How Much Bread Do You Have?

In the Bible, bread is more than just food. Bread is fellowship. Bread is dependence. Bread is a body. And bread is life. This multi-faceted source of nourishment played the staring role on the stage of my Luke 10 journey. 

We serve a faithful God. His providence and His love featured in each of the blessings the Yellow Team received. After a reshuffling of the small teams of Distant Worlds, I am now in a team with Luiza, Kasia, Charné and Fred as my leader.

Our team prayed before our journey began and received very powerful words and very specific directions from our Heavenly Father. It was with His encouragement and His commissioning that we set out from Quito on our Luke 10 through Ecuador!

From the beginning, we could see His hand in everything. From big things, such as every meal being provided for, or small things, such as the people we got lifts with, God was there. Divine appointments were the theme of every day as we travelled through the beautiful country of Ecuador.

We slept one night in the bus terminal in Santo Domingo, heading towards Ventanas, which God had set before us to go to. Arriving the next afternoon, we began searching for a "Recreo", which was one of the words we had gotten. No success. We did, however, get to minister to a few people, pray for healing and even embark on a Daniel Bible study.

After six hours in this Ecuadorean town, we felt peace to move on and got the word "Cuenca". We got a lift to Guayaquil, another city in Ecuador. We were dropped off at a bus stop and God told us to wait. And so, at six on the Friday night, we waited.

We were then approached by a man with many questions about our travels. Stating that he didn't believe in any supernatural things, he offered to buy us dinner. This meal was a time where we practically had to apply all the teachings we had received from Pastor Ben in Guatemala. We were having supper with an unbeliever and were confronted with things such as drunken behavior, inappropriate comments and unbelief. God's love prevailed and we were able to view him through Christ's eyes.

It was only as we were leaving that we realized that the area of Guayaquil we were in was called Recreo. Funny how God works!

We spent that night on the larger-than-life bus terminal in the beautiful city of Guayaquil. The next morning, we attempted to hitchhike to Cuenca. We made multiple boards stating the names of small towns on the way to Cuenca. We had fun, making Mexican waves with the boards and generally having a good time.

After two and a half hours, an angel took us to a small town called El Triunfo. The man's name was literally Angél. He dropped us off and we prepared for another long wait.

Not even ten minutes later, a man cycled past on his bicycle. You can imagine our surprise when he said, "Can I help you guys?" Even more surprise when he spoke in English!

This was our first "hombre de Paz", or Man of Peace. Over a delicious breakfast and coffee, we told Juan all about our journey, our Luke 10 and our faithful God. Not long after, he offered his house for us to stay. We felt peace to stay in his house, despite the fact that we were on our way to Cuenca. God wanted us to be here.

We spent four days and three nights with our familia de Paz. We shared testimonies and joined them in family activities such as visiting the farm and Sunday lunch. We left on the Wednesday, knowing we had an open invitation to stay in El Triunfo whenever we returned to Ecuador. Juan paid our bus fare to a town called Cañar.

As in the fashion of a true Man of Peace, Juan had arranged everything for us to get to Cuenca. When we arrived in Cañar, we were welcomed by his brother, Walter. We spent one night with Walter and his family in that cold, mountainous town. The next morning, Walter (who also drove twice a day to Cuenca in his profession as bus driver) took us all the way to Cuenca.

We have arrived. We had received word from the beginning about mountains and a Catholic Church. Cuenca had both. We studied a map of all the churches in that beautiful city and God led us to go to a church called San Alfonso.

My first time in a Catholic Church. God used this opportunity to display His love to two women by leading us to pray for healing for them. We then walked to a park called Parque Abdón Calderon and were told to wait.

From nine AM to ten PM, we waited. We spent the day speaking to people and praying for healing. We learnt to rely on God's faithfulness despite circumstances, since we only had a banana for breakfast.

While sharing with a man called Davíd about our Luke 10, it came out that we hadn't had lunch yet. It was four that afternoon. Just then, three girls we had spoken to earlier came walking up with "platanos con queso" (bananas with cheese). His eyes were as wide as saucers as he saw our faith working out in a practical manner. God never lets us down.

After a few more conversations, we felt peace to leave. It was ten that night when we got a lift to the bus terminal. We were clouded with doubts, since God had said we were meeting our Man of Peace that day, but the day only had two hours left. With heavy hearts, we prepared to sleep on the benches in the terminal.

With exhaustion drawing our eyes closed, we were awoken by a man asking, "Are you Alex?" This is Fabian and his colleague, Paul, searching for their new intern who was due to arrive that night. This sparked a conversation that resulted in Paul inviting us to stay in his house. Our Man of Peace is revealed!

A powerful, high-impact time of pouring out followed, where we got to flood Paul, his family, Fabian and Alex with God's love and goodness. We were sad to leave Cuenca, but we knew God had done what He needed to. We made it to Mancora in time, and were welcomed by the rest of our Distant Worlds family. God is faithful!

Many times, we don't trust God to give us our daily bread. Many times, when we are faced with five thousand hungry people to feed, we focus on the size of the crowd instead of the size of our God. We are unaware of the five loaves and two fish that God had given us. We are unaware of the multiplication that can follow when we just have faith.

Jesus is asking how much bread you have. Will you look at the crowds before you reply, or will you look to your God?

Mark 11:22-23
And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.