[willowbrook] Update: Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more

[Doug Taylor]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

    Two months passed.  In January 1966, Luis decided he should
return to Quito for more television counseling and radio-program
taping…  While there, he was again visited by Maria.  Her face was
purple and bruised and several front teeth were missing.

    "Maria, what happened?" Luis asked.

    "Shortly after our last visit, I went to a meeting of all the
communist leaders of the country," Maria said.  "I told them, 'I am no
longer an atheist.  I believe in God and in Jesus Christ, and I have
become a Christian.  I am resigning from the party, and I don't want
to have anything more to do with it.  We are all a bunch of liars.  We
deceive people when we tell them there is no God.  Of course there is
a God!  Look at the garden outside.  Do you think the flowers created
themselves?  Are you going to tell me everything is the result of some
explosion in space billions of years ago?'"

    "How did they react to your announcement?" Luis asked.

    "It was as if I had let a bunch of hungry lions out of a cage,"
Maria replied.  "The leaders found among themselves, some trying to
shout me down and get at me, another insisting that I should be
allowed to speak.  A few days later, I was nearly run down by a Jeep
full of my former comrades.  The next day, several of my former
protégés—militant university students—attacked me and smashed my face
against a utility pole until I was unconscious."

    Maria continued.  "I was forced to hide out in the basements of
several churches and in the homes of missionaries, always on the run.
For me and the [radio station] HCJB missionary to be able to study the
Bible, we first had to drive around until we were sure no one was
following us."

    Luis listened in silence, amazed at the persecution she had
suffered as such a young believer.

    "There's going to be a revolution in June," she told him
matter-of-factly.  "The Party has had it all planned for months."

    She explained that students and agitators would cause a
disturbance in the streets, luring out the army, which would then be
attacked and, if possible, overthrown.  The military junta then would
be forced to leave the country, and the chairman of the Community
Party for Ecuador would come out of hiding in Colombia and take over
the country.

    When Maria left, she again went into hiding, remaining on the run
until June.  On the morning of the revolution, the Communist Party
leader came out of Colombia to talk to her.  In a few hours he was to
become the new ruler of the country, but first he wanted to talk to
his longtime friend.

    "Maria," he asked, "why did you become a Christian?"

    "Because I believe in God and in Jesus Christ, and my faith has
changed my life."

    "You know," he said, "while hiding out, I have been listening to
HCJB radio on shortwave, and those—they almost have me believing there
is a God!"

    "There is!" she said.  "Why don't you become a Christian and get
out of this business?  We never had any real convictions about atheism
and materialism.  And look at all the lives we've ruined and all the
terrible things we've been into.  Here, take this Bible and this book
[Peace with God, by Billy Graham].  You can go to my father's farm and
read them."

    Miraculously, he accepted her offer.  Later that morning, the
disturbance that was supposed to trigger a revolution fizzled into
chaos, and Ecuador was saved from anarchy, tyranny, and worse.

    Maria's story may be wild, but her conversion had an effect on
the history of an entire country.

=============

Taken from Luis Palau: Evangelist to the World (Heroes of the Faith series)

Copyright (c) 2000 by Ellen Bascuti


--
 Doug Taylor
 256.880.0704 (h)
 256.881.9933 x350 (w)
 mailto:dvtaylor at gmail.com

 Love God.
 Love others.
 Any questions?