South America—Who’da Thought?

Biblical Dinners in South America

As you may know, I have a ministry called ‘The Biblical Dinner’—a live presentation of the historical Last Supper, and you’re in it. I’ve also been given the privilege of sharing this ministry all over the world, with powerful results and lasting good fruit. Let me tell you what happened today…

I was embroiled in a conversation with two other pastors over coffee when we all realized that we were late for dinner, and being Calorie Chapel pastors, we were late for our calling. As we entered the dining hall, eight hundred pastors were already seated and working on their salads. We needed to find seats, preferably together and we rushed past a table with three open seats right next to each other. Over the deafening noise in the room I called to the other pastors and pointed to the empty chairs, and they turned and quickly sat down. The other pastors seated at the table were all from Latin American countries, including Guatemala and Columbia. The Columbian man was at my left elbow, and he introduced himself as Luis from Cali.

I had visited Ecuador on several occasions, and since Ecuador borders Columbia, I told this to Luis hoping to stimulate a little conversation. He immediately asked me if I knew pastor Freddy Bernadino of Calvary Chapel Cuenca, Ecuador. I not only know Freddy, I ordained him. More than that, Freddy learned the Biblical Dinner from me and has been busy presenting them all over northern South America. Luis then told me that Freddy did these dinners and has asked him if he would like to learn how to present them.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

Luis looked at me and said he would like to meet the man who taught Freddy how to do the dinners. Now it gets even more interesting. He looks at me, having never met, and said, “you are the one who does the Biblical Dinner…!” I was stunned, to say the least.

He then explained that he had been praying about if he should launch out into this amazing ministry, but was still unsure—until now. There is much more to tell, but I think you get the idea. We now have another Biblical Dinner presenter!
But it gets even MORE interesting. During our amazing conversation the Lord showed me something that had never occurred to me. I have had many people urge me to raise up other men to do Dinners in order to spread this powerful ministry and to help lighten my schedule. So far no one here has taken up the torch, though there are now four men doing it in South America. But wait—do you see it? We Americans are often ignorantly arrogant about ministry. Ministry is not ours to command, keep or even define. God determines what He will make of it, and i am now quite convinced that the ministry of the Biblical Dinner was primarily meant for, of the places on earth, the people of South America. To us, South America is a forgotten continent, an afterthought in geography class. But it is full of all kinds of people, Indian and Hispanic, Portuguese and European, and all of them need to know and can appreciate the understanding of ancient biblical culture as much as all the rest of us. And God has paved the way through men like Freddy, Fernando, Luis and others. As I continue ministering these Dinners, I am beginning to happily understand that I am the one orbiting these pastors, and not the other way around. This is tremendous. I would have never imagined—the Biblical Dinner—determined by God for South Americans!

As I continue to minister these Dinners, I will continue to seek for a few good men to expand the ministry here, north of the equator, but now with the knowledge that God has done something wonderful, completely outside my imagination, with this ministry.

For South America. Who would have thought?

Bless the Lord…!