Hello to everyone reading this blog post! My name is Paul and I am one of the missionaries over here in Honduras with 61 Isaiah Ministries. I am married to Taylor Chandler, and we have been here for a little over a year. Here at 61 we love to build relationships by walking with people, as many of you have heard one of our sayings, “Come walk with us!” The end goal of walking with someone is to share the Gospel and help spiritually deepen whoever it is we’re walking with. For me and Taylor, that has been Carlos. 

When Carlos first started coming over to our house he really wasn’t super interested in studying the Bible or learning about how to grow. We had established with him early on that he did believe in Jesus but there was a catch. While he believed in Jesus, he did not believe in the Trinity. He did not believe in God the Father or the Holy Spirit. This belief came from an apostolic church background which neither Taylor nor I had ever encountered before. We kept loving Carlos and having him over, and after about one month he agreed to a more focused discipleship study. He had seen our love for each other and for God, and this created a desire in him to grow deeper in his faith. We started to study the book of John together because John clearly describes the story of Jesus in a very Trinitarian way.

Our first night I asked Carlos a simple question, “Do you believe that the Holy Bible is God’s divinely inspired word?” Without hesitation he said, “Yes! Of course!” Without knowing this was music to my ears. From there I began to show him some scriptures referencing the Trinity to which he responded by saying, “Paul I may not fully understand how the Trinity works, but I do know that the Bible very clearly discusses the Father, Son, and Spirit. If the Bible says it, then it must be true!” After picking my jaw up off the floor I asked him some more questions to make sure he understood. 

Surely it couldn’t be this easy… right!? 

He believed in the truth of the Bible so much that despite what his church taught, he was able to see the truth. Taylor and I were elated and honestly were touched by how much trust he put in the Word of God. If only everyone accepted the truth so readily! It was such a beautiful moment and in the last year he has continued to affirm the existence of the Trinity.

Another cool victory with Carlos is that after about seven months or so he came to me and said he felt convicted about something. He told me that for the last eight years he has been living with a woman he never married. They have two kids together and from the outside looking in you could never tell they weren’t married. After spending so much time in the Bible he felt the need to get married. The Holy Spirit was convicting Carlos, and during the month of December Carlos is getting married to his soon to be wife! 

This is a huge victory, especially considering how difficult it is to get married here in Honduras. I’d like to say that all the growth Carlos has experienced is because of me, but I had nothing to do with it. You can’t force anyone to trust the Bible like Carlos does and you certainly can’t convict someone of sin. God has been growing Carlos and sanctifying him through His power

alone and for some reason God has allowed Taylor and I a front row seat. Please continue to pray for Carlos and his family as God continues to work in them. 

I challenge you to have the same kind of trust in the Word of God, and the same trust in the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that Carlos displayed. Imagine just taking God at His word and  trusting Him without hesitation.

That is faith right there.