WBS Alum Leroy Lindsey Recounts Recent Travels

By Dr. Leroy Lindsey (M.A. ’81)

In February, I finished preaching a four-part series from Colossians on Sunday evenings at the University Church in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. What a blessing to see the response to the messages and my new translation of “I Am Coming, Lord”! The altar was filled the last three Sundays with seekers of holiness.

Next, I went on to Peru, where I preached at the early morning devotionals for the workers and staff of the Granja Porcón–a large rustic retreat center, lumber producer, and trout and dairy farm, with an attached zoo and several restaurants, that attracts many national (and international) tourists–north of Cajamarca. In the first service, around 20 of the 200 forest workers there indicated that they wanted to receive Christ as their Savior. I preached from Matthew 11, “Take my yoke upon you… I will give you rest.” Several attendees later told me that they really appreciated the message.

The second service was a devotional for all the office, factory, and dairy staff; it was a call to genuineness in our Christianity. Many staff members are believers, but are second generation and tending toward a nominal experience. The farm’s “secretary” later asked me for all the texts I had used. He is a solid Christian and the one who organized all the activities there.

Later that week, in the Major Prophets class I taught for the Church of God seminary in that area of Peru, we had a wonderful outpouring of the Spirit at the end of our session on Jeremiah. Reading Lamentations 3:22, I was praying about the mercies of God and thanking him for that great faithfulness. The thirteen students, most of them pastors, began praying, confessing their need to be more faithful in their ministries. The Lord gave us a marvelous time together as we sensed his presence, his holiness, and his restoration.

And in Guadalajara, Mexico, just a few weeks ago (March) after a week of classes on biblical hermeneutics, one of the students said to me that it was good to be with me in class because he had felt closer to God.