It is a little known fact that papaya is the leading cause for heart attacks in north America, this was discovered by a doctor of a small town in Alberta called Red dear.
*knock knock knock* a woman in her mid 40's answers the door takes one look at me and snarls "Were not interested!" "Woe woe woe!" I quickly respond before she can fully shut the door on me "You don't even know what I'm here for and your going to shut the door on me?" she glares at me, so I take this as an invitation, "Hi! I'm Wezley, I'm with Youth in Action, Your husband requested a free Final Events DVD (I hand it to her) and I wa..." I'll give it to him" she says curtly as she dismisses me with the closing of her door.
*Sigh* I've been bible working full time since I think around 2007, and before that I have been going door to door since '03 which is when I attended my first Youth For Jesus program (briefly after I became an Adventist). Yet the feeling of "Why even bother" seems to never go away when the large majority of houses that you go to are in no way interested in the bible. "Isn't there something more productive that I could be spending my time on?" I at times ask myself on days like today. I'm all but naturally "out going" and always feel terribly out of place and awkward going door to door knowing that everyone is just dreading for me to get to their house, and even not so infrequently seeing them go inside just before I get to their door and pretend like they are not home. Or the agony of just before I get out of my car to go and visit someone who I have never met before and in all reality who I will be disrupting their busy schedule. Walking up those steps... knocking on the door...and starting all over again. "What are you doing Wezley?" goes through my mind as I walk back down those stairs and get into my vehicle to go to the next person on my list.
Then I kick myself, and I do a psychological body slam to my pity party and I remind myself of all the fantastic people who I have met bible working, doing all this stuff that I despise doing.
Jack, I met him knocking on a random door one day nearing the end of the day in Louisville, KY. He answered his door, looked at me rather suspiciously and I went right into my survey. Months later this ex-prison inmate. Hard core tattooed, manly man was on his knees with me bawling as we studied salvation and he was praying asking God to forgive him.
Norm and Adella, a 10 and 12 year old. I to met them door to door. Their mom was raised an Adventist but since has fallen away. I met them a few weeks ago and they came to church with me for the first time this last Sabbath and fell in love with it. They will be bringing their mom back next Saturday for church!
Jeff, An alcoholic and his wife whom I met doing visitations. He came to me in a drunken stupor asking me for money, I said no and I sat with him that day for hours talking to him and his wife. We studied many times in just a month or two, and they stopped smoking and drinking because of what they learned in the bible.
I could go on and on about the people that I have met door to door, young and old, tall and short, from a black women in the projects to a Muslim family in a mansion. As I think of how much I don't like doing some of the things that it takes for me to meet these people i remind myself that if I don't go out to find these people when who will? Yes, I will meet so many people who are not interested in the least to learn about God, but yes, I trust that God will once again show me those few precious people who He would have me reach. I then remember that I have the best job in the world, its not bible working, but I'm a servant of God. If you haven't done something for God that takes you out of your comfort zone, whats stopping you from reaching those whom God would have you reach?
"This generation is the only generation that can reach this generation"
This is what kept going through my head one day as I was sitting with a group of Canadians talking, trying to understand what the meaning of their odd grunts of "eh" was. "This is to much for me to change" I again thought while driving down the road needing to go in the other direction, yet... not being able to do a legal "U" turn here in Canada. And then, the point that comes in everyone's life, the point that separates the boys from the men. i kept quoting and re-quoting 1 Cor 13:11 "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." It all started like this.
I was going shopping for the first time with my friend Diana (the other bible worker) and we were heading inside of the store, so I turned to her and our conversation went something like this
Me: "should I run a pick up a shopping cart?"
Her: "no, we don't have any change for it"
Me: "huh?"
Her: "You have to rent the carts here"
Me: "WHAT???"
Her: "yeah, it motivates people to not steal them"
Me: "WHAT????"
Her: "......."
Me: "that's absolutely barbaric! I thought that Canada was a free country, one of the wealthiest in the world... yet they can't manage to splurge on free use of shopping carts?"
Her: "........"
Me: "your telling me you don't have an issue with this?!"
Her: "umm... no"
So I sigh for this poor girl who has been living in this primitive state for most of her life, and hope that one day it will change for the poor peoplevof Canada, thinking "one day, ah yes, one day my Canadian brothers and sisters" If that would have been the end of the story it probably wouldn't have caused the shift in my paradigm. But alas, this is it. We finished all of our shopping and were going to the check out line, Diana exclaims with fear in her eyes "oh no! I forgot the bags!" I was thinking "boy, good for her, trying to go green." We get to the check out line and it happens... the women snarls at us diabolically "DO...YOU...HAVE....BAAAAGSSS?" I see everyone in site cringe in fright. "n...no" and then the most absurd words I have ever heard came out of the womens mouth. "then you must buy our cheap flimsy plastic bags that will fall appart on you by the time you get home BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" (oh... did I mention that i had to also bag my stuff myself???) I started to argue. Me: "excuse me? did you say we have to by the bags?" Her: "yes! (think the soup Nazi, if you have seen Seinfeld") Me: "umm... do I even get to choose paper or plastic?" Her: "NOOOOO!!! you get plastic"
This went on for a bit and I ended up giving up the argument, a whole country against one enlightened American, what could I do? "The country is to primitive" I thought, there are to many things wrong here, Taco bell is almost 3 time the price here. Pedestrians can just walk out and cross the street and If I hit them its my fault for them walking in front of a moving vehicle! the list goes on and on. But I woke up this morning and I reading through the book of Joshua and all the great things he did, I have decided something important! "YES I CAN! one man can make a difference! I will show these poor deprived Canadians the American way, free them of this bondage of ape like living, YES I CAN! And so can you! I am encuraging all people from the states who are living in Canada not to conform to the Canadian way, don't say "zed" be proud and say "Z". Do U turns whenever there is not a sign says otherwise, and yes fight for free bags!!!! YES WE CAN!
