Stories from all over our city & beyond

A couple weeks ago (I’ll have to check my prayer journal for exactly when), something made me think to pray over my gym as a place for Gospel conversations. The front desk workers are always engaging in their greetings and farewells, and I wondered if my baking ministry could extend to them, or how God might use me there.

This morning, I was writing in my prayer journal at one of the lounge’s tables there, per my usual routine post-workout, and someone else sat in that area.

We accidentally made eye contact, he started a conversation, and before I knew it we were talking about Bible Translation, his church experience, and there were just several things about the conversation that were timely and ordained.

To top it all off, he used to work at the gym, so the staff that I was praying about how to engage, he knows them and also knows he’s going to have to explain himself to them when I left because all they saw was him having a 30min conversation with a regular who reads in the mornings. So… I don’t know what’s next, but by the end of the day the staff will have heard about my faith through this other man I met.

A very cool answer to prayer, and I pray it’s only the beginning at my Planet Fitness.

I have been praying for my neighbor, specifically for me to show her the unconditional love of Jesus especially when it might be inconvenient for me and my plans. 

God has given me 4 opportunities recently for this to happen. He has also redeemed my time twofold. 

Tonight she told me that my friendship and time has reconnected her to God. She also said she feels God had us move across the street from her for that very purpose. 

I am so grateful God has answered my prayers for my neighbor.

In 2013, Zach and I took a 2 week mission trip to Asian Christian Academy in India.  We flew into the city of Bangalore and stayed on campus near Hosur.  We went with Neil and Vela Tomba as well as a few others from Northwest.  

Fast forward to September, 2021.  I now have four children and we are all at [a] playground near their elementary school.  I strike up a conversation with […] another mom there with her pre-school age daughter.  By her accent and mannerisms I quickly can see she is from India.  When I asked her where she was from she told me she and her husband moved here two years ago from Bangalore, India.  When I tell her I visited Bangalore in 2013, her face lit up!  

**Need to note here, that about this time is when I started a Moms in Prayer group and we began meeting once a month after morning drop off to pray for the school, staff,  and our children. 

[This mom] and I became friends and she fit into our “playground gang” group of moms who frequent the park after school.  Around December 2021, [she] asked us moms as we stood around watching our children, “What is Christmas about?  This is all new to me.” 

Along with me, the other moms are Bible believing Christians.  We took turns sharing the story of Jesus’ birth.  [She] shared that like many children growing up in Bangalore, she attended Christian grade school and boarding school while her parents remained nominally Hindu.  

It was at this time I was inspired to host The Jesse Tree Project and invite [my new mom friend].  “Sometimes I leave the 99 to go after the one.” Is what I heard in my head.  Hosting this project was a leap of faith.  In a big way, it was all for [her], but I also had to convince 22 other moms to participate!  Not to mention, it wasn’t a given that [she] would want to do it at all.  But I kept hearing from the Lord, “I’ve got my heart set on her, I leave the 99 to go after the one.” 

The prayer and planning for this started in the summer of 2022.

Each step in planning the project and hosting the 2 gatherings at my house, God was so present and provided each detail.  I was not alone, I got exactly the number of women I needed to make the project a success.  Everyone contributed and did their part!

[The woman] was glowing at the first meeting.  She chose Jacob’s Ladder.  As the meeting was coming to an end, she thanked me and told me that I remind her of the nuns in the convent in India teaching at her school growing up.  I knew this was high praise, and I treasure this compliment today.  

The final gathering party in November was the exchange.  [She] was there and at the very end of the night, she thanked me again and then eagerly said, “Can we keep doing this??” 

I invited her to join our Moms in Prayer group.  Her daughter is now in kindergarten at our elementary school.  She enthusiastically said yes.  On January 11, she joined us for our first meeting of the year!  She mostly listened solemnly, and this meeting was a big one since I needed to go through the Statement of Faith to prepare to make our group official and register us on the Moms in Prayer International website.  

Her prayers for her daughter […] were full of thanksgiving and child-like wonder.  

I haven’t heard [my friend] make a personal declaration of faith yet, but she is with us I count her as “added to our numbers” !  And she has blessed me and encouraged me and I am so grateful she is praying for me and my kids! 

