Compelled: Love in Times of Coronavirus

Hi -

Alejandra said yes to marrying me about a month ago in San Vicente del Caguán.

It was an awesome engagement in one of the most dangerous towns of Colombia, and I chose that location because I wanted to redeem the negative image of San Vicente as being a place of war, to becoming a place of love.

For some reason I've always been inspired to go to the ends of the earth with a mindset of love, and I felt like proposing to Alejandra in this southern region of Colombia was my quintessential way of doing that.

Things have changed quite a bit since then, and instead of fearing the left wing insurgent groups of San Vicente, the world is mostly terrified about an invisible virus that has ravaged some of the most developed nations on every continent.

Places that seemed indestructible have become so fragile, and places where no one previously wanted to go, may become the next safe-havens for those fleeing Coronavirus... Either that, or those remote places that have corrupt governments and poor economies may become the next places to get hit the hardest. In any case, Jesus's command of going into all the world to make disciples of every ethnic group still stands.

Venezuelan immigrant disciples of Jesus that I've been helping in Cúcuta

I hope that this devastating time will give us a little more empathy towards other countries as we start to understand what it's like to suffer in the midst of a situation that we can't control; and perhaps instead of hording what little we have, we can learn to share... Maybe God will bring others back to himself in the midst of all this fear; and hopefully people will start experiencing his love and peace and faithfulness even more in this darkest hour... Wouldn't it be cool if when all of this is over, we had a renewed passion to go into the whole world to share the gospel, and be a stronger, more organic and versatile church than ever?... I honestly feel like smaller churches with low overhead and shared leadership in remote parts of the world are currently the most viable (see example below of me sharing the gospel in a cashew plant in Puerto Carreño).

...A little bit after Alejandra's and my engagement, we traveled up to the States to visit some friends and family and churches, and it was so great to have her there with me as she got to be a part of my ministry in the US.

...On our flight back to Colombia we were thinking about inviting most of you reading this post to our upcoming wedding, but now we don't know if that will be possible.

The only thing we know right now is that we both love each other, and we love God, and one day Alejandra and I are going to get married... In the mean time, we want to keep serving the Lord in any way that we can.