Report on Postville, IA and Mexico

Would you please turn with me in the Bible to Acts, chapter 16. Acts, chapter 16, and we'll read a few verses about the conversion of the woman named Lydia from verse 13. It's an honor to be here with you in La Crosse for the conference.

Last Friday, Cal and Becky came down to the gospel meeting on Friday night in Postville. They brought Cecilia and Carlos along with them. And so, at that time, Cal invited me to come and give a report at the conference, so I appreciate the invitation.

Acts, chapter 16, and let's read from verse 13. It says, on the Sabbath, we went out of the city by a riverside where prayer was wont to be made, and we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things that were spoken of Paul.

And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there, and she constrained us. It's interesting to see what the Holy Spirit chooses for the records of the Bible, isn't it? How that in some occasions where thousands are saved, and it's mentioned that many came to the Lord. And then in this case here, where just a single woman, for some reason, she called the attention of Luke so much that he included her as part of the people that were saved.

Now what I want to do with this chapter here, with this passage, is first of all, give us a challenge for each one of us because we all have a Lydia that we need to reach. People get saved one at a time, not in big groups. They get saved one at a time.

And then also, I'd like to use it as an example of how evangelism is being done and the discipling in Postville, as you've heard already. First of all, God selected this story, something like you would see of Cornelius. A man that was praying to God.

This woman was a worshiper of God. She had obviously given her attention to the things of God, but she wasn't saved yet. She needed someone to help her explain the scriptures, someone to tell her about salvation.

And so, as this was her story, it probably was something like your story. I could point at any one of you today and say, how were you saved? How were you saved? Well, you'd say it was my mother that taught me the gospel, or somebody read a lot of the Bible to me, or my Sunday school teacher took a big interest in me. Whatever it was, you required a lot of attention, a lot of teaching, and you probably had to have some confusion wiped out of your mind so that you would understand the gospel, right? Well, if you're an evangelist, if your job is to reach your neighbors or your Sunday school children or whoever they are in your life, the Lydia's that come into your life, what are you going to have to do then to let them understand the gospel? Are you just going to mail them a tract? Are you going to put a bumper sticker on your car? Are you going to give them a website? Those are all good things.

But when it comes down to one person and one evangelist, you are going to have to devote your attention to this one person. And so, I guess that's what I want to use. First of all, before we get into anything about Postville, I just want to challenge you about your responsibility with your Lydia.

First of all, who is she? Do you have any Lydias in your life? You a Sunday school teacher here in La Crosse? You got any kids in your classroom whose parents don't have a clue about the Bible? There's your Lydia. Go find her. And so, when you show up at Lydia's door and you say, Hi, my name's Chad.

I come from the Gospel Hall. I'm one of your children's Sunday school teachers. I'm wondering, do you have a Bible in your house? Could I give you one? Or would you like a calendar? And then you find out, oh, they know something about God or they don't have a clue.

And then you invite them to a meeting. And of course, they say, someday, someday. Thank you.

That might not work. They might not come to your Gospel meeting. So what are you going to do next? You're going to come back with more cookies? Invite them again? You might do that a few times and they're going to say no and no and no.

Here's what you have to do. These people went out of the city. And they found a place where people were already gathering to pray.

And they taught the Word to them. Maybe you have to go to their house. Maybe you're going to have to say, Hey, well, how would you like to do a Bible study? You know, just six chapters out of Genesis.

Let's read one chapter a night. And for six weeks, let's study the Bible. Could you do that? Maybe they'll say yes.

And you might find that that's the first way that they're going to learn about God. They've never read Genesis 1, let alone 2 or 3. And so your job then would be to be the evangelist. Not to stand at the conference platform and preach the Word.

But to be at their living room table or their dining room table with a Bible open. And you say, this is what God says. Do you have any questions? What does it mean that Adam sinned? What does it mean for you? And you go from there.

So there's your challenge. Find your Lydia. Go visit her.

Read the Word with her. And then what's going to happen? Then do you take her through a prayer and save her? No. No.

What's the Bible say? It says the Lord opened her heart. And so sometimes your Lydia will say, thank you for your time. That was very interesting.

Now let's just stop. And I guess you would do that too. You just say, thank you, Lord, for giving me the opportunity.

Go look for another one. But when the Lord opens her heart, what happens? She becomes part of the Holy Scriptures. A woman who is saved.

And then what else happens? And then it says her whole family was baptized. Obviously, they received the Lord as well. And who knows what the effect was in the rest of her community.

