By Joseph Ruiz
Teaching at a Christian school in San Francisco was not a high paying job but it was an incredible training ground in the art of guiding children into a whole life with Jesus. This was the most gratifying job I had done after giving my heart to the Lord and taught me so much about God’s economy.
After fourteen years of teaching God led me into a completely different field of labor. I started a painting company. Immediately I could sense God’s guidance in this new profession. The week that I received my California State contractor’s license , an old gentleman came to me and said ,”young man you should take the class that is down the hall it is the future of the painting industry”. I sensed that this old man’s guidance was from the Lord so I went down the hallway and discovered that it was a class on lead abatement. I learned the safe way to deal with the lead based paint that had polluted the city of San Francisco for years. Ninety four percent of San Francisco housing is coated with lead base paint. God blessed me with this insight and this opened up incredible new doors for my young painting company. We than became an Environmental company and Painting company.
After a few years my wife Estrella and I had saved up $17,000 for a complete remodel of our kitchen. This excited us because it was a reward from our hard labor in our new company. Then one night at our church in San Francisco a pastor came from Romania and shared what God was doing in this Eastern European country. After service we exchanged business cards.
Three months later the same man called me from Oltania in South West Romania. He told me that he felt the Lord had called me to minster in Romania. My thoughts right away were, “God hasn’t said that to me.” As I hung up the phone and sat down on my couch the news came on TV and there was a news clip , telling the story of neglected and starving children in Romania. I knew something greater than me was in control of this situation. As the news broadcast continued they showed where these children’s parents were killed during the Communist reign of terror. They told how the president of Romania was called the strong man and how his own people hung him. This was all I needed. The Lord was challenging me to step out and go to Romania as a missionary.
As we began to minister in Oltenia Pastor Elisha a young 30 yr old pastor took me to a corn field where the land was cleared of the corn plants and a cement foundation constructed. He spoke to me looking up t o heaven and said, God is going to help me build a church in this site. This village has never in its history had a church I saw he was ready to build a church for the people in this village. That night My wife and I while lying in bed we both decided together to give the 17 thousand dollars we save for our kitchen to help build that church. The exchange rate of the US dollar was 33000 to one US dollar. To our amazement this was almost exactly what was needed to completely finish the construction of the new church.
We fiinished ministering in Romania and return to San Francisco We sent the 17 thousand dollars kitchen remodel money to pastor Elisha in Romania and he built the church with village people in 10 months.
When we returned from Romania the very next month my painting business grossed $70,000 in revenue. As I looked at the receipts totalling 70k I told my wife this has to be God we have never made this type of money so quickly. This was a lesson to me and my wife about Gods economy . When we give to the poor of the world God continues to give to us so we could give again.
It took the people in Romania one year to build the church with the money that we had given them. We went back at the end of the year to dedicate the church. While we were there at the dedication a neighboring pastor came and rolled out his plans and dreams for another new church.When the Pastor showed us the blue prints for his church which were already approved by the planning commission of that Southwest region of Romania. I didn’t expect this. The first thought I had was that these guys thought I was just some rich American that could build everybody in Romania a church. Then the Lord spoke to me and said, “So what! Go ahead and build the second church and see what I will do”. So my wife and I went back to America and sent two installments of money to build the second church.
Did it hurt us? Did we lose? No, we did not lose because we moved into God’s economy and in His economy you always win. We were able to build a whole new house instead of just a kitchen. In the city of San Francisco having a home of this size with all of the luxuries that it affords is truly rare not to mention the incredible view that I have of the San Francisco Bay from all three levels of my house. It is ten times more beautiful than anything we had originally planned.
You can never out give God. We built on God’s economy by giving to Him first and he poured it back on us multiplied many times over. Since then my company has been blessed beyond words.To date we have built an orphange in India, a home for poor families in the Phillippines, and helped rebuild a church in San Salvador that was detroyed in the hurricane.We feel honored to work hard for those less fortunate in poor countries.
1 Comment
October 1, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Reading this makes article makes me very happy to know that there are still such kind hearted people in the world. Joseph Ruiz was my 6th grade teacher and I think about him and his family quite often. Something led me to this web-site and once I saw is picture, it brought back tons of memories; he still has the same smile.
If this somehow makes it back to Brother Joseph, please keep in touch, I’d love to hear from you!
Danny Vigil
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