My Eye Affects My Heart

“My Eye Affects My Heart”

Stanley said those words as we traveled home after two grueling weeks in the jungle. At first, I wondered what he meant. By the end of our journey, I understood.

Stanley had grown up in our church in Costa Rica and now served as a lay pastor. This was his first trip to the Amazon, where we were teaching Bible seminars in remote villages.

One day, we met Raul, a 50-year-old Amazonian who had traveled downriver looking for a way to make money quickly. He had found work in the coca trade.

Raul knew he could work for the “narcos”—foreign drug traffickers—planting coca, harvesting the leaves, and carrying large bundles to a laboratory for processing. Within a few months, he could earn enough money to meet his needs. He had even left his own crops behind, figuring he could buy food with the money he earned.

Then Raul heard about our Bible seminar.

He attended one morning and eagerly listened to the teaching. That evening, he came back for more.

As Raul talked with others at the seminar, he began to understand more about the narcos and the way they controlled and exploited indigenous people. The promise of quick money was tempting, but the reality was frightening. The narcos did not always pay, and they threatened the families of those who worked for them. Once someone entered the trade, getting out could be extremely difficult.

Still, Raul kept coming.

He attended every service.

One afternoon, I walked into the house where we hung our hammocks and saw Stanley and Raul kneeling together. I quietly stood nearby.

After a few moments, Stanley looked up.

“Raul has just accepted Christ as his Savior,” he said. “He says he will no longer work in the coca trade. Instead, he will take the gospel upriver to his family.”

Those words changed something in Stanley.

He had come to the Amazon to teach, but God was teaching him, too. He had seen a man turn away from the darkness of the coca trade and place his faith in Christ. He had also seen the deep hunger of people who had so little opportunity to hear and study God’s Word.

The trip opened Stanley’s eyes to the enormous need for more Spanish-speaking teachers in the remote villages of the Amazon, particularly in Peru and Colombia.

As we continued our journey home, Stanley talked about what he would teach on his next trip. His thoughts were already back in the villages we had left behind.

Then I understood what he meant:

“My eye affects my heart.”

What Stanley had seen had changed him.

He had seen Raul give his life to Christ. He had seen people hungry to hear the Word of God. And once he had seen their need, he could not simply forget it.

Perhaps that is one of the ways God calls us to missions. He opens our eyes so that we can see what He sees. Then what we see begins to affect our hearts—and what affects our hearts moves us to action.

What a joy it is to see our spiritual children, like Stanley, carry the gospel to those who are unreached and under-reached.

Sometimes we simply need to see.

And when God opens our eyes, our hearts may never be the same.