Some Concluding Thoughts

Now that we're home and beginning to get our bearings again (we hit the ground running!), I wanted to put down a few thoughts about our trip. It was great to see the Goldfusses again and fellowship with them. It was also neat to see how much their children have grown (I always think of missionary kids staying the same height and size as their last prayer card). It was exciting to see their house and to think of the great blessing it will be to them when it is completed and how they will be able to use it to enhance their ministry.
Since this was not my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or even seventh time to visit Mexico, I was struck more by similarities to our life and ministry here than the differences. Here are a few of them, in no particular order.

• The difficulties of ministering to people are very similar. The problems the Goldfusses are facing with unsaved people or those in the church are evidences of the depravity of man. It has nothing to do with where those men live; they have sinful, selfish hearts.
• Building on the previous point, people often destroy their lives with layered sinfulness. They spend years making sinful choices, doing selfish things, and living with no thought of God and his Word. When they finally realize their plight, they want to pop a pill and turn back the clock twenty years. Unfortunately, those layers of sin have consequences, scars, and form habits. I like to say that the Christian life is simple. I didn't say easy, but it is simple.
• Raising children in this sinful world is no easy task. I thank God for those who are willing to accept the challenge of trying to raise godly children to the glory of God.
• God must change hearts. His Holy Spirit must give spiritual life where there is spiritual death. God's Word is living and active and it penetrates through man's pretenses and pretexts. The Bible is sufficient for salvation and for sanctification (2 Tim 3:14-17).
• God's people love to sing hymns of faith and praise to God. Some would like to say that hymns are not appropriate for "Latin culture." They are not appropriate for unregenerate or unthankful hearts. However, it was a joy to hear and watch God's people sing his praise--- it makes me look forward to the day when a multitude of the redeemed from every ethnicity and language group will sing God's praise (Rev 7:9-12).
• God puts in the hearts of his leaders a love and a burden for the people to whom they minister.
• It is certainly true that "Anywhere with Jesus is 'Home Sweet Home.'"