Hope in the Midst of Trials

Dear Friend and Supporter,

Dave and I flew north to Chiclayo early Friday morning to speak at a family conference in Chiclayo with our colleagues, the Farleys. We had a wonderful weekend of ministry with group of 25 people in the “First Baptist Church of the Unsaved.” That's right - they have a good group of people meeting together on Sunday evenings but not one had made a decision for salvation yet. So we met with them for 3 days and had a wonderful time.

While we were up there having a wonderful time, there were some people here in Lima having a wonderful time too. The first news came to us on Saturday morning. We are in charge of the ABWE guest house, so I had arranged for a lady to enter and clean it while we were gone. She got there on Saturday to find that someone else had entered first, breaking the lock on the back door and stealing the TV and VCR. Nothing else, so it wasn't too great a loss. I made a couple of calls and arranged to have the door fixed and the police report filed.

We were ending the conference on Sunday night with a class on "Biblical Hope in the Midst of Trials". Dave had taught the first hour on Biblical hope. We had a refreshment break before I taught the second half on Trials, when my cell phone rang. It was someone from our church in Lima calling to say that a neighbor of ours had just come to church to advise them that their pastor's house had been broken into and had been "emptied." I told him to put a guard at the door, and not to worry - we'd be home tomorrow. Five minutes after getting that call, I stood up and taught from the bottom of my heart in real time on Hope in the Midst of Trials. God had prepared me for it and it was simply an opportunity to show that group of unsaved people that we weren't teaching pie in the sky theory but rather a way of life that really works. It actually was a powerful way to end, and one lady prayed to be saved afterwards. From the response on their faces, many more did as well, although not publically. Please pray for God to continue working.

Sure, life is more difficult without all my favorite things (technologically speaking). But Rich Davis was kind enough to loan us an old laptop so now I am back on line and recovering from computer withdrawal. I am working to the tune of a carpenter sawing and pounding as he repairs the two front doors that were broken down during the robbery.

But don't worry about us - it really wasn't a blow. It's just something to be expected. I learned that when someone broke into our car 20 some years ago to steal a loaf of bread. I cried over the bread then, but not over the loss of more than $7,000 worth of equipment last week! Amazing how we have grown and God has worked in us in the last 25 years! We are really tranquil about this. You see, our peace and tranquility come from God, not from our possesions, physical security, location, circumstances or other people. Therefore when we lose any of that we can still be fine. That was the gist of lesson 6 from Self Confrontation that I had just taught at Seminary twice and at the Center once the week before traveling to Chiclayo and the last class on hope and trials we taught up there.

When we returned we discovered that the house wasn't really emptied. They only took the computer, multimedia projector, camera, TV, 2 VCR's, my jewelry, and various other things. All of our furniture and decorations and books and kitchen were untouched. And as I cleaned and put things back in order (they had emptied all drawers looking for money) I kept finding more things that they didn't take, so I kept praising the Lord. Since we had accepted the loss of everything, it really was fun to keep discovering things that we assumed had been taken.

The next day while I prepared my seminary class, a continuation of the week before, this time on the differences between trials and temptations, I had just read I Peter 1:6-7, when Dave called from a neighbor's house where he was checking Internet. He had just accessed our bank account on line and discovered that the theives had found a bank card or gotten information off the computer and emptied our bank account - the whole month's deposit! Now this was a bit harder to take, and I must admit I had to swallow twice before responding. "Dave, God just must want us to shine a little brighter." And God has given many opportunies to do just that as we praise Him in the midst of trials while talking to people at church, seminary and even counseling at the Center. There have been countless times to glorify the Lord.

God wasn't surprised by this so He must have a plan to provide! Financially we did a little rearranging and put some things on hold so we'll be OK. Then tonight we were surprised by an offering of $500 from our colleagues here in Lima. So please don't be concerned about us. We are fine and at peace and have all that we need. I just wanted to use this opportunity to praise the Lord.

Rejoicing in the privilege of bringing new life to Lima,

Evelyn and David Stone
Association of Baptists for World Evangelism
Lima, Peru