While it has been over 30 years since it happened, I can still remember the events like they happened yesterday. I was blessed to coach an Athletes in Action volleyball team that was touring Bolivia and Peru for six weeks in the summer. The format was simple, we would travel to a town and play matches against local teams or give clinics, and then we would take the opportunity to share our personal testimonies about how God has touched our lives. We rotated through who would share at each stop.
Midway through the tour we came to the town of Oruro in Bolivia, a place of over 250,000 people at the time. As we went there the missionaries we were working with warned us that there was a lot of satanic worship and influence in the area and people who did not want us to be there. We played our match that night in front of a large crowd that was restless, against us, and loud. When the post match time came there was an oppression that hung in the air. That night the testimony time was Paula's. She was the smallest member of the team, standing a tad over 5 feet tall. If you spent time around her you knew that she was one of the sweetest most gentle people ever.
As she began to speak I just had this impending sense of dread and doom as this young lady faced that crowd. She started to speak and you could barely hear her over the noise, but it didn't deter her at all, she kept on talking about how God had shaped and changed her life, she was steadfast and relentless despite all that was going on around here. The suddenly there was a moment of quiet that just swept the room and she just kept going, and people started to listen. This soft spoken girl through the power of God's Spirit delivered a message that day that ended up changing the lives of a number of people who were there.
This week in Acts 2:14-47 we are going to look at the speech Peter gave in the midst of a crowd that started by mocking him and the other disciples and accusing them of being drunk. Peter got up and got their attention and started to speak, and despite the commotion around them he just kept going. By the end of the speech, the 12, plus the women, plus the 120 that began the day as followers of Jesus found their number increased by 3,000, and the church was born. Verse 42 tells us that after that they all CONTINUED STEADFASTLY in all that the apostles were saying, and in fellowship, and in prayer.
Midway through the tour we came to the town of Oruro in Bolivia, a place of over 250,000 people at the time. As we went there the missionaries we were working with warned us that there was a lot of satanic worship and influence in the area and people who did not want us to be there. We played our match that night in front of a large crowd that was restless, against us, and loud. When the post match time came there was an oppression that hung in the air. That night the testimony time was Paula's. She was the smallest member of the team, standing a tad over 5 feet tall. If you spent time around her you knew that she was one of the sweetest most gentle people ever.
As she began to speak I just had this impending sense of dread and doom as this young lady faced that crowd. She started to speak and you could barely hear her over the noise, but it didn't deter her at all, she kept on talking about how God had shaped and changed her life, she was steadfast and relentless despite all that was going on around here. The suddenly there was a moment of quiet that just swept the room and she just kept going, and people started to listen. This soft spoken girl through the power of God's Spirit delivered a message that day that ended up changing the lives of a number of people who were there.
This week in Acts 2:14-47 we are going to look at the speech Peter gave in the midst of a crowd that started by mocking him and the other disciples and accusing them of being drunk. Peter got up and got their attention and started to speak, and despite the commotion around them he just kept going. By the end of the speech, the 12, plus the women, plus the 120 that began the day as followers of Jesus found their number increased by 3,000, and the church was born. Verse 42 tells us that after that they all CONTINUED STEADFASTLY in all that the apostles were saying, and in fellowship, and in prayer.
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