She´s Like Us

Something reallyexciting happened recently in my churchplant site, Lamay. Now to many, this wouldn´t seem like a big deal. But it certainly was to me.

We have been doing discipleship class withEufemia and Felipa on Tuesday mornings, by far my most consistent class. And last week,Felipa´s husband Inocencio was there (for the first time since our first lesson). He attended, seemed really interested, and evenparticipated.

Later that afternoon, we were headed to catch the bus back to Cusco, and we walked past Eufemia´s house where they were all three drinking chicha with another woman. They waved us down to come chat for a minute.

Inocencio introduced us to the other woman who was there, and said, ¨She´s like...like us.¨

I  said, ¨Oh, really?¨ but I wanted to be sure that I understood his meaning, so I asked, ¨Does she attend a church?¨ He told me that she attends the evangelical church in Calca.

Now that is technically the endof the story. So what could possibly make this story extraordinary?

He said, ¨She´s like us.¨ He meant, ¨She´s a Christian, too.¨ Which means that they consider themselves Christians!

Now these are the people who told us from the get-go, ¨We are Catholic and you will not be changing our religion.¨ I told them that I didn´t want to change their religion. And I meant it. All I care about is that they really know Jesus Christ. But now they consider themselves Christians!

And that is exciting. That is reason to celebrate. Because God is changing their hearts. And it´s a beautiful thing.