By Sam Knutson
During this coronavirus lockdown, God has shifted our plans and I am beginning language learning from the States instead of in person. I was very nervous about my first lesson in Spanish because, even though I have been trying my best to learn on my own, I am still such a novice! At the end of my lesson, we could only shake our heads and laugh at God’s humor. My online language lesson went from shaky introductions to sharing the Gospel in my bumbling Spanish.
My tutor, Nico (a pseudonym) lives in Guayaquil, the city we will move to, where the pandemic has wreaked havoc. His mom had the virus, and even though his mother was deathly ill, the hospitals turned her away. She was too sick to eat, drink, or get up. It got to a point where Nico had to look up on YouTube on how to put an IV in her. He was surprised when I asked for his mom’s name so we could pray for her, and had to be assured that we were serious in wanting to pray. His heart was opened to hear about God’s love, and thankfully, Nico had enough patience to help provide the vocabulary for my stilted sentences!
I was so nervous about my first tutoring, and God used it for a chance to spread the word about His love. It looks like God isn’t going to let a global pandemic stop His ministry! God has since healed Nico’s mom and our tutoring sessions continue to be a mix of language learning and Bible exploration.