And I am amazed at how God had [this particular mom] in mind for all of this back in 2013 when I boarded that plane for Bangalore! 

Thank you, Church for your faithful prayers!

My co-worker in New Jersey has been curious about my faith for 20 years!  This year she opened the Adventure Bible I gave her children (now 20 years old) and has made her way to ACTS!! She read about Pentecost yesterday and asked me to help get her baptized! Baptized with the Holy Spirit she made clear!!!

Praise the sovereign Lord!!!!

I am a Christian content creator that talks ALL the time on social media about my past trauma, mental health issues, and sin issues that I’ve been healed and delivered of and God has allowed me to grow a platform of over a hundred thousand followers. 

Because of this, [a news outlet] reached out to me because they possibly want to do a video of me/my story. For the first part of this, I was on a phone call with a woman … who isn’t a Christian.

I got to share with her my testimony, and she asked me all of the hard questions you can think of. My views on abortion, homosexuality, modesty, pre-marital sex, all the things. The Holy Spirit spoke through me with all of these questions and she seemed SO intrigued and wanting to know more! I’m praying that the seed I planted blooms into her salvation!

I’m a pediatric physical therapist who treats people and families with all backgrounds. Lately, I’ve been in conversation with a caregiver who happens to be Muslim. Months back I had an opportunity to speak about Jesus and ask what she needed prayer over, which included finances. The next time I went back, I gave her a monetary gift stating, “just as I give this to you with no strings attached, Jesus Christ loves you no strings attached.” Following these interactions, I’ve continued to be in prayer for her, but not having an opportunity to speak and have conversation. That changed today … when the Lord allowed me to speak about the significance of Christ as Lord and why he’s not just a prophet, the significance of the cross, the Bible and why He means so much to me. I then prayed for and over her right there in that moment. She asked where I went to church and if she would be accepted. I then explained, “come as you are.” I then made sure she had my cell phone number, the location of Northwest Bible and the service times. I informed her that my wife would be singing this Sunday (she knows about [my wife] being pregnant and always asks about her) and said I would love to have you there sitting next to me. She seemed very interested!!

I am continually trying to practice spiritual transparency with my friend. In the midst of her hurting from a fellow Christian I apologized for how so many of us continue to sin and make mistakes that hurt others. I was also able to share (later in a separate topic) about what I am learning about God lately reading the chronological Bible.

I had prayed the day before for 1) God to give me an opportunity to talk to someone about Jesus, 2) For The Lord to help me to be aware when Jesus sends someone across my path. (Enable me to see the opportunity), 3) Help me, empower me, embolden me so I wouldn’t be nervous— that I will not believe the lies that try to stop me, 4) make me sensitive to others around me.

Our painter, who I have known for 4 years, was painting the outside of our house. We were talking about work to be done and he mentioned dropping off a sample on Sunday. Then, he said that he remembered from last week that we would not be home on Sunday morning bc we would be at church. ([The painter] and I had had a very brief conversation just the weekend before about him wanting to work on Sunday and I had said that’s God’s day of rest. I told him he needed to test that day. He said it was fine, and he could go do some apartment work.)

I knew in that moment that this was the open door/ the opportunity that God was giving me to talk to [him]. So, I asked him if he went to church. We began a very long conversation about how he used to go with his wife, but now he has so much work to do he did not have time to go. He said it had been years. I asked what kind of church he attended and he told me he had gone to a Catholic church, but had gone one time to a community church years ago with someone. He talked about how he missed going and growing up his mother was very strict about going to mass (he grew up in Mexico). I asked him if he believed in Jesus and he said yes.  Then, I asked him if he knew he was going to heaven. He got very quiet and then said he did not know. I began talking to [him] about how he could know for sure that he was going to be in heaven one day with Jesus. And how God wants us to surrender to him everything — our hopes, our dreams, our pain, our stress, etc. and we ended up talking for over an hour about his upbringing and how his father left when he was little. The incredible stress he was under and how he worried about his divorced son and 2 granddaughters. I could see the stress on his face and the burdens he was carrying as he put his hands on his head. I told him that Jesus did not want him to carry those burdens and how I have tried to carry burdens in my own life as well. I explained we are all human and we all sin and fall short and that’s why we need a savior who offers forgiveness of sins and can restore us. Told him in surrendering to Jesus Christ, we can give all those heavy burdens to Him. And, Christ will strengthen us through His power to get through hard things as we lean on Him and how we can find incredible freedom in living in Jesus. We can have an abundant life.  And, once we accept Christ as our savior, (which is a gift from God that can’t be earned), we will live with Him in heaven eternally.  

