From Chicken to Church

For years in Bolivia, we ate chewy, albeit flavorful chicken in the Guarani villages, grown and served with love by our sacrificial friends. Maybe this is why it seems ironic that my wife Carolyn would be willing to find customers for her soon-to-retire free range laying hens.

Our little hobby farm seems to be a magnet for recent immigrants that are looking for the flavors that they miss from their former countries, so she contacted a few of her Muslim and Latino egg customers. Meanwhile, Jean Paul and Diana were looking for a stewing hen and someone on the “Latinos in Winnipeg” Facebook site directed them to us as they knew we speak Spanish. It wasn’t long before they came to our house along with their two teenage sons. As we visited in our garage in Spanish, Jean Paul asked if we were Christians. They soon were sharing their faith journey from Catholicism in Peru to finding an Evangelical church in Vancouver before moving to Winnipeg.

The following week, we invited this Peruvian family along with three other couples from Ecuador, Paraguay, and Colombia to our house for a wiener roast (Canadian style). We met two of these couples at our annual “Open Farm Day” a few weeks before. The Colombians, Luis and Angelica, were connected with us by Avant missionaries when they moved to Winnipeg two years ago and have been attending our church ever since. What a fun evening of talking favorite foods, Spanish slang, soccer and even what our faith means to us. 

God seems to be really working in our small 60 member church as he keeps bringing new people to us.  Just last Sunday God led Daniel to our church, but he said his fiancé was hesitant to come because she doesn’t speak English, only Spanish!  She ended up coming in the evening and enjoyed visiting with other Spanish speakers.

Behind all of this is prayer and one of our most faithful prayer warriors in the church is an elderly missionary to Panama, who although almost deaf asks our visitors their names, writes them down and prays for them.

Each opportunity is one that God has given us to shine as a light for Him, right where He has us planted. It might through our farm, through our local church or walking in the grocery store that the Lord might bring someone to us that we can connect with to share the gospel. South America might be far from Canada, but the Lord is bringing the nations right to our doorstep, we must be faithful to love others as they are placed in our path.