Posts

Mud Walls, Dirt Floors, and Jesus

/0 Comments/in /by

Bert and Colleen Elliot have had a wonderful life. They went to Peru when they were young and newly married. They lived in the jungle and life there was very, very simple. At first they lived in part of the living room of the senior missionaries. It was just a dirt floor and big, thick mud walls in a thatched roof house. No running water, no electricity, nothing really in the town. But it was good.

Then they bought their first house-for $40-and it was just basically a thatched roof. But they were excited because it was their very first home. They built rammed earth walls underneath the thatched roof and had just a dirt floor. Bert and Colleen learned that you can be very happy with next to nothing. They said, “We didn’t need a lot to make us happy.”

It’s an incredible testimony when we are content with what God has given us. The apostle Paul gives us an example in Philippians chapter 4. He says, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Living like that is a great way to testify that life with Jesus is what makes us truly rich!

A Valuable Lesson

/0 Comments/in /by

Bert and his wife, Colleen, have been missionaries in Peru for 56 years! They have had their own method of planting churches. They would go to a village in the mountains or on the coast, maybe along the river. They preached the Good News there for three or four nights and then went on to the next village.

Bert told me, “I think we learned one very valuable lesson: that our absence from those churches was as important as our presence.” They would come back in three months and the village would be up in arms about some theological issue. So they would find out what the problem was and give them the teaching they needed for that.

They didn’t stop anywhere for more than a month. They sowed the seeds and it worked. They might not have done things “by the book,” but God has worked tremendously through their efforts in Peru.

Sometimes our absence can make people realize God’s presence in us, and their need for Him. Jesus says in John chapter 12, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” Keep on shining the light of Christ even today. He will change people through you, in your presence and in your absence!