Hello! I think I should tell you the end of this story - 5 years later.
I am a missionary in the Philippines, but most here do not know me that way because I am married to a Filipina. The original poster above is named Jose (I asked permission to reveal his first name). I let him use my computer and Internet to seek answers for his personal problems.
About three months after his last post, he came to me with tears in his eyes. He said he still loved his wife and wanted to give her some money. He asked I give it to her, so that seeing Jose would not cause any problems for her. He also told me he felt God wanted him to build a small church building in his home village, on a tiny island with no church! Indeed, in retrospect, God was calling him to not only build a church building, but to pastor there! Yet each month, he would send me part of his income, from his construction job, to give to his wife. I did not tell her who gave the money, but she guessed it was from Jose. Once she told me she did a stupid thing, but she could not go back and undo it.
Jose was, before, a well known drunk and drug user. He came to faith in God, but continued to struggle with his past. Working daily on building this church, slowly replaced drinking and drugs with faith and worship. To the point that people started asking him what changed him. He started giving his testimony - even printing it in the local dialect. That led to a prayer meeting and Bible studies that he led "because no one else was there to do it!" With no other fellowship on the island, he started having Sunday morning services and the church grew, both in numbers and in size!
Being untrained, he would seek my help and guidance. I gave him course materials from a local Bible college I work with. Before me I saw a Saul on the Damascus Road becoming a Paul to the people in his Village, who had known him as a drunk and drug addict. I have a chart on my wall that has about 500 old (archaic) words in the KJV that are not in a common English dictionary, and the modern English words. Jose was coping it into a notebook. He asked me why didn't I make a Translator's King James Bible where the old words were replaced with modern words in the dictionary. Immediately my wife said that is what she needed for her people also (my wife's native language is spoken by only about 2600 people!). That was the Holy Spirit speaking. An English Bible for people who knew English only as a second language. A King James Version which could be understood with a simple English dictionary, available at any school book store. That is the beginning of the TKJV.
Jose never forgot to pray for his wife.
A year after they broke up, like every month, I went to give his wife the money Jose sent. She had moved, but I was told where. The place was a run down shack with a dirt floor, one of those places no one should be forced to live in. When I gave her the money, there were tears in her eyes, and she told me in Bisaya that without the money Jose sent, her and her baby would starve. The other man had abandon them. She said she was a fool to leave a good man like Jose, but she knew in her heart he would not take her back. I pointed out Jose must still care for her, because he sends her money which he is not required to do. She told me she prays "to the God of Jose" that she wished she could change like he did.
Wow! Of course, I told her about the God of Jose, and right there she accepted the Lord!
I went home and prayed. How could I get these two to just talk to each other? Finally, after a couple weeks of prayer, the Lord told me to write to Jose and just tell him what happen. Nothing more, no suggestions, no hints or ideas. Just the facts. So I did.
A week later, Jose was at my door. He wanted to leave his pack with me as he went to visit his wife. We prayed together. A few hours later he was again at my door, with his wife, holding the cutest little baby girl, who was playing with his face! She told me when she received the Lord, she was sure she heard God tell her that Jose was coming to get her.
Together they are ministering in the Church Jose build - for the last 4 years now. Hundreds of people there have turned to whom they call Messiah Yeshua. It is a real light to there community, and I thought you may want to know how this story ended. Christ Jesus (Messiah Yeshua) truly healed their hearts, their lives, and brought them together. As Jose recently told me, "and on top of that, God gave me a daughter when I could have none!"
God Bless,
Oikos
Calluna
