I love a good story, don’t you?

One of the neatest stories I’ve ever heard from any mission field came last week in Davao during the “First Love Conference” there with Pastor Herley Montes.  Herley had invited a network of pastors and friends to be a part of the conference, and I couldn’t help but notice one elderly pastor, Mario Gumera, who traveled 12 hours by bus to be in the meetings.  I noticed him not only because he was much older than the other pastors, but also because he had a front row seat for every single session.  I mean, he didn’t miss anything from the opening night’s festivities, to the ‘Harvest event’ for college students on Thursday night.  In fact, he even joined us for the “island-hopping” picnic on our day off at the end of the week.

However, one day at lunch Pastor Herley said to me, “did you know that guy was a hit man before he came to the Lord?”  Of course, that was an invitation to hear the story of Pastor Mario Gumero:

Turns out Pastor Mario (before he came to Christ, of course) killed his first man when he was just a child himself (seems like Herley said he was 6 or 7 yrs old), and became a hardened killer as a young man, when he landed a job for some powerful political operatives in Mindanao.  They used him for several years as their ‘enforcer’.  In fact, Herley first learned this one time when Mario visited a meeting at Herley’s church, a rented building in downtown Davao that once housed a porno theater.  Pastor Mario mentioned to him that he had actually killed three people in the building where Herley’s congregation now worships!

After his political protector was removed from office and Mario knew his life was in danger, he eventually heard the Gospel and responded by giving his life to the Lord.  My favorite part of the story was that a few years after he was born-again, he met the family of one of the men he had murdered.  As the children confronted him in anger with threats to take his life, Mario told them how sorry he was for what he had done, but that he was now a Christian.  He told them that they had every right to take his life, but he said, “if you do, I’ll go to heaven.  Meanwhile, you’ll go to prison for killing me, and when you die, you’ll go to hell.” As a result, the children began to cry, and Mario led them to the Lord!  Today, he is the pastor of a Spirit-filled church in Tubod, Lanao del Norte in northern Mindanao.

I love the power of the Gospel to change lives!

What’s your story?