Chocolate Is From The Lord

One of the many things we loved about our time living in Bolivia were these little chocolate rolls called Baton.  It was worth the effort to chop them up and make cookies, put over ice cream but my favorite way to eat them was frozen. Yep, when frozen they melt slower so the enjoyment last longer. 

Bolivia was the first country we served in with New Tribes, from August 1991 to June 1998 as dorm parents to high school boys.  Another set of dorm parents took care of the high school girls, two more sets of dorm parents for middle school children.  Most of their parents worked in remote places translating the bible into an unwritten languages, a few were Asian children whose parents wanted them to get an English education.  Most of the time we had five cultures living in our dorm...sure made for some interesting conversation. Those guys taught us a lot about trusting the Lord.   

Our pastor in Kentucky always had missionaries coming through so we were exposed to the needs from day one after we got saved.  Each one that came through made our hearts cry, we'll go with you, let us go, but like all things it's better to wait on God's timing.  We needed a little more chiseling and refining before we were ready to serve Him overseas.

 A fifty  some year old widow working in the Philippines in a tribe teaching literacy to the children came just in God's perfect time.  She shared her slides and after talking a few minutes about the needs we felt like she sit those people down in our church and God said, whose going to tell them????   It wasn't like we weren't already busy telling folks the gospel, I taught Sunday school, Ace had a bus route, we were faithful to witness every chance we got, sometimes to the same people and we were already supporting missionaries.  To know there were people tucked in remote place who had never heard the gospel one time again caused our hearts to say to God, we'll go.  

People have said to us, "you must love God very much to do what you did".   We tell them, no, He loves us very much and how could we not go give others a chance to know the love God.   My husband and I took II Corinthians 5:14 to heart...For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that, one died for all therefore all died, and He died for all , so that they who live might no longer  live unto themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.

You know it's not about the location we serve it, it's about what are we doing in the location we live in right now.   It's harder physically to serve in a third world country but we think it's harder to serve spiritually in good old USA with too many choices of chocolates to keep us confused. 

Back to the Baton.  They were hand delivered by a missionary father bringing his daughter back to the states from Bolivia to enter collage. 

We knew him and his wife when they were both single, was there for their wedding.  He had no idea my husband and I had been talking about those little rolls of chocolate and our time in Bolivia.      When he handed them to me, these words popped out of my mouth straight from my heart.  " Oh, God loves me so".   He loves me so much He wanted to bless me with a box of chocolate Baton's.  Actually the better blessing was the few hours we had with this dear family.  Phil is the government rep for New Tribes Mission in Bolivia.  His wife and other children had to stay in Bolivia just because it expensive to fly the whole family. It's one of the sacrifices missionaries make to give the gospel out to the unreached.  

One last note:  God loved on us through those rolls of chocolate carried by hearts that are not living unto themselves.  How has God loved on you lately?