With my bag full of New Testaments, I walked toward a farmhouse in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. A watchful lady peered at me through the half-opened door of the farmhouse.
“Senhora,” I called, “I have here a very excellent book—the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Don’t want it!” she answered, as she tried to slam the door. But I shoved my foot in the doorway, blocking the door from closing.
“But you don’t know what it is,” I answered. “It is worth more than all your farm!”
“Don’t want it!” she answered again firmly. Somehow she had heard and believed the story that I was selling wicked books that would damage her soul. None of my best reasons could change her mind.
“You are wasting your time, senhor. My husband is out, and I have no money in the house to buy your book.”
“Not at all, senhora,” I replied. “Money is no problem. Give me a little corn for my horse, and you may keep the book.”
“No corn!” she answered rudely.
“A small amount of black beans then ... .” But she insisted that she did not have any of these basic foods that are in every home in Brazil ... not even any cheese or a bit of sugar. I didn’t really want her money, but I knew if she didn’t pay at least a little something for the book, she would quickly destroy it after I left.
Just then I saw a dark, ugly-looking chunk of pork fat hanging from the rafters. “Give me a pound of that fat, and I’ll leave you this wonderful book,” I said eagerly.
With an unhappy look on her face, she hacked off a chunk with her knife and wrapped it in a banana leaf to give to me. She took the Testament grudgingly and threw it into the corner of the room. When her husband got home, she disgustedly told him how a stubborn Christian had made her waste good pork fat on that wretched book.
“There’s the book!” she exclaimed. “Have a look at it, and then throw it in the fire—the safest place,” and she left the room.
The man slowly picked up the book. When he finally opened it, a verse in Ephesians caught and held his attention. When his wife returned, nearly an hour later, she was surprised and afraid to find her husband was still reading the New Testament and tried to get it away from him.
“No, wife,” he insisted, “you don’t burn this book! It is just the kind of book I have always wanted to have. Just listen to this ... “ and he read her some verses. There was something in what he read that got her attention too. So she sat down, and they turned to the first page and began to read through the book.
Within a few weeks they had read the entire New Testament several times. Then one day I received a note from the man, Bellarmino, asking me to visit them.
On the way I wondered if they wanted to become Christians. I also thought about the idols they had all over the house and the big liquor still in the backyard. The liquor still was worth a lot of money. When I arrived and was greeted happily by Bellarmino, I immediately noticed that the idols were gone. Every one of them had been destroyed, along with the liquor still. When I started to talk about the Gospel message with them, I had another surprise. There seemed to be very little left to explain! They had already discovered it while reading their New Testament. I suggested prayer, and the wife was the first to kneel and to pray, and then the husband and one of the children also prayed.
Here was a changed family and a changed farm through the power of the living Word of God. And by their example and passing on the good news of God’s love and His offer of salvation, there eventually was a changed neighborhood. “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:1616For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)).
ML-01/13/2008