Disclaimer: some parts of this story may or may not have been largely exaggerated for emphases.
Disclaimer #2: the use of this video in no way supports my political veiws.... since I don't have any, it was just a fitting video for my post.
"Wait a minute" I thought to myself, "Am I even on the road?" BUMP BUP BUMP "GAAHH!!" *swerves to the right* "huh, guess not." This is what I went through for most of the trip from Albuquerque, NM to Edmonton, AB. the west was having a record blizard... And I decided to drive through it! I remember at one such moment I was going through a "white out" I was going about 25mph and not looking in front of me because I couldnt see more then a foot that way,but rather had my head looking to the left through my side window following the white line to try to stay on the road. So I was going and suddenly I realize that one again I was on my way off the cliff, so I do a sudden jerk of the wheel to the left and start "fish tailing" back and forth till I do several 360's and find myself on the other side (the side (without the long fall down) Praise God I have a 4-wheel drive vehical! I got out and started again on my slow journey to Canada. I am here now and am VERY excited to work here, I have got a few studies ad am looking forward to getting many more! I hope all is well with all and God bless. Till next time -Wezley
Well, Thus is the beginning of a new adventure in the life of Wezley. I didn't have much motivation to start re-start up a blog (well... mostly because I'm not a huge fan of writing) but after several conversations with a friend he motivated me so I decided to give it another shot.
Well, I suppose that I'll simply start off with a short explanation of the title. "Megalomania" is a "A psychopathological condition in which delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence predominate." (according to dictionary.com) Well... thats not the reason that I chose the word (though I'm sure that some may think it accurate!) It is for the second definition that dictionary.com gives that I chose it "An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions." As a servant of the most high God I feel it a duty to accomplish great things in my life. And I believe such should be the goal of all those who follow Him. The problem that some might have with this is that it may seem that I'm looking for "glory" or to be some type of "hero". But that is not so. The act of wanting to do grand things I believe is a righteous goal. In Matthew 5:16 we are told "Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." The question becomes "what is a grand act?" Well... Anything that give glory to God!
With that aside, I'm happy that I have been given the opportunity to move to Canada to bible work! I got all my paper work on Friday, got a vehicle And God willing will be heading out for the LOOONG and lonely 26hr trip to Edmonton, AB tomorrow! So with that I will bid all of my American friends tahtah and to all of my Canadian friends a big howdy! I'll post next when I get up to Canada. Keep my driving in prayers if thought of. Blessings -Wezley Espinoza
Well, I'm through with Congo. I finished my 6months and am back in the states as of Wednesday. Its a little sad to have left, but at the same time I'm looking forward to my next adventure (wherever that may be) but I thought that I would post some pictures of Africa as a final post to my blogging days. so here are some pictures.
Keith and I in Ethiopia late at night on our way to our hotel.
$24 box of corn flakes... Didn't have a clue to the price when we asked for them, big mistake.
The Congo exchange rate.
A fellow American that we met.
Umm... oops
This can't be good.
Sabbath morning
Me working hard doing PA for the effort.
arrested by the UN... no, but that would have been a great story if we did :p
Training local missionaries...
Through pastor Mtenzi.
Taking those missionaries to there mission fields.
Hmmm, food.
Ooh... squishy.
Well... here go's nothing.
Down the Congo river!
With Joshua and Emanuel
Orphans
Ze' Catholics
Baptisms! There were over 50 that day!
Monkeying around.
My Friend.
Preacha' boy.
And Again.
ASI Lay-Evangelist DVD training (wow thats a mouthful)
Last week I had one of those light bulb moments, that kind of time that you just stop and have a big “OOHHH” moment. I was reading through Numbers where Moses sends out the 12 spies to check out the promise land. The paragraph that I read about that section of the bible was the cause for the “oh” moment. What it said was simply this. “ Caleb didn’t have great faith in God, He had faith in a great God” suddenly it hit me, “faith as a mustard seed”! it makes sense! Faith as a mustard seed actually makes sense! I feel a bit stupid admitting to this, but honestly that verse in Mathew never made sense to me. Yes, after 4 years of Youth for Jesus training (one month a year), after going through most of Witness for Life which included ARISE, after a year of bible working, yes even after teaching how to bible work, now teaching the bible here in Africa, after being a Christian for about 5 years, that verse just didn’t click with my mind. But it has finally become senseacal to me. Lets put it this way, if you have infinity and you divide it in half how much of that infinity is left? Well… infinity is still left. You can’t divide infinity and get anything less then infinity, it’s a mathematical and philosophical impossibility. When you divide infinity by anything the end result will still always be infinity! So, if you have an infinitesimal faith in an infinite God, even say as a mustard seed, as long as that faith is in a Great and infinite God that faith is still adequate, to say the least! When we take the burden of needing to have some mighty and impressive faith off of us, and we put the burden of being mighty and impressive on the One who already is, it just makes so much more sense. God doesn’t call us to have great faith, rather He calls us to have faith that He is great! Faith as a mustard seed!
And Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief: for truly I say to you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you. Mathew 17:20
And God willing will be heading out for the LOOONG and lonely 26hr trip to Edmonton, AB tomorrow! So with that I will bid all of my American friends tahtah and to all of my Canadian friends a big howdy! I'll post next when I get up to Canada. Keep my driving in prayers if thought of. Blessings
