It's gonna be worth it

Man. I'm finally here, doing what I've been wanting to do for almost a year! So much craziness, as my friend Mauricio would say. Where do I begin.. Such a long flight, such a long day, and such a long night it was on Friday. I think I went to bed at 5:00 AM that night, and got up at 7:00, two hours later. I'm still trying to recuperate from that night. But, God is still good and is still on his throne.
     Today was one of the coolest days of my life. We went to a wedding in a city called Apatug and witnessed God's beautiful hand on this couple's life. This couple got officially married three years ago, and just now had their ceremony in the church. The couple was married as unbelievers to begin with, but the husband came to know the Lord one year later, and the wife came to know the Lord this past January. They decided that they wanted to have their ceremony in the church in order to give all glory to the Lord. The wedding lasted almost three hours, not including the night long reception at the grooms house and then the brides home. It is SO different from American weddings, like.. SO different. There is so much information I couldn't possibly write it all down, but it was so incredible.
     But, the wedding wasn't the coolest part of my day. Brother Steve, the missionary I am interning with, talked about the story of the town of Apatug. A group of 11 people heard about a folklore concert in town and decided to go hear it. What they didn't know was it was a Christian folklore concert. (Background: Ecuador is very Catholic, and during the 1970's-80's there was heavy persecution upon Christians). These 11 because born again believers and began meeting in one of their houses for bible study. Long story short, the Catholic Church found out about these secret meetings, and stormed their house. The church even waited 2 days for them to come out, and eventually tore the house to the ground, literally. They took these 11 and beat them with sugar canes, making them bleed profusely, and then used bullnettle (a type of plant that releases sap that burns open wounds extremely) and put it all over their body. Then they stripped them naked (the worst offense you could ever do upon someone in this community), put ice cold water on them, and tied them up on a mountain (14,000 feet above sea level). Eventually, they untied themselves and went back to the house of rubble and STILL studied the word of the Lord. Please go back and read that sentence again, because I am still trying to wrap my mind around it. The person that told the missionary this story, was an agent of the Catholic Church that beat these people, but also was a father to one of the 11. He beat his daughter, stripped her naked, and embaressed her in front of the entire community. But out of persecution, this church in Apatug was born, and now is at 250 people, in a very tiny church. I mean totally packed out.
         I started thinking about this, and I thought If I was beaten with sugar cane, If I was smothered with bullneetle, if I was stripped naked, If I was bathed in ice water, what would be my response? Give up? Would I go back and still follow the Lord? I hope the answer is yes, but these questions really make you think. I think in America, we don't understand persecution. I don't think we've begun to scratch the surface. It makes me think that people leave church because no one says hello to them, someone took their seat, they don't sing the solos, it's too much money, and all these petty reasons. MAN. How many true Christians are there in the world that would say," Lord I'm willing to give everything, my family, my friends, my job, my status, to follow you and endure persecution if I have to. I'm still trying to grasp this. I can only imagine the courage, strength, humbelness, fear these 11 had to still follow the Lord. Maybe they thought of the title of the wonderful song, "It's gonna be worth it." This song rips me apart when I hear it. Everything we endure here on this earth, deserving or not, is all going to be worth it when we see our Lord Jesus Christ, the redeemer and lover of our soul.
          I hope you all pray through this concept with me as I begin to chew on this concept throughout this journey. Pray for us as we have a group from Kentucky, and we start VBS tommorrow. And then I see Gardendale on Thursday! I can't wait to see their group and work with them! Thank you for reading along and praying for me!

Morgan Ramsey
Isaiah 6:8