M300 Ministries - Home of the Mighty Warriors - The Suffering Of A M300 Valiant Warrior

Thursday, 10 June 2010

THE SUFFERING OF A M300 VALIANT WARRIOR

I, Alexander Castellanos, write as a M300 Valiant Warrior serving our Lord Jesus Christ in El Salvador, Central America. We live at the service of our Unique, True and Powerful God, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, who strengthens us permanently in our spiritual struggles so that on the day of the trial of the Lord we will forever be by His side.

The mission to preach Christ is a very edifying work and is a comfort, especially because it maintains our strengthened souls, with the certainty that has given us a very large and true salvation; this salvation is available for all people who are willing to understand and obey the commandments of Christ, the Savior of the world.

I am writing these lines and as I do so it is with the combined experiences that God has allowed us to preach His divine message for more than 35 years. This has been a work of many episodes: good, pleasant, and fabulous spiritual fruit, especially because the Lord has used not only myself but also my wife and my three daughters. So many souls have come and surrendered their lives at the feet of Christ receiving and obeying His Holy Gospel.

In all these experiences which are so unique and stimulating, the moments of suffering have been present. El Salvador lived a civil war for twelve years (1980-1992) in which eighty thousand people were killed. We preached the gospel in the midst of that war. To attempt to talk about each of these episodes of this fratricidal struggle, would amount to huge spaces of written materials, as well as large amount of time in hours work. There are many books that have been written on this subject by renowned Salvadoran writers who were witnesses of these facts. In spite of these times of great hardship, the Lord used and afforded us many opportunities so that His word was preached and many souls found relief in the Lord.

For us it was never easy to preach the message of God in the midst of the circumstances of war. Many times we were innocently caught in the midst of the firing of lethal weapons between the sides in conflict (army and guerrilla). We moved in the middle of situations of extreme violence and danger in each of our evangelistic journeys. Our three daughters accompanied us and God preserved us. We were never victims of the impact of a bullet or a bomb; however, there were Christians who did die. Some were found in areas where armed confrontations happened and some of them died innocently.

Eighteen years have passed since the peace treaty was signed... However, generations of children and adolescents who grew up in the latter war years grew with the nectar of violence, to the extent that they formed gangs. These gangs have caused much damage to the nation and are now operating on a global scale. In El Salvador daily there are an average of thirteen people found dead throughout the four cardinal points of the country due to gang violence and extortion.

The extortion by organized crime groups is now the "dish of the day". Honest and innocent people are innocent victims of crime and brutality. The gangs practice kidnapping and extortion requiring the payment of sums of money which are practically impossible to pay. Unfortunately many extorted people have had to pay with their lives.

Such is the case of our beloved brother Rafael Antonio Lopez Lara, who was brutally murdered on Sunday, April 25th, 2010. He was preaching at a worship service at his local church where he was shot seven times by an unknown murdered. He died in the doorway to his local church. Of this sad event I've already written a comprehensive chronicle, which I hope has been read by you. I repeat what I said in the chronicle, our brother Lara was very faithful to the Lord as a Christian and as a servant. His death was something that filled faithful Christians with much regret and was a great loss to Christianity in general.

Three week after this event a preacher of one of the churches in the city of San Miguel (this city is three hours from San Salvador, capital of the country) called me by telephone. He told me that the previous night his uncle had been murdered. He was a victim of one of these extortion groups. Obviously they had no funds to pay the amount of money that was being extorted from them so the extortioners proceeded to murder this common worker man. These extortion events occur daily in our country and they are countless in number. These infamous criminal acts that occur here daily are a fact of life for us who minister and for the people who we minister to. In some countries kidnappings occur where vast sums of money are extorted. In our country we have kidnappings for vast sums of money when rich people are involved but in our country there is a unique and harsh reality that the common man cannot escape.

