January 12, 2004

Update from Latin America

Please be in prayer today for President Bush as he goes to Mexico for talks with Latin American leaders. At stake is much more than international cooperation on the western hemisphere. The way Americans--and, more importantly, American missionaries are perceived in the region--could hinge on these talks.

According to LA Times writer Richard Boudreaux:

When he arrives in Monterrey today for his second Summit of the Americas, Bush will meet a Latin American leadership that has shifted to the left and grown increasingly assertive with Washington as people across the region lose faith in free markets.

The leftward shift of Latin American leadership is epitomized in Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is demonstrating a growing anti-American bent in his policies. Most recently, he has made national law a recent judge's ruling that all American citizens must be photographed and fingerprinted upon entrance into Brazil. This is in retaliation to photographing and fingerprinting carried out on all foreign nationals by US customs agents for security reasons.

In this writer's humble opinion, the solution to Brazil's economic woes is the reduction of it's external debt. You do not reduce your external debt by thumbing your nose at your largest creditor.

Whatever the lack of wisdom might be evident to those of us abroad, his actions seem to be quite popular in Brazil, which brings me to the main point of this entry:

Pray for your missionaries in Brazil!

The decisions of this week could have a great bearing on how Americans are viewed by educated Brazilians, and an impact on the effectiveness of American missionaries in that country.

For the most part, American missionaries are there because they have a God-given love for Brazilians, and are anxious to give the greatest gift they can--their lives--to Brazil. These kind of international conflicts only serve to distract attention from their work--which has eternal value--and focus it on temportal issues which have little relevance to the Gospel.

As one wise man put it, "Missionaries need to remember that they are there to say 'thus saith the Lord' and not 'this is how we do it in America'."

Pray that God will help all of us to keep this focus.

Posted by Andrew on January 12, 2004 10:33 AM.

Comments

Posted by: Janna at January 12, 2004 3:25 PM