I have found that my most faithful and loyal co-workers have grown out of situations of turmoil, conflict, or great upheaval emotionally. Such situations are rare opportunities to show conviction under great heat and pressure. It is God’s sovereign way of using painful circumstances to draw out those with like convictions about Christ.
In San Luis Potosí in the early stages of beginning the new work, we began to have weekly Bible study with two sisters and their husbands, Rodrigo, a construction worker, and Adrian, a head waiter. Within two months they all had believed in Christ. Rodrigo began to visit family members with whom he had not spoken in years. His ten brothers and sisters, all immoral and conflictive, were impressed with the change in him.
Four months after becoming a Christian, he fell onto a piece of steel rebar sticking up out of the concrete. It entered the back of his head. The doctors at an antiquated government hospital ignored the family for twelve hours. Nothing was being done for Rodrigo. I was able to get a private doctor, a specialist, to come and look at him. He was brain dead — no hope.
Then came the attacks: “See, this happened because he was unfaithful to the Virgin, and he was studying with those gringos.” We had to deal with superstitious, irate, and drunk relatives for five days in that smelly and inefficient hospital. Death finally came and there were arguments over whether mass should be offered. At the wake, we were going to sing hymns. “Unheard of” was the complaint. I had to travel ten hours through the night to drop off my daughter and another girl to work with a medical caravan.
I returned for the funeral at a dusty uncared-for cemetery. Chaos is the only word to describe the whole situation. I stood on a mound of dirt, holding up Rodrigo’s Bible. He had written, “I believed in Christ March 7, 1990.” Over the wailing, I explained what that meant.
All week Adrian had been watching me as I, a stranger among them, attempted to stand for the truth that Rodrigo had embraced and his family worked to destroy. He saw me dealing with feuding relatives, incapable of loving each other. He saw me constantly fighting back tears for a man I had only known six months. In the midst of chaos, emotional trauma, and my own bumbling inexperience, he had a glimpse of the Christ-like fiber that can bring purpose and order in the midst of confusion.
Adrian, with deep emotion, expressed his sense of indebtedness. That week a co-worker was born. God had sovereignly provided the painful means by which to make us soul-mates.