Greetings, beloved brethren. I have returned home from a fruitful missionary journey in Colombia. The Trents are also back in the States for a short time as the secondary season for Israeli backpackers in Colombia is pretty much finished and the primary season won’t start up again until late summer.

Over the 3 weeks that we were together, we drove a 750-mile circuit over crazy roads and visited such backpacker hotspots as Medillin and Gautape.  We also spent some good time on the streets of Bogota. And, we believe we accomplished our goal of finding a future base for Israeli backpacker outreach in Colombia, another station on the Hummus Trail in which we hope to mirror the fruit we have seen down in Huaraz, Peru. SALENTO, which sits a little higher than the summit of Mt. Mitchell in the North Carolina, is that place. We hope to see the Trents stationed there in time for the late-summer wave that comes up from Peru. God’s will be done.

When Paul wrote his second epistle to Timothy not long before his death (ca. AD 67), Onesiphorus was most likely already dead himself. For, the apostle tells Timothy at the end of the letter that only Luke is with him and that he is sending Tychicus to Ephesus to take Timothy’s place. To Timothy he writes, “Do thy diligence to come before winter” (4:21). Moreover, Paul only petitions God’s blessing and offers salutation to Onesiphorus’ household (1:16; 4:19). Notwithstanding, and unlike the attitude of many missionaries with regard to their brothers and sisters who are out of sight & out of mind, Onesiphorus, though literally out of sight, was not out of Paul’s mind. He didn’t forget or take for granted the means whereby his friend helped hold the ropes of his Great Commission labor. He remembered how Onesiphorus’ fellowship had OFT REFRESHED him, how his loyalty as others turned away had strengthened him, how his friend had literally sought him out, and even how long before he had ministered to Paul’s financial needs. Onesiphorus wasn’t a renowned missionary, but he faithfully held the ropes for one, and may have even paid for it with his life. Paul never forgot this, and neither did the LORD. Alongside the testimony of the greatest New Testament missionary in the history of the Church is inscribed for all to see the testimony of those who held the ropes, those who oft refreshed the ones who went forth.  The Apostle John touches upon this in his third epistle when he commends Gaius for doing the same thing: 

Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers; which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowshelpers to the truth” (III John 5-8).

It is a good thing to hold the ropes for traveling missionaries, the ones we know personally and faithful strangers that we don’t know. Gaius opened his home to these, Onesiphorus left his home for these. Many in my seventeen years of missions ministry have for me and my family. To some, we were old friends. To others, we were strangers. And like Paul, I was and am OFT REFRESHED. Thank you in Jesus’ name.

Friend, if you sense yourself to be insignificant or useless in the Body of Christ, remember that something as seemingly insignificant as giving a little to a faithful missionary or opening up your home to a traveling preacher or even praying for a brother or sister in Christ amidst tribulation that you have never met personally . . . these things are a big deal to God. And for such seemingly insignificant acts of ministry, there are names that have a permanent place in the canon of Holy Scripture. Praise God for those like Onesiphorus in the churches. May the Lord grant unto them thay they may find mercy of the Lord in that day (II Timothy 1:18)!

Thank you to all who help the ropes for us in prayer as we traveled to Colombia. Thank you to those who have given financially to this work even this year so that this journey was possible. God even gave the Trent and myself an Onesiphorus down in Bogotá who oft refreshed us in the work. After the example of Paul, I am going to give shout-out to brother Victor Gutierrez. Thank you for everything my friend! That fellowship we enjoyed over dinner and coffee that night was truly special and refreshing.

Here are a few highlights from my time in Colombia with the Trents:

One particular Tuesday involved a post-midnight arrival in Medellin following a ridiculous drive in the rain with road construction, lane closures, big truck traffic jams, and a high mountain pass in the dark. They say here if you can drive yourself over the Alto de la Línea from Bogota, you can drive anywhere in the world. I did that the day before, but the Alto de las Minas south of Medellin is no better. These were two of the craziest routes I have ever driven in my life, and I have had to drive in a lot of places in the hundreds of thousands of miles, including Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, all over Israel, Argentina, Chile, Nepal’s mountain roads and Kathmandu traffic, Ladakh high passes, the renowned Zoji La in Kashmir, and a winter drive home from Alaska. This was different than all of those, for the rearview mirror was a constant reminder that I was carrying precious cargo, a six-month old baby. Hallelujah, we made it without a scratch, and also later over the equally ridiculous Alto de Vino pass back into Bogota, this crossing also in terrible weather. 

Before making that drive to Medellin, however, we were in Salento, having discovered it to be the perfect Huaraz-esque base for reaching Israeli backpackers in Colombia. There, we had two divine appointments, one with a Jewish lady and one with a French-speaking Canadian from Montreal:

Deborah was born in Colombia, and her daughter lives in Tel Aviv. She spent many years living in Israel herself but now runs a restaurant in Salento with a large Israeli flag hanging outside. We told her we were followers of the God of Abraham and of Yeshua the Messiah, therefore friends of Israel and the Jewish people who gave to the world the Word of God. She replied, “Ah Yeshua!” Deborah gladly received a New Testament in Hebrew as I explained to her that these were the testimonies of Jewish eyewitnesses of the life of Yeshua. It was a trilingual moment as I was thinking in English and speaking in both Spanish and Hebrew. Her whole restaurant staff stopped to listen as I spoke about the Scriptures. Watering this seed will be one of the first priorities when the Trents hopefully move to Salento sometime in July.

