“She will come along.”
After my mom came to Christ, I encouraged her to pray and share her faith with my second oldest sister. My mom said, “She will come along.” I guess moms are often right. My second oldest sister did come along on the second Sunday of April. My sister has two little girls, so it’s very hard for us to have a deep conversation. God is very creative! He encountered her at where she was. My sister told me that her two daughters would tell lies and blame each other when they made mistakes. I told her that I was not surprised because the same story happened in the Bible. She then told me that she started to believe in God after my oldest sister shared what God did in her life. (My oldest sister experienced a lot of pain in her arms, so she prayed and asked God’s healing. God healed her arms!) At the end of the conversation, my sister asked me if I could teach her how to pray. In the following week, she joined the family Bible study. Praise the Lord that my family is standing strong in their faith. They stopped participating in ancestor worship this year on the Tomb-Sweeping Day.
“Why are you crying?”
A Japanese student (Y*ka) asked me this question when she saw tears in my eyes at church. That was the first time I brought her to church. I told her it was God’s love and spirit made me cry, but she couldn’t understand. I prayed that she would get it before she left America! Praise God that she experienced it on her last Sunday church in the US. She started to cry right after the worship began. After church service, she asked for prayers to start a relationship with Jesus. The day before she left the US, we went out for brunch with my two co-workers and another Japanese student (Ya**i). She told me that it was because of the articles that I sent to her made her started the relationship with Jesus. I felt very encouraged and realized that God really honored my work through the internet. When we were having brunch, I invited Yuka to share her testimony to Yaski. I just wish I could understand Japanese when Yuka shared in her language. I should’ve studied harder in my Japanese class in college.
“Why God planted that tree?”
Honghu asked this question after we finished reading Genesis 3. I could tell from her tone of voice that she was really upset for the first fall that human begins made. Because of that, we lost the chance of having eternal life. I told her that there was no unconditional love if God didn’t plant the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I assured her that God sent Jesus to save us. On the fourth week of Bible study, we learned about the life of Jesus. Right after we finished reading the Bible, Honghu told me that she understood why God planted that tree. She asked me how to make sure she would choose the good. I directed her to the verse of John 3:18. It’s through Jesus Christ so that we can walk in the way of righteousness. She then asked me how to follow Jesus, so I said she must be reborn (we read through John 3). She then repented her sins and received Jesus as her Savior. I encouraged her to share the good news with her husband.
Proverbs 16:9
April was hectic, but it was a fruitful month. I was responsible for some administrative work as an event planning intern for ifi’s annual banquet for fundraising. Because of the crazy schedule, I learned to allow God to orchestrate my life. I started to see the beauty in situations where things didn’t work out the way that I planned. On Easter, I was invited to my mentor’s house for lunch with a few Chinese students. My plan was to reach out to a new believer (Miao) and share my experience with her how I started the family Bible study as my mentor asked me if I could reach out to her. I thought that Miao would be passionate about learning how to share her faith with her family, but it didn’t turn out the way that I expected. I tried to direct the conversation to God a few times, but Miao didn’t really respond to me. The spirit just told me that she was not interested, so I knew that I shouldn’t force it to happen. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t accomplish my “goal.” However, I shared my testimony and how God impacted my life during lunch. My mentor told me that it was Rina’s first time to hear the gospel, and she was really touched by my story.