna take one of my, my daughters out into the dark. And they told us, they said, if we take your daughter, he had tried everything to get money outta me. And it's one o'clock in the morning. Okay. They got there at 7:30. So now it's one o'clock in the morning. I'm totally worn out. I'm tied at my family's feet, hog tied, my hands behind my back, my feet tied together and then pulled together. And I try that for two hours and see what cramps are like. And, uh, so they were gonna take my daughter, the last thing, the last effort.

And, uh, they said, if we take your daughter out this door, she won't be the same. Now that is a direct rape threat. But you know, I'm laying there on the floor. I couldn't do anything anyway. I had already tried to bust my shackles and all I did was rip my, uh, my, uh, skin on my wrists earlier. I had just got desperate and just tried to rip 'em off 'cause there weren't very big strings. But anyway, all that time I never thought of violence. Well, I couldn't do it anyway. But anyway, it's just like, I remember one time, uh, the robbers were gonna take one of my children 'cause they found out where my weak point was.

That night I finally sent my son to town and he borrowed a thousand dollars to get those guys happy and they left. And, and, uh, it was a long, long night. As you can imagine, they left at four o'clock in the morning.

But another, in another situation, um, things got desperate and they wanted one of my children. It was the next robbery. Actually, they knew now where my soft spot is. So they were gonna go get my children and we were down, downstairs. And I had told a brother that was there to evacuate the family and get 'em outta there, uh, run if it would happen again. And he had failed. The children were still there, though my wife and Tim Shropps family. And, and they were gonna go up. They told me, we're gonna go up and we're gonna get one of your children 'cause you're gonna give us cash tonight.

So what I did is I stepped up between him. I stopped him before he went upstairs. And I said, just a minute.

I put myself between him and my children and I plead. And God used, uh, the plea worked. I said, let's go outside and talk. We need to talk. And I took him outside and we started talking, Tim Shropps and I, with these guys. There were two of 'em that had machine guns. And, uh, meanwhile, then as I went out the door, I told this brother, I said, now you have three minutes. I told him in English, you have three minutes to get the children outta here. And we went out and, uh, they went out, out the window, a whole batch of 'em down over a gully, through mud, barefoot in the pajamas and up a hill and out on the road.

And, and meanwhile, God sent a, a little Jeep, a little Suzuki Jeep. They got 13 people in that thing. Don't you ask me how they haul 'em off to Waslala. And we dealt with the robbers. And again, it was, we came out, uh, they just took our stuff. Didn't hurt us. But anyway, stuff like that, you know, God is real in these situations and he's there to help us. This, this stuff works. Um, repay no evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. And then at the end, if your enemy's hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him drink.

For in doing, for in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. This, this is real. This works. I don't know how many times I've fed robbers. I remember one night, the same night that they had us hostage all night, I made coffee for 'em three times. Fresh, good coffee. I'd make it with love. I don't say that proudly, but I would do it with love. The next time they say, hey, we want more coffee, make it blacker.

The third time I made coffee, it was so black he could almost cut it with a knife. They knew they had a long trip ahead of 'em. And, and, and, uh, but it, it was a, it was a blessing to serve these guys. Sounds crazy, but it, it's, it's true.

We gave 'em one night, I gave, we gave the robber our cobbler. We were at the supper table and we hadn't eaten yet. And we gave him a pan of cobbler because we knew we wouldn't be hungry for it for a long time because those robbers were always very traumatic and we wouldn't be hungry. And oh my, you can imagine.

So that time I stood between the robber and my children. The night that they were gonna take one of my daughters, I, I made a deal with 'em. I made a deal and it never came to actually they taking my daughter out, out the, the door. But through all of that, I never thought of using violence.

It never came, never crossed my mind. I'm sure it was from the Lord to try to hurt these men or, you know, use violence against them. Yeah. It's a, it's a tough thing, but that's what, you know, God's there for us.

Now I'd like to tell a story yet before I close down. I wanna look at one more scripture to help us understand why this is so important for God. And I, I think God in, in all these things that happened to us between 1995 and 2000, I think God had a real purpose in helping us understand how important his lost children are. Okay. We think of robbers. They're, they're, they're the scum, you know, they're, oh man, why does the world have to have robbers? I mean, why don't they go work? We tell 'em, wouldn't you work and go, go work and, and do something, you know, profitable instead of just making life so hard for everybody else.

But you know, God loves them too. Luke says, and I remember when I found this verse. Administered to me to understand why these things are so important. But it says, love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great.

Think of that when the milk inspector comes and, and he's giving you a hard time and you feel your blood coming up, you know, and you just, your reward will be, be great and you will be the sons of the most high.

