Stories from the Field

February 2005

God's work requires patience

From ime.imb.org

In a city in Brazil, 98 percent of the 660,000 university students are lost. Southern Baptist missionaries decided to begin a ministry on the campus of a law school in Brazil.

“ We were overwhelmed by this statistic and did not know where to begin,” missionary John Marshall says. “We were told that it would never happen; it would be too hard.”

The team had no contacts and no place to meet, and the school did not allow religious groups of any type on campus. For one semester, Marshall went to the school each week to meet a friend and pray with him.
“ We prayed and we prayed and waited on the Lord,” he said. “At the end of that semester we still had nothing. Christmas break came and went. “

When the next semester began, three men expressed an interest in being discipled.

“ God has begun an amazing work at the school where people said nothing would happen,” Marshall says. “We trust Him to open the doors of all 218 campuses in our city and provide laborers for each one. Is anything too hard for God?”