Not the Same Sky

On Fridays, Marcos and the other two Mexican male missionaries here go to a rancho called La Rosa (The Rose). It is a small town located about 20 minutes from our house. A relationship has been flourishing there with the community and the missionaries for several years now. 

When we were there once, we met an older gentleman named Antonio, who is the caretaker of the chapel and a very devout man. He and his family have known our missionaries since the first missionaries of FMC. Mr. Frank (our late co-founder) had discipled him. I was blessed when Señor Antonio shared with us his conversion story. It wasn’t a radical conversion or a 360 life change, it was just an amazing reminder that God is ever at work. 

By his own admittance, he wasn’t one that grew up going to church. He would actually only go for big feasts, if at all. He seldomly prayed. He was still a responsible father and husband, but never saw any merit to prayer. He shared that at the time, “I had no need of it.”

One day, a Jehovah’s Witness came to him and shared with him about Hell. He left him with a booklet about it. Later while Antonio was working on his land, he had nothing else to do, so he picked up and read the booklet. After reading it, he left it aside and disregarded it as mere lunacy. However, the image kept gnawing at him, and he began to be afraid of it.

In a moment of disquiet, he asked God to show him if He was real and what the true faith was. As he looked down at the ground, he saw a random booklet titled “How to Pray the Rosary.”  Since then, he was convinced that he needed to discover much more about our faith. 

I was most impacted when he shared, “I can’t even describe to you what happened, but when I made that decision, I looked up at the sky, and it wasn’t the same sky. Everything was much more vibrant: the blue of the sky, the green and brown of the earth, everything seemed much more alive.”

It is moments like these that also help give life to our mission here: hearing the stories of others’ encounters with God. Yes, we have difficult moments, but even in those moments, God has let us know that He is taking care of us and providing for us. He sends us these moments to help rekindle in us the light and life of faith, which sustains us more and more.