My only brother, Juan Anniel Mauri, was a fourteen-year-old teenager when he decided to go
swimming in the river with some friends. He didn’t know how to swim, bur he adventurously
jumped into the deep part where a few minutes earlier he had watched one of his companions
swim with ease.
As soon as he was in the water, he began to drown. Immediately, the friends who were out of the
water at the time became desperate and began to argue. One of them knew how to swim
perfectly, but he had never saved a drowning person, so he was afraid to jump in to save my
brother. The other didn’t know how to swim but wanted to save him. The disagreement became
so serious that the boy who didn’t know how to swim hit the one who did, and so the latter
jumped into the water, and with difficulty, rescued my dear brother.
Now, the big question is: Which of the two saved my brother? The frank answer is both of them.
The talent of one mixed with the courage of the other made Anniel’s salvation possible.
The wise Solomon said, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their
labour” (Eccl. 4:9). Working two by two is a strategy of Jesus (see Luke 10:1), which His church
today should now neglect. Moreover, if we have not been more successful in the work of
evangelism, its partly because we have not given importance to missionary pairs.
Ellen G. White rightly commented,
Calling the twelve about Him, Jesus bade them go out and two through the towns and villages.
None were sent alone, but brother was associated with brother, friend with friend, thus they
could help and encourage each other, counselling and praying together, each one’s strength
supplementing the other’s weakness………It was the Savior’s purpose that the messengers of
the gospel should be associated in this way. In our own time evangelistic work would be far
more successful if this example were more closely followed (The Desire of Ages, Ch. 37, p. 350).
Dear brother, dear sister, “two are better than one”. Don’t be an island in your own congregation.
Find a friend, a family member, and together go out to save those who are drowning in the deep,
murky waters of sin. Don’t go out alone, for in doing so you deprive yourself of the blessing of
helping and encouraging each other, each making up fir the weakness of the other. Remember:
“For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he
has no one to help him up” (Eccl. 4:10).