So Lydia. Find your Lydia. Go invite her to your meeting or read the Bible with her.

But people get saved one at a time. You were saved as an individual. And so will they.

And so there's your challenge for today from the Scriptures for your Lydia. Now the reason why I use her is because the work that I'm going to tell you about in Postville is really just a long list of names. A lot of people that have come to the meetings and have been saved and others that have turned away from the word.

But each one of them has their own story. And they have a personal relationship with somebody that is bringing them to the hall. Usually the case that I'm going to tell you about, the man that usually is the first word on their lips is Mr. Walls.

Mr. Ron Walls from the Garneville Assembly. And so he's been there much longer working with them than I have. First of all, let me tell you about the town of Postville.

I come from the assembly in Marion, Iowa. Cynthia and I were commended about four years ago to the gospel work. And we went to Mexico.

But we've been living in Postville for a year and a few months now. And we've been preaching and teaching the word to the Hispanic people. There's mostly Guatemalans and Mexicans that we have in our audience.

And there's a lot more in the town. But that's our primary work now. Trying to preach the gospel so they're saved.

And those that are saved are getting ministry messages so that they can put their lives in order according to the Bible. And of course, we're looking for the Lord to plant the assembly as well. So first of all, Postville.

What kind of a town is Postville? Why would we go to there instead of Chicago or Phoenix or some other big city? It's because Postville is a unique place. There's been books written about it. It's a town of only 2,500 people.

But it's made the news. It's made authors material to write because of its diversity. There's so many kinds of people there that it's like no other small town in Iowa, really.

I'll just give you an example. I teach English classes two times a week. And in my class, there's been, of course, Mexicans and Guatemalans.

But there's been some from El Salvador. One from Honduras. A lady from Kazakhstan.

A woman from Ukraine. A couple of ladies from Somalia. And one from Djibouti.

And so they come from everywhere. Why are they coming to Postville? It's because in 1986, there was a Jewish family from New York that are from the most strict of the sects of the Pharisees, you might say, came and they bought a factory for producing meat. And at that time, it was closed, I believe.

And they refurbished it. And now they butcher kosher meat. And so Jews are a big portion of the town's population as well.

I guess I should have mentioned that. I had a woman that was a Jewish woman in my English class as well. And they opened the factory.

And they hired people from all parts of the earth to come. From the islands of the Pacific to Asia to South America. They all come to work in the meat factory.

And so that is the principal reason why Postville is a unique town for its diversity. Before 1986, it was your typical Iowa town with German and Norwegian immigrants that grew up there 100 years ago. So if you were to come to Postville and you wanted to go to a place of worship, you could come to the Gospel Hall.

That would be one of your options. You could go to the Catholic Church or the great big Lutheran Church or the Presbyterian. They're a little smaller.

Or you could go down to the synagogue. Or you could go downtown to the mosque. So there's lots of choices for finding God in Postville.

I hope that we have some information for the people that is a little more correct than some of the other choices. Well, how did we get to Postville? Why are we preaching there? And then I'm going to tell you a little bit about some of the gospel work that's been going on. Like I mentioned to you, Cynthia and I, the kids moved to Mexico about four years ago.

We were involved in our assemblies where we've lived before in the Chicago area and Ohio and here in Iowa. And in every place, you do the same. Reach people with the gospel.

Try to explain it to them. Teach children. But in the year 2001, we took a trip down to Phoenix to visit John and Michelle Denison, who were preaching the gospel to Hispanic people on the middle of the town in Phoenix.

And there was a seed sewers for Christmas time. And it was the first time we'd experienced that, giving out these Spanish gospel posters to everybody. And they had a little building that they had purchased.

And the place was filled. We were impressed to say, wow, look at all these interest in coming to meeting of people that just get the text in the mail. And some of them get saved.

Of course, not everybody, but some. And then the next year, we went down to the city of Chihuahua in Mexico. And then the next year, we went to Hermosillo in Sonora.

And after three years of that, we said to ourselves, Cynthia and I had the conversation to say, if we are really serious about being part of this and helping in the gospel work for these people, we're not going to do it two weeks out of the year or three months that you might have as free time. You're going to have to go into it full time. And so we asked our brethren in Marion if they would send us with a letter of commendation to Hermosillo, where John and Michelle were living.

And so we moved. And a short time later, we were able to start learning Spanish with a sister named Eleanor Mosquera. She's from Venezuela.

