Stories from our field
“I can tell many, many stories”
Joshua*, our team leader for one of India’s major languages, is talking online to all kinds of people about the Gospel. With great enthusiasm he tells us that he can share many, many stories about people being touched by the Gospel.
Here is a brief compilation.
One day, Joshua got into an online conversation with a Muslim. After chatting back and forth for a while, this man began to share his concerns with Joshua.
Joshua: “The man mentioned that he and his wife were feeling totally discouraged. They were working in Malaysia, but their jobs were on the line and they were being treated unkindly, even threatened. I started praying for him and his family; meanwhile, I kept in touch with him.
After about a month, he was doing better. People began to treat him and his family more friendly. Not only that, his wife started asking questions about faith and was asking for prayer. After a while, I found out that his whole family had accepted Jesus as their Savior and they were now sharing the Gospel with other relatives. I was over the moon! Wow, I can bring the Gospel all the way to Malaysia online, unbelievable! After this incident, I found it even more wonderful to share the Gospel online,” Joshua concludes enthusiastically.
Joshua tells of a young Indian man he met during an online chat session. “He had graduated from college but didn’t have a job. He was not doing well, he told me. ‘Can you help me get a job?’ he asked. ‘No, I can’t, but I can introduce you to Someone Who can assist you all your life,’ I replied.
‘Oh,’ he said curiously, ‘and who is that?’ So I introduced Jesus to him.
In the week and a half that followed, he began to ask more and more questions and wanted me to pray for him. After only two and a half weeks, he came to faith in Jesus! He said, ‘Joshua, I would like to go to church and be baptized. I so enjoy chatting with you; I feel peaceful and happy, even though I still don’t have a job. I think Jesus lives in me, so His hope is also in me.’
I contacted the person within GlobalRize who is responsible for finding a suitable local church for people who are looking for one, and he went to work for this man. Later, I found out that he had joined that church and not only that, he takes others to church with him!”
“Sometimes I have to deal with people who make unkind comments or ask questions in an annoying tone. One time someone in the chat said to me, ‘Show me your God.’
Joshua chuckles. “I typed, ‘I cannot show God to you on command, but I can tell you this: in a week, when we meet again (online), God will have spoken to you, because I know my God; He will touch you with His Spirit. In the meantime, I will pray for you.’
A week later, he returned to the chat and was very calm. No curses or nasty comments. ‘What happened?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘strange things are happening to me. As if someone is in my house. What is going on?’ I asked him: ‘This presence isn’t harming you?’ ‘No, indeed, it is not harming me,’ he said. I said to him, ‘God wants you to realize that He is a living God.’ It was an extraordinary story. God showed His grace to this man and in the end he came to faith!”
*not his real name
Photo by Sayan Ghosh on Unsplash