A Powerful Story from Mexico

Less than 2 weeks ago, I received an email from Sergio, who lives in Amarillo, Texas. I've had the great pleasure of being a follow participant with this Chilean-born man of God on missions in 3 different countries through International Commission. I had previously asked Sergio to record and share with me the story of him ministering to a man shortly before his death while we were in Mexico last year. Here is Sergio's written account:

"But the daughter of the man would not allowed any faith to come to his house much less witness to him.
However, during his stay at the hospital his daughter who attends the church we were working with asked me and the other pastor to go see him at the hospital for a visit.She mentioned that he might not allow us to talk with him but we could try.
During the visit, the dad was ready to hear the gospel -I believe the Lord ordained the visit and prepared his and our hearts. As we told him about Jesus and shared the goodness of our Lord.He accepted Christ into his heart- we witness a supernatural change in his being. His face was glowing , he looked happy. I shared with him that I truly felt that the Angel of the Lord would soon be coming for Him.I repeated that to him and for him not to be afraid when they come for him. Just go with them I said.When you close your eyes for the last time, I said. You will opened them in the presence of God.No more tears or pain but everlasting joy. That evening, after I got thru preaching, the daughter come to me at 9:40 pm." I just received a call from the Hospital that dad passed way!"
She sadly stated. She went on how happy she was that after all these years her dad gave his life to God and now is in heaven.
I thought how great is His love for us. His grace and mercy that He wants none to perish. I will never forget His testimony. I still use this in my preaching to let people know that you never know when when your life will end and how much God loves them."

It was God's timing that this testimony from Sergio came to me again when it did, more than a year after I first heard it. For me it was like a cup of spiritual water for a thirsty soul.

Sergio concluded his email by saying , "...perhaps this holiday season you could share it with your family and friends as a True Christmas story and the reason for the season."

Spanish and Mandarin Most Logical Second Languages

During a kayaking trip last year, my friend Seth and I were discussing our individual efforts at learning Mandarin and Spanish respectively.

While I'm by no means done learning Spanish, I have in recent weeks considered studying a third language to the point of being capable of at least a basic level of communication. While I've seen Mandarin as the next logical choice for me, I've felt that I should search for information and opinions on the relative merits of various languages before selecting one and comitting myself to the overwhelming task of studying it...

After briefly reading a handful of wiki pages, articles, and other sites today, I'm still presently at the conclusion that Spanish and Mandarin make the most sense. I look first at the incredible time and effort that it takes to learn a second language. I would propose that in the time/effort it takes to become truly *fluent* in a language, you could get a Masters Degree in something very useful. Therefore, for me, the language I study needs to be worth it.

I found an article that I really like, in which the author explains why he believes Spanish or Mandarin should be the first choice for an American when picking an initial second language to learn. http://johnaugust.com/2009/spanish-or-mandarin

Here are the criteria that he used to decide which language(s) ought to be learned first:
1. Number of people who speak it worldwide
2. Usefulness in daily life
3. Usefulness in international business or travel
4. Availability of media in that language
5. Applicability to future language learning
6. Economic power of native speakers

The author explains how some of those points tend to favor Mandarin over Spanish, and vice versa.

At the end, he challenges people to respond and make a case why a language other than Spanish or Mandarin should be the first to learn. I enjoyed reading the feeback he received from people. Although some of the responses were less than helpful, others were thought-provoking. At this point, I'm of the opinion that Spanish and Mandarin are the two most worthwhile language pursuits for me personally. However, I'm still going to look into this a bit further.