Last Wednesday night I finished preaching to almost 500 college students from Argentina at the CIMA Conference in Buenos Aires at 11:15 pm (they didn’t start the service until after 9:00 pm).
They had asked me to speak on the subject of “Holy for God’s Mission”, when we gave the invitation, hundreds responded filling the alter and the isles, surrendering their lives to His Mission, but the most unusual thing about the service was not that almost everyone came forward, but that the young people stayed praying and weeping at the alter until after 12:30 am.
God’s Sprit was so present it was palpable as the young people were truly broken and yielding their lives to go out and live His Mission instead of their own, and take the Gospel to the unreached.
I praise God for how He is changing the perspective of Christians all over Latin America, challenging them to become a missions force instead of being the mission field.
Every January I am invited by CIMA to preach and teach about missions, unreached people groups to hundreds of young people in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Two years ago I met a group of young people from FBC Bariloche (the southern tip of Argentina), this was their first experience at CIMA. They went to all of the classes were I was teaching and preaching, hung around for hours talking, it was there that God called P. to His Mission. P. is a young engineer that had just purchased his new car.
He went back home, sold his car, resigned his job and went for 6 months to serve in Southeast Asia. As the CIMA team interviewed P. in the service, he told the story of how at his first CIMA he was confronted about the need of the unreached.
He said that in a conversation that we had, he had asked “what is the best ability for a missionary” and that I responded “the best ability is to make yourself available.”
P. has made himself available to God, and is now being sent out by his home church as a full time worker in Southeast Asia! Please pray for this 28 year old engineer as he serves among the unreached.