She's a very, very capable teacher. A few months later, we sat down for the first time with the believers in Hermosillo in the breaking of bread for the first time. Obviously, it was the work of John and Michelle and others that were preaching the gospel.

We were just as students at that time. But it was a real joyous occasion to see people that had been obviously gathered by God and they were breaking bread. Also, we've enjoyed other times in Mexico, in the city of Chihuahua, also for the first breaking of bread.

And we were also fortunate enough to see the breaking of bread just this last September. I was in the city called Ciudad Obregon, where Duncan and Bethany lived with Chad and Deb Kemper, preaching the gospel. Obviously, you've heard the news of Bethany.

Just last Monday, she was gathering with the other believers in their house for a prayer meeting. She hadn't been feeling very good for the past few days. And she put her glass down, whether it was a cup of coffee or something.

And she said, I feel like I'm going to faint. And she did. She just collapsed on the floor and it went into convulsions.

And they picked her up and she came to and she complained of horrible pains. And they took her, they rushed her to the hospital. And within 90 minutes, she had gone to be with the Lord.

The next day, Tuesday, would have been her 24th birthday. Duncan and Bethany were married last summer, so just four months ago. What a reminder of a time that we're given.

What if God gave you 24 years to live? What if you got planned for maybe year 25 and 26? I'll do something for God then. And you never get to it. Well, God had obviously decided that Bethany's work was done.

Not a day more. She's gone to be with the Lord. So she celebrated her first birthday in heaven on Tuesday.

Bethany, I guess I knew her for a year. It was only a short time in retrospect. But we met her when she came down to Mexico looking for the Lord's guidance.

She went to college and she studied for two years in medical technology. Worked for some time, saved some money. And then decided, I'm going to take some time before I get into a big career.

I'm just going to take a short time and go explore what's going on. And so she visited us in Hermosillo. And then she went down to Ciudad Obregón.

And she went over to Veracruz to visit John and Rebecca Nesbitt. And then she spent some time over in Pachuca. So she traveled around visiting some of the families.

And of course, the story is she married Duncan. And her whole career change was made at that point. I don't think she realized that I just have two years here before the Lord takes me to heaven.

And I'm going to do something that counts for him now. That wasn't in her plan. She just figured, I'm going to let the Lord lead me.

And he called her into the service of God for just a few months. And then she is home forever with the Lord. Are you 24? What is God calling you? What is your job? What would he have you to do? So just last month in the Ciudad Obregón, I was glad to be down there for their first Breaking of Bread meeting as well.

And so Bethany and Duncan were there. And Chad and Deb Kember and John and Michelle. And others that have been involved in the preaching of the gospel in the city.

And for the first time, they began Breaking Bread. Well, after being in Mexico for a few years, we looked to the Lord for further guidance. When we were commended to the work, we told our brethren, we said, we want to be flexible.

We see that there's a need from north to south for gospel meetings and communities where God's word is gladly being received. It's difficult to learn a foreign language. But it sure is worth the effort if people are willing to listen to you once you can communicate with them.

And so we went with the idea that we'll go there and we'll see where the Lord will take us next. And we weren't thinking Postville would be our destination. But that's where the Lord sent us.

After a few visits up to the assembly in Garnavillo and visiting the work in Postville, we realized that they're very committed. As a matter of fact, as you've heard from Mr. Slabos' prayer, that the work in Postville has been going on for years. The assembly in Garnavillo built a gospel hall, a beautiful, beautiful building about four years ago.

And in the last 10 years, they've had rented buildings and they've been having meetings in various places. They've purchased three school buses. They continually provide food.

Others provide clothing and furniture and all kinds of necessities for people. And so Garnavillo has had the vision of working this community intensively, not just two weeks of children's meetings a year, but intensively with the gospel. And I mentioned to you earlier that Mr. Walls, Mr. Ron Walls, is a key person involved in the work there.

When we first moved, I didn't know many of the people in town. But it was certainly a testimony to the man when you come to the door and you say, hello, I'm a friend of Mr. Walls. And the door swings open and they say, please come in.

We want to hear more about how things are. You're from the church. And so a person that is winning hearts is going to have the ability also to bring the gospel to their family.

So he's not the only one, obviously. Many people are involved in bringing the gospel to them. It's interesting to know also that Jason and Shelley Walls are a couple that are commended to the work of God in Mexico.

And they have moved recently to the city of Zacatecas, which is just a short distance from a little village called El Baril. It means the barrel. And in that little village, there's cousins and brothers and sisters of people from Postville.

