Pentecostal Pastor
When
the second semester ended, we
visited a city on the east coast of China to see if its air quality is any better.
Kristin liked the city but its air was just as polluted
as the city where I taught, so we returned to southeast Asia's
cleaner air. Kristin's health had again deteriorated while in China, so we again
spent quite a bit of time visiting medical clinics and hospitals.
The air in the capital city where we were was cleaner than the air in China but it still wasn't clean, so I took Kristin south to a small village by the sea where the air was hot but pristine.
One afternoon, we were reading the Bible in the upper level restaurant of a small guest house when a group of about a dozen Christians came up the stairs, became excited to find a couple reading the Bible, began to sit down at the tables around us and ask us questions. One of the last to come up the stairs was an American, who shared their excitement, and after asking us a couple of questions, introduced himself as the pastor of a Pentecostal church in the capital city and invited us to visit his church when we return to the capital city.
I asked the Pentecostal pastor if I could have a word with him in private and led him downstairs. Once out in the parking lot, I told him that we had already tried to visit his church and explained to him how his church had called the police and forced us into and sent us off in ambulance for asking to be let inside to receive prayer.
I thought the Pentecostal pastor would apologize, at which point I was going to ask him to apologize to Kristin. His smile disappeared shortly after I began to tell him what had happened at his church, and was replaced by an icy stair. When I finished speaking, the Pentecostal pastor turned around without saying a word and walked back inside and upstairs. Was he going to apologize directly to Kristin?
I reached the top of the stairs to find his entire group moving to tables at the other end of the restaurant. Instead of apologizing to Kristin, the Pentecostal pastor was moving his group as far away from her as possible.
Kristin looked up at me and asked what was going on. I looked over at the Pentecostal pastor and was tempted to walk over and openly rebuke him but refrained as he was with his church members, and also because I didn't want Kristin to know that he had rejected her a second time. So I just shook my head, sat back down and tried to continue reading the Bible with Kristin but couldn't. So I led her downstairs and away from the Pentecostal 'pastor,' knowing that Jesus will deal with him as He said He will:
“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)