Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen pretty intense spiritual attack in our city (Family death, bike accident, emotional and physical attacks). However, instead of allowing the enemy to feel as if he’s taken reign, we’ve drawn in together and have begun to pray and w0rship, knowing that at the end of the day, our God is greater!
Also, I went to another one of our cities for 5 days to reach out to an old local friend, Claire, who came into the family my very first year and to do some training with our workers there! God was definitely moving and His timing of it was truly amazing!
Claire is partially blind and may have a mild case of autism, but unlike America, those with disabilities don’t receive any type of assistance. So Claire, even though she’s extremely smart, was not allowed to attend high school and is now waiting for God to guide her next steps. Little did I know, Claire had been struggling over the few weeks before I arrived, and was beginning to doubt God’s goodness. Encouragement was exactly what she needed and it was a beautiful reminder to Claire that even when we feel far away from Him, the reality is He’s more than present and He loves and cares so much about us!
I also had the opportunity to go with some of our workers in C-Town and model sharing the Good News with them! We had some incredible times out sharing! One particular night we went out with 3 girls, all who claimed to not believe in the existence of God. After sharing with them, we asked to pray with them that God would bless their studies and that they would know His love. Immediately after praying, one of the girls, Joan, burst into tears! “What are you feeling?” I asked. “I… I… I can feel His love,” she said as she choked through her tears. By the end of the night, all three girls had gone from believing that there was no such thing as God to “there is a God and although I’m not ready to start a relation, I want to know more.” It’s amazing how an encounter with our Father’s love can really shift things! On my last day in C-Town, 2 of the girls I had done some training with saw 3 people say yes to God and then the following day saw 2 people say yes! So in just 24 hours of my last training with them, they saw 5 new sisters!!!
After getting back from my trip, I had received an interesting email from my friend, Sonny, telling me about a girl named Rebecca down at a campus God had put on my heart over a year ago. Apparently, Rebecca’s father, Paul, who had been led into the family by a foreign missions worker in 1988 was looking for someone to reach out to his daughter! Come to find out, God’s pursuit of this girl was quite amazing!
Paul, the father, reached out to a retired missions worker now living in America, who knew another worker here in the X, who happened to know Sonny! Sonny knew I had a heart for that campus, and he passed her information on to me!
I sat down with Rebecca for some afternoon coffee and instantly began to chat. “So I hear your dad believes in God. That’s so amazing! But what about you? Do you have a relationship with God?” Rebecca revealed that although her father very much believed, she didn’t see the need for God and wasn’t desiring to pursue a relationship with Him.
I smiled. I heard this story before. For this story was also my own. I launched into my testimony sharing of how I chose to have a relationship with God in college and that it was a choice I had to personally make. After, I shared the Gospel, beginning to end, with Rebecca.
“I’m so moved!” Rebecca replied. “I want this. I want to have relationship with God!” In that moment, Rebecca had finally chosen God for herself; not to please her parents, not to please me, but for herself! It’s amazing how one can here of what Jesus did so many times, but it isn’t until the soil is tilled and God’s timing is right, that a seed can take root and begin to grow. That day the seed took root!