Now that's what I'm talking about!

At lunch today a young man named Mario came for perhaps the third time to our pizza lunch/bible study. I had to ask his name again, as I had forgotten it. There were around 20 who came today, perhaps 30-35 will join us tomorrow.

Since it had been a while since I had seen Mario, I asked him to come with me over to the pizza place in the food court and help me order the pizza. As we were talking, he shared that his father had died two weeks ago. I told him how sorry I was and then we re-joined the group. We studied Matthew 5:10-16, the passage where Jesus encourages His followers to be salt and light. Mario had some great comments that really added to the conversation, comments that came from personal experience. He shared that his parents spoke Quechua and that he did not begin to learn Spanish until first grade.

After the study I learned that Mario had received Christ about three years ago, and that as a result of prayer, his father trusted Christ as Savior a mere hour before his death. His mother still lives in a small village outside of Potosi, Bolivia. She is struggling with the loss of her husband and is not yet a follower of Christ.

I invited Mario to come to my office so I could give him a copy of the Bolivian version of JESUS Film. The DVD includes eight languages, including Quechua. I put the DVD into my laptop to show Mario how the menu worked. As he listened to the Quechua version with Spanish subtitles, his eyes welled up with gratitude, "My mother will understand about Jesus!".

I gave him three copies of the DVD and a charge: Share it with your mom and others back home in the village. I asked him if they had a DVD player up there in her highland village. He assured me that they did and that in only three weeks, he will be going back home to visit his mom. "I want to be a missionary of God's love". Will you pray with me for Mario and his mom?