Now, why? There's so many reasons that God, so many purposes that God had in our robberies, like to be a testimony so people would be saved. The growth in our churches back in those years was, was awesome. And from the original beginning, now we have five churches and at one point there was a membership of about a hundred in 25 years.

So, you know, there's so many purposes. The way he tried us and showed his love through testing and how you protected us. And, but here, listen to this. It says, you will be sons of the most high, for he is kind to the unthankful and the evil. When I realized that God actually loves these men, they're actually his lost children and he is interested in their lives and that he would bring them to our house with the purpose of touching their lives with love. That made such a difference in the way I looked at it. Okay. Here they come again and our blood would just drain. My children, my wife, we just all go into this robber mode and, and we start planning, you know, real quick, quietly and, and doing whatever we have to do and, and, and take care of the, I mean, take care of these men.

God really, really, really wants to save them. And he's kind of the, he wants to be kind to them, just like he does. You know what? He loves 'em as much as he does you. And again, realize we are the 199. Well, that's very special. We're in the fold. We're safe. But Jesus very clearly showed us that he sometimes leaves the 199 and goes out on the mountains to find his lost children. See the perspective, brethren.

And that's the story I wanna tell you now real quick yet and hopefully have time for some questions at the end. But there was a boy years ago that lived here about two hours from here from a home situation that was terrible and very, very sad. And he became such a terrible young boy. When he was somewhere between 12 and 14, I don't remember the story. He doused his stepfather with gasoline and lit him up, killed him. Then they moved away and went to a place called Wastari.

Some years ago, uh, after we were already in Waslala and our robberies were history. My son is a pastor in a place called Sapotikum. This robber started coming from Wastari. He couldn't live in Wastari, steal in Wastari anymore. They kill him. So he comes, he has, meanwhile, he's grown up to be such a wicked man. He had a pact with Satan.

He had made a deal with Satan. And that guy was so incredible because he would know when, when the police were around and he would come around and harass the Christians in the Sapotikum Valley, often in the daytime, as bold as a lion.

There's a lot of stories out about him now since this robbery happened. But anyway, it's a long story and I wanna make it short enough here that we can get some questions in. But this guy began harassing the valley of Sapotikum. He lived up in the mountains with another robber band and would come down and, and, and he started really making it hard for the Christians. And he discovered really quickly that the Christians were non-resistant. And man, that was just, this is easy money, man. I can go get these guys. They used to say here in Waslala about Tim Shropps and me, they're at the clinic in Kusuli. Oh boy, stealing from the, uh, from the Mennonites is easy.

All you need to do is bear out, bear with some preaching. They preach at you a while, but, uh, they don't resist. They just give you whatever they have. They give you coffee and make, they give you food and make coffee. And it became a slogan in these hills how easy it is to rob the Christians. Now that they're totally mistaken.

It's actually the opposite. They should never have started stealing from the Christians because that's the apple of God's eye. So they thought it was easy. Oh, that's peanuts. And oh, the joke they had because they'd steal, they'd sometimes come with, with, uh, one time they robbed us with a green banana and it looked like a pistol in the dark. And man, he made hay.

Uh, another time that we'll show you this afternoon, some of the things that they used. So, oh, that's easy. No, it isn't. So he's harassing the, the, the Sapotikum Valley and he comes around, especially focuses on one other brethren that had a big farm and was rich. And his sons were Christians and they had money and they knew it. So they, this guy, this Haimung was his name. He started coming and pressuring them for big money. Well, what happened is that, uh, Marcelo, the rich farmer, just moved to Waslala and got outta there because he knew his life was in danger. Meanwhile, this guy came and threatened and kept zeroing in and he wants big money and he wants Marcelo to come personally.

So he finally came one day and told the family, he said, I'm coming on Tuesday and I'm coming at between seven o'clock in the morning and four o'clock to five o'clock in the afternoon. Be ready. Marcelo's gotta be here and I need 250,000 cortados, which is a lot of money. Anyway, it's a long story. But anyway, uh, when that date came up, these brethren were really shook up. Marcelo, of course, is in town. And, um, so I offered to go along. My son was there as pastor. And then these boys, Marcelo's sons, and then we got some other couple other brethren involved. I think it ended up we were six of us waiting for the robbers.

And even from the day before, we were tense because we thought they might come the night before. And we prepared. And the thing that was such a blessing is to see these national men that never had been taught non-resistance to prepare. And we circled, knelt in a circle to pray the evening before this, this, this, uh, this, uh, appointment. And they're praying and they're begging God to send them. That really shocked me. They're saying, Lord, please send them because we had a table full of gifts.