It has become vogue to kidnap common everyday people as a line of work and in these cases seemingly small amounts of money are extorted but these seemingly small amounts of money are in many cases not able to be paid by those who are extorted. The great and tragic result is that in third world kidnappings sometimes people are murdered because their family cannot pay "the daily rate" of $20 or $30 per victim. This type of evil is rampant and the common man is at equal danger to the rich man. Pray for this situation with us. Enter fasting prayers with us that the Lord who loves justice and mercy will cause a n end to this evil in our midst.

Living in such hazardous conditions of insecurity have led preachers of the churches to take security measures during the Sunday worship, as well as during the days of the week. It is prudent to use caution when out on the street evangelizing and when gathered to worship. In churches where offerings are given to the Lord it is now reasonable to have some form of security. We know that God did not intend or desire this but it is the effect of sin in the world. This is a paradox to our Christian Ministry. Our mission is to openly share Jesus Christ, projecting ourselves openly as servants and as a church, preaching the message of God to the lost that they might know the truth of God and receive the salvation of Jesus Christ; however given the adverse conditions of real dangers that we face it can make us doubt the unknown person as a visitor in our worship meetings. It is very sad to tell you this, but it is a reality. When a visitor appears we have to be wise as serpents yet harmless as doves. Pray for this with us that discernment and wisdom from God will prevail.

There are many other factors that contribute to our economic suffering as a nation,and also within the Church. We as national missionaries are victims of all of these sad life conditions. Unemployment prevails in El Salvador and statistically 57% of the population with work capacity do not have any employment. This factor contributes to the increase in crime and is a grave socio-economic problem. In addition, since 1 January 2001, the President of the El Salvador at this time decided to dollarize our economy. In other words he chose to enter the US dollar, as "our national currency", which made the basic basket of daily food, increase significantly in cost. The US dollar is an expensive currency and time has proven that the nation of El Salvador cannot live at the level of that currency. Everyone here says we won at Colon (antique coin) but we spend $ as if we win them at and equal rate as the people who live in the United States. It is also notable to point out that the churches to whom we preach are a very poor Churches. Within the membership there are many older people whom we must help with a bread ration monthly.

Coupled with these real and serious difficulties at the beginning of the year 2010 we as a missionary family totally lost our monthly support. Our supporting church of many years "decided to do something different" and our monthly ministry support suddenly dried up.

Our brother Wayne Gaines, Founder/Director at Mighty 300 Ministries has reached out to us to encourage us into 100% faith based ministry. We have known brother Wayne for many years and our family's were all blessed during the dual earthquakes in El Salvador to work together serving, rebuilding and helping the needy of El Salvador. Wayne was with us and was caught up in the second 6.6 earthquake where we all learned yet again to live by 100% faith is pleasing to God. As part of the M300 Ministries Valiant Warrior ministry we have an account on E-giving where you can be a blessing to our family and our ongoing ministry.

We are now living by 100% faith in the goodness of people who are willing to show us his love by their donations. Many times we do not have a single dollar to live or to work with and this is the case at the time of this writing. In spite of everything, we have not stopped preach ing the Word of God. We have not been stopped by these economic constraints. We were not stopped during the El Salvador civil war during those twelve years years of death and violence, we continue teaching the message of salvation, the message of our Lord Jesus Christ risen, who lives forever and who gives the Eternal Life. That’s our strong conviction of 100% faith.

We dread having to expose to you our reality of life, economically speaking. We do this only in order that you might consider and take our needs into your prayers and into your giving. Our financial burden is a very pressing consciousness; if you are at your fingertips, we beg you to open yours hearts to us. When you give to us and to this ministry your willingness of mind and heart should be that you will be contributing to the risen Christ and supporting preaching of a risen Lord in this nation of El Salvador. Our desire is that God touches your heart deeply making it much more vigorously in tune with our own sufferings. Your help will give us the ability to create a much stronger outreach and to see many more souls delivered. into God's kingdom. God lead and bless your efforts and decisions!