I went down to visit there in the springtime with Jason. And as we drove through those dusty streets, there's an Iowa license plate here. There's an Iowa license plate over there.

There's another one. It's kind of creepy to think, I'm in the middle of nowhere and all these Iowa license plates. That's because the people that came from El Baril came to Postville.

And then they moved home. They bought a car and took it back with them. And of course, off in the countryside, there's really a lot of flexibility in how you license your car.

So a license plate from Iowa is probably just as good as one is from San Luis Potosi. So Jason and Shelley are living and working in the gospel in this little town of El Baril. I'll tell Jason, I said, well, we're fishing the same pond.

They go there for a while. Then they swim up to this end of the pond. And then they come back down there.

So you keep your hook in that water down there. And we'll keep our hook up here. And we'll see if we can catch a few souls.

Now, I mentioned earlier that really the gospel message is just a list. The results of the gospel message is really just a list of names. I mean, there's people.

Yeah, their faces. But when you want to know their names and you know their story, and you can see that one at a time, they come to know the Lord. So I would just like to spend the remainder few minutes that I have here to tell you about some of the people that we're praying for specifically right now in Postville.

And so these are good people for you to take to the Lord in prayer. A year from now, the list will be different. I hope there'll be new people to pray for or people that are still in challenging circumstances.

I'll start off with Francisco and Anna. Good friends of ours. Francisco and Anna were both saved in 2009, professed in the month of March.

And so when we arrived, we got to know them. Anna showed great spiritual interest. Francisco was not so good.

And the Lord certainly worked in his life in a horrible circumstance, in a problem with domestic problems. He was arrested. And he spent his time in jail with, well, frankly, listening to God.

He was reading books, reading the Bible. And the book, The Love Dare from the movie Fireproof, was one that seemed to speak to him more than anything. He had fallen down on his commitments to his wife.

And so reading that, he decided, if I have the opportunity, I'm going to be a different man. And so we're having Bible studies Mondays with Anna and Francisco. They're working on, obviously, inter-family relationships.

He says, I want to be something for God. I don't want to waste my life. It's really what he was telling me.

And so even though his parents are nonexistent, they didn't want him, her parents really didn't want her either. And so they have horrible role models to follow. They're trying to obey the Lord.

And Manuel and Danira, another couple, have just come into our lives this month. They came from Chicago. And they both profess to be saved.

And I'm just going to relate their story to you because it's a challenge for an assembly. Here it is. I asked Danira, how is it that you found out anything about salvation? She says, well, I grew up Catholic.

But that didn't mean anything because we never read the Bible and hardly ever went to church. She says, the first time that I read the Bible was when I was at a church. And she says, here's how I got to church.

We were so poor, she says, we didn't have a car. And so I found a shopping cart. And she was selling what they call elotes, which is basically soup made out of corn.

And she says, I was selling this big pot of soup along. And so I pulled up to this church parking lot and started selling it to the people. OK, brethren, what would you do? You got this scruffy looking woman with a shopping cart selling soup in your parking lot.

You say, shoo, shoo, get out of here. Don't scare our children. No, what they did is they said, well, why don't you come in? Why don't you join our service here? And you can hear what we have to say.

And she did. And that was her introduction to anything about the Bible. And so she says, her and her husband both were saved.

Well, selling soup isn't going to make you very wealthy. And so desperate times and horrible economic circumstances, a friend from Postville called him. And they said, why don't you come here? You might get a job on a farm.

And so he did. And so when they got to town, they had no money. They had nothing to eat.

So they gave him some mattresses, gave him some furniture, found him an apartment, and even found him a job on a farm. And so they're trying to get their feet underneath them. Now, here's another name, Mario and Alma.

I've been visiting Mario for basically a year on a regular basis. Alma professed to be saved three years ago. She was in a series of meetings with Tom Baker, the preaching in the gospel hall.

And the last night she accepted the Lord, she said. She says, I realized he died for my guilt. And so she's extremely happy and secure that she's saved.

Mario, however, just recently has come to, I believe, understand that the death of Christ is enough. He doesn't have to do anything more. He has to rest in this.

And so on Fridays is a regular Bible study on Friday morning with Mario and Alma. Another family, Juan and Elida. They've been in Postville for some years.

On Monday mornings is the Bible study time with them. He was also saved in 2009. And she hasn't been as open, although she attends the meetings.

But I seem to realize just recently, she's not opposed to what we're teaching. She just doesn't have a clue about what we're saying. And so they barely know how to read.