A couple hours later, we were hiking in the extremely green and gorgeous Cocora Valley with all its coffee farms and came upon a barbed-wire fence that we had to crawl under. Suddenly, a man was standing there behind us and needed our help getting under the barbs himself. Of course, we began to converse, the standard niceties and small talk. Dominic is from Montreal. He wife had left him 6 months before, and so now he was tramping around Colombia enroute to meet a new girlfriend in Bogota the next day before heading back home. The guy was obviously depressed and started spilling out his problems and life story. It was sad but opened the door to declare the Gospel and to offer him a Bible, the very thing that contains the solutions to all of his problems. We gave him a nice little leatherback English Testament, and tears came to his eyes when he learned that it was actually a free gift from us to him, no strings attached. Eric has continued to communicate with Dominic ever since via Whatsapp and to water the seeds planted. Dominic is now back in Quebec. Please pray for him, for the guy who seemingly materialized out of thin air at a random barbed-wire fence was no accident.

In missions, when you aim the Gospel at Gentiles, you will reach Gentiles. When you aim the Gospel for the Jew, you will inevitably reach both Jews and Gentiles. Dominic is one of many Gentiles the LORD put into our path in Colombia as we went fishing for lost sheep from the House of Israel. There also a few contacts with Jewish folks—the aforementioned Deborah, two older couples in La Candelaria that we later saw again several hundred miles north, a restaurant owner in Bogota who is married to a Jewish man and had converted to Rabbinic Judaism, and an Israeli backpacker that Eric and Mindy had originally met two years earlier and several thousand miles south. To these, the Word of God went out in one way or another. And that backpacker, now that is quite a story. And, it culminated at this giant stone monolith that we never even planned to visit.

Say you met an Israeli climber two years ago in a remote corner of Argentina and shared the Gospel with him. You gave him a New Testament and then bade him farewell hoping the Lord would use it in his life. Fast forward 24 months and you are a bit discouraged on a long road trip in the middle of Colombia. After a lack of good evangelistic opportunity, you decide to do some climbing at an out-of-the-way rock monolith that you originally had no plans to visit. While setting up a route, a climber unexpectedly walks up and calls your name. It’s the Israeli climber you met in Argentina two years ago. He still hadn’t finished his trip. That would be a pretty cool story, huh? . . . Well, it’s not a story. It happened. And what resulted was an entire day of climbing together and reiterating the same Gospel that had been spoken to him many months before. Please pray for Nir. Eric and Mindy originally encountered him in Bariloche, Argentina in January of 2018. And I had the privilege of being there with Eric for this second miraculous encounter. All the so-called discouraging moments prior along this road trip only served to put us in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. Such is the way of things in service to the Lord. Nir had put the New Testament he had received in Argentina on a book-exchange shelf at an Israeli hostel somewhere along his journey (not necessarily a bad thing). We made sure to put another one into his hands while warning him about discarding the Word of the One who was seeking him. This leather-backed Hebrew Testament was definitely more backpacker friendly, and Eric clearly laid out the Gospel for him and his Brazilian girlfriend during the hours we spent together on the rock. Two Colombian climbers also joined us, and it was a privilege to share our gear with all of these. One was a 14-year-old local and the other a really cool cat named Luis. Both heard the Gospel, and our Jewish friend observed us proclaiming the same Gospel of the Jewish Messiah to both Jew & Gentile—a powerful testimony. Luis, who spoke great English, became teary when I offered him a leather English New Testament to help continue his study of the English language. He couldn’t believe I would give him a Bible for free.

We had some good times on the streets of Bogota as well. There was an amazing park not far from the Trent’s apartment that boasted lots of nice outdoor workout equipment, every type of fitness machine you could imagine as well as some great open padded surfaces that were great for practicing martial arts. Ironically, this same park used to be a literal illegal drug marketplace where overdosing, stabbings, and child prostitution were more than common. The government cleaned that place out and made it into one of the nicest fitness parks I have ever seen. Eric and I would go down there and openly practice martial arts knowing it would garnish attention. Every single time, it led to Gospel proclamation, with youth, older folks, and even local policemen. For us, martial arts is a TOOL, a great tool for sharing the Gospel. What tools do you have? You’d be surprised who they might be used for the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ. I wrote about this back in 2015, and you might find this post motivating: TOOLS.

There was another small plaza closer to Eric’ and Mindy’s apartment where we also went to do some open-air training. One afternoon, a young man from Ushuaia, Argentina (the world’s southernmost city where I did some street evangelism once) was intrigued. He watched a bit and then engaged us about dangers on the streets of Bogota. This inevitably led to the Bible, Jesus Christ of the Bible, and the Gospel. He took some Spanish Scriptures and a Gospel tract. Please pray for Manuel from the world’s southernmost city. He claimed to be Catholic was very open to the Truth.