Each one of us personally had prepared, uh, a gift bag. And Marcelo was sending like, uh, about a quarter of the money in a, in a gift bag. And we were to tell the robber, this is a gift from Marcelo. It's not stolen. This is a gift, a money gift, because we were concerned that he might, uh, get very violent if we didn't have something. So that, that's the plan. I had a little something here that I, I, uh, was crazy enough to put into my gift bag. My son and I, my son and I, um, prepared a bag with, with much love. And I mean, honestly, it was just in our hearts. We had flashlights and deodorants and, and, uh, some of 'em in the gift bags had new Bibles.

And, and I put in this little note. People thought I was crazy. Um, Jesus loves you. It says up here, and I do too.

But I don't know why I think that that man could never forget that. Anyway, we had all this ready and they didn't come and they wouldn't come and they wouldn't come and finally in the evening here they showed up.

And I have some pictures here. What happened was that we had a, one of the sisters in the church was in the top story of Jacinto's house with a camera that zooms lens and she took a whole bunch of pictures and we didn't realize what was happening, but she actually got photos of this, of this whole succession of this robbery. And the guy came, came and herded us into the porch and had us in there where we had the gifts, the table of gifts ready for him. And, um, well, he of course immediately, where's Marcelo and where's my money? And then we explained why Marcelo couldn't come and why we couldn't give big money like that because it would, it would ruin the mission because everybody would start coming and doing what he's doing.

And, and then we'd offer him those gifts and we'd tell 'em, we have all these gifts prepared for you. Each one of us has this, has this bag of, of special things for you. And, uh, but he was really hard. He had just two months before he had shot one of the neighbors and they got into a fight because he was robbing him. And the guy saw he's alone and grabbed his shotgun. So they tackled and he actually was able to pull the farmer's pistol out of his belt and shot him.

And as the farmer walked away, hit, he would laugh telling his friends, he bellowed like a bull. I remember that because that's gonna come up in the story here in a minute. So now this man, we're talking about a man that to kill somebody with peanuts.

So here he is. And by the way, he had the farmer's pistol in his belt. We recognized it. The, the boys recognized it. But anyway, he, he just really got upset, said he had a mask on and a cap down. We could just see his eyes, but he's standing there with the pistol, with his hand on the pistol and he's saying, I want money. I don't want gifts. Where's Marcelo? And there was about 15 minutes when the group of us really, really expected some bloodshed.

It was extremely tense because we're talking about a man whose heart is so hard. Years, he's probably almost 30 now, 27 to 30. He's, he's, uh, he's, uh, or maybe 25, but he is hardened and he's bitter. Nobody loves him. You hear that? Nobody loves him. God has no way to get ahold of him. He lives in the jungle surrounded with wicked men. They do marijuana every day. They live a life of the wicked.

How's God gonna get ahold of him? He doesn't read a Bible. He doesn't have contact with Christians. And his heart is so hard, the spirit can't get ahold of him anymore. So God sends him into that room where we are and we're, we're, we're praying under our breath. We're saying, Lord, soften his heart, make these gifts work. And we tell 'em about the gifts and, and Eddie, my son-in-law, that is one of these young fellows brought the bag, the gift bag, and, and showed him, look, Marcelo's sending you 50,000 cortados. It's a gift. You're not going to steal it. We're gonna give it to you. And he'd say, no, my hefe, my hefe, my boss would never allow that.

He'll kill me. My boss will kill me. We found out later that his boss was Satan himself. The story has come out now about the wickedness of this man and the tension and the, the pressure there was, was, but you know what? We kept on and we said, we started, we saw that he, he didn't shoot. He didn't. So we started witnessing to him. And, and you hear those national boys begging, come on, give your heart to the Lord, man. Throw your gun down. Come up here in front, kneel down and pray. We'll pray for you. Change your life. He said, I can't, don't kill me.

And then we said, okay, I offered to snatch him outta there. I said, if you wanna give your heart to the Lord, you throw your gun down and you come in here and you kneel down and we pray for you and you give your heart to the Lord. I said, I will snatch you outta here and take you to Waslala and make sure you're okay. And he just had never left his hand on the pistol. He said, I can't, my boss will kill me.

I have to have money. Then all of a sudden, the Marcelo's brother was there. He's one of the, the, the Christians in the church there. And he says, uh, you know what? If you give your heart to the Lord, oh, he was saying that his boss needs money to buy a farm. He said, I'll give you half of my farm.

He had 40 manzanas. He said, I'll give you 20 manzanas. I'll give you half of my land. I will give you the deed. I'll give you the title and I'll give you enough tim to build you a house, a roof of your house. And another one of the boys piped up and said, I'll give you a cow with a calf so you can start. We'll help you.