So the Bible study is almost like a lesson in how to read the Bible. And so she is on my prayer list because she's not rejecting us because she doesn't like what we say. She just doesn't accept what we say because she doesn't understand it yet.

And so she's a long-term visit, you might say. So Juan and Elida, they're on Mondays. Wednesday afternoons, we have a middle school meeting in the house.

When we purchased a house in Postville, there was a big house, a large living room right next to the school. So even though it's 100 years old, it's a very good location. And so every Wednesday after school, about 15 of the middle school people walk across of Sunday school.

They won't come to Sunday school, that's for little kids. But they will come to a youth Bible group. And so we've got their evangelism outreach into the middle school area.

Well, then how about the high school kids? They're too busy. They can't come. They're playing football.

They're playing volleyball. So on Friday at noon, at lunchtime, all you have to do is have a big stack of pizzas. That competes pretty well with the cafeteria food.

And so for just a half an hour, we have the high school group. And we have about a dozen high school students that come every Friday. And we study a Bible verse or just a short thing, but enough for them to get some gospel as well.

Another girl, 19-year-old girl, Rosie. She also, she just is at the point of graduating. And she comes to our house.

She used to come last year just for lunch hours. And now she's got a little more time. She only goes in the mornings.

It was a learning experience for me. So if I'm telling you to have Bible studies with people, have Bible studies with people, what do you study? Well, the first time she came, well, let's get out the two roads chart. Let's look at that.

And now let's look at the verses about what it means to be saved and lost. And after you get through with a few gospel verses and she keeps studying, what do you do next? Well, you just start reading this Bible. We'll start in Genesis.

And so I thought, we'll see how this goes. We'll read through Genesis. And we went through Exodus.

And I said, well, let's go through some New Testament. So we went through a couple of gospels. And you find out that all of a sudden the book is open.

And she just starts to read and absorb. Many questions that are, well, basic knowledge for you and me, because you've read the Bible, are answered when she reads. And so Rosie comes frequently as well.

She studies with Cynthia more than I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then Edgar. One day I was fixing a computer for Edgar.

He just called me in while I was visiting in his apartment building. He says, can you fix my computer? It's got a virus. And so as I was working away on it, talking to him about, how come you never come to meeting? Your sister comes.

Your mom goes once in a while. I've never seen you at meeting. Oh, he says, I'm embarrassed to go.

Why? Well, he says, it would be pretty hypocritical for me to do what I do on Friday night after going to church, wouldn't it? So he's got this conflict in his mind. I have to go and confess my sin to God. And then I can do whatever I want afterwards.

And it's really difficult. And I said, well, if you're embarrassed to come, how about if I come to you? And so for the past month or so, Edgar and I have been studying the scriptures in the same way. We'll start in Genesis.

And we'll read through the Bible on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And so I could continue with more names. There are people like a woman named Jessica.

Interesting story. I don't know if you're supposed to say this or not, but believe it or not, she seemed to have been saved while studying with the Jehovah Witness people. I didn't think you could do that.

But she said the reason why it was so illuminating to her is once again, the first time in her life that she ever opened the scriptures was with a Bible study. They start with, what's the word of God? What is creation? And of course, then they tell you, you got to work really hard. And then God might accept you.

But she said one day while I was watching the movie, The Passion of the Christ. You remember that one with the subtitles and a foreign language? And then she says, as I watched that, she said, I realized all that pain was for all my sin. And so that's the day she said she understood that Jesus died for her.

And so Jessica, Rosie, Alma, the list goes on and many, many people. So even though we might have good attendance, for instance, last Friday night, we had over 65 in our hall. And on some Sunday nights, we have maybe 40 or 50 on the Spanish side and another 40 over on the English side.

And Mr. Walls preaches over there. Even though there's a lot of people, every one of them is an individual. They need to be saved one at a time.

And so you might fill up the week with Bible studies one at a time. It makes a full-time work. You say, oh, that's nice for you.

You don't have a job. You got the whole day to go out and visit people like that. Well, how about you? You don't have to do eight Bible studies a week to be effective.

How about just pick one? So go find your Lydia, the woman that's the mother of the two little kids that are in your Sunday school class. Maybe Thursday nights. Maybe Saturday afternoon.

Whatever it is, take the challenge that you're going to be the bridge for that person to bring her to Christ. And so there's some of the details of the work in Postville. We appreciate your prayers.

And of course, the support. Many people that are helping in many, many different ways. But as the scriptures we just read, the Lord opened her heart.

The Lord is doing the work.