Another afternoon, we ambled around the La Candelaria neighborhood. This is probably the best place in town to find Israeli backpackers, and there are some decent coffee shops down there and the large Plaza Simon Bolívar. While coming down a side street, I thought I heard Hebrew quietly spoken, and sure enough, the two older couples who had just passed were Israeli. One couple lives in Tel Aviv and the other in Los Angeles. I got their attention by saying in Hebrew: “Excuse me. Do you speak Hebrew? My friends and I are not Jewish, but we are friends of Israel and the Jewish people.” The door flung wide open. Eric shared with them some Hebrew Gospel tracts that I wrote and invited them to the apartment one night for dinner if they had time. The name of Yeshua was declared, and interestingly, as this was occurring, a crazy Colombian lady came over and started screaming at us for no reason whatsoever. It’s just like the devil to try to steal seeds of the Gospel. I said to her, “¡Largo de aqui!” . . . a very colorful way of communicating “Get out of here.” She freaked out even more and replied, “You get out of here, this is MY country.” I then responded in Spanish, “Well, this is MY street corner for the moment, and I’m am not afraid of you. You better repent of your wickedness, for God’s judgment is coming.” The crazy witch then got a little too close to Mindy who was holding the baby, and Eric intervened quite nicely. At that point, she slithered away yelling and screaming. As this went down, I am thinking those Jewish folks would be turned off and the encounter would prove a failure. Instead, one of the ladies remarked as soon as it was over: “Wow, I see why your baby is so calm, it’s because you all are so calm.” Her husband was actually standing there reading the Gospel tract and then said, “You know, this is very interesting. I will read it.” I do think they appreciated us protecting them in that chaos and diffusing the scene with fearless resolve. It was 100% Satan trying to scare them off from hearing the name of the Jewish Messiah. For He has always hated both Israel and the Church. But all is well that ends well, and that particular encounter surely did end well as did the Trents’ 3 months and my 3 weeks in Colombia.

And you know how it ended . . . We had remaining in our stash a large stack of the Spanish card-sized Gospel tracts that Marv Plementosh of One Million Tracts (a good brother) had printed for us ahead of the Trents originally arriving in Bogota. There was no reason to hold on to these, so we determined to get them out . . . whatever it took to do so. We walked miles of side streets and traversed many neighborhoods, some of them a little sketchy. But, all those tracts go out on the streets of Bogota. Then, we wrapped things up and headed home.

As many of you out there have OFT REFRESHED US in this work, may these testimonies OFT REFRESH you in your service to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And to all of those Onesiphorus’s out there who have sought us out, who have prayed for us, who have never been ashamed of our boldness, who have housed us, who have given of themselves and of their pocketbooks to our labors, and who have ministered to our every need . . . THANK YOU. The LORD is not unrighteous to forget your work and your labour of love that you have showed toward His name (Hebrews 6:10).

And speaking of being refreshed, I can't help but recall a moment along this missionary journey after I had been driving all day. It was late afternoon, and I still had to cross the Alto Vino pass to get back into Bogota. Truck traffic was picking up on a foggy and winding mountain road. I needed a coffee real bad, but the likelihood of finding that option on a rural highway in Colombia was next to nothing. I asked the LORD while battling road rage for something as trivial a coffee shop where we could just stop for a few moments and recharge. I passed a big truck on a dangerous curve only to run up on the rear end of another half a mile down the road. Around another sharp curve, a small flashing LED sign that read "CAFE" caught my eye. In Colombia cafe means coffee. I spontaneously swerved into the little gravel parking lot. Lo and behold, it was a coffee farm with a little roadside coffee bar. With outdoor seating overlooking the mountains, I enjoyed the best macchiato of my entire life for less than $1. And, it was with with real unsweetened cream, not some fake watery milk. The fresh-baked orange (fruit not color) bread was also amazing. And to top it all off, the owner and her daughters were believers who confessed Jesus Christ of the Bible as the only way to salvation. I don't think these sisters will ever know in this lifetime how much their little coffee shop OFT REFRESHED us on that long road. That night and on the fuel of that macchiato, we got back to Bogota safely in terrible traffic and a torrential downpour. And just this morning, I enjoyed a fresh cup from the beans I bought at that little coffee farm. Along 750 miles of driving a large circuit in Colombia, that was the only roadside coffee shop I ever saw.

Eric and I will be back on the road in a few weeks. Stay tuned for more details. It’s also time to start building our 2020 Team Yeshua. Lord willing, this year’s volunteers will be laboring in both Huaraz, Peru and Salento, Colombia. We are looking for 5-7 young people, at least 16 years of age, who are willing to give up a summer in service to the LORD, taking the Gospel to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. If you know someone who might be interested, please put them in contact with us ASAP (seeds@fpgm.org OR 828-292-0045).
 

To the King,

Jesse Boyd & the FPGM Team