[He] then said he wanted to go back to church & take Sundays off. I explained to him that in my own personal life, I have never wasted a moment when I spent time reading my Bible, journaling in my prayer journal or simply setting aside quiet moments to just sit & rest in Jesus’s presence. When I set aside other things to be with Jesus & put Him first, that time always reaped multiple rewards in my life and gave me a great peace in my life.   

In this conversation with [my painter], God made me aware of the pain in the world. That we all carry great burdens and you never know what’s truly the story with someone until you take the time to stop, be present and ask. 

I invited [him] and his wife to church with our family this week. He told me that he was already committed to working at the apartments this weekend. But, he was going to stop working on Sundays after this week and go back to church.  He seemed to have hope & like a burden was lifted. I then gave him several tracts I had in Spanish & English and gave a few trick or treat tracts for his granddaughters. He was very excited to give them to his granddaughters because he said they don’t go to church at all. Then, he added, I think I will start taking them with my wife to church.  

I could see the wheels turning in [this man’s] head.  The stress on his face from earlier seemed to melt away as if God was already filling him with a renewed spirit.   

[He] speaks a mix of Spanish & English, but the Holy Spirit was definitely working in our conversation as he understood everything I said during that time. 

I will be praying for [him] over the weeks and months ahead. I pray he will find peace in Christ and that he will give all his heavy burdens over to Jesus. I am also so thankful that I was able to put my busy agenda aside and do what The Lord was asking of me (which happened to be the most important thing in my day).

I was reading at Starbucks, and someone stopped by my table to ask what I was reading. I shared the title (Saturate by Jeff Vanderstelt) and said that it was about living in community and letting the word of God shape our lives, and the lady said “Oh, that’s not something I’d ever read.”

Not missing a beat, I asked what sort of things she reads, and we talked about her interests for a while before she circled back and said that she was surprised by my non-reaction to her anti-religeous comment/stance. Her experience has been people trying to proselytize her away from Atheism and not being able to see each other as people first. I think we each surprised one another in the non-stereotypical responses between Christian and Atheist.

So, I’ve been wanting to have surprisingly easy to start conversations about Jesus at my new job, and God provided an opportunity.

At my workplace, there is a cafe, which almost everyone goes to for lunch. I have tried to get to know the people who serve us and say hi to them every day even if I don’t order anything. On Monday, I got in line to get lunch, and when I got to the front, I asked [one of the servers] how he was doing. He said he was having a bad day, so I asked what was going on.

[He] said that his father was in surgery at that moment, and that he didn’t think he was going to make it. An organ had exploded, and his heart had stopped twice. And the doctors weren’t sure what could be done. I listened as [he] poured out his heart and his anxiety and his pain. He opened up about the trauma he had received and his strained/estranged relationship with his father.  

I asked [him] if he would mind if I prayed for him. He said he would appreciate prayer and that he tried to pray himself (I think he is from a Catholic background). We walked over to the side of the counter, and I put my hand on his shoulder and prayed for him, for his dad, and the doctors. When we finished praying, [his] boss walked up to us. [He] said that I had gotten him emotional, but that he needed to leave work early to see his dad in the hospital. 

After getting my food, [the server’s] boss asked if I would send him an email to let him know what happened. I explained what had happened – his dad is dying; I listened and asked if he wanted prayer; he said yes; and I prayed for him. [The man’s boss] was a bit stunned, but when I asked if he would still like me to email him, he said it wasn’t necessary.

[The server’s] dad lived on Monday and last I heard was going to make it (albeit with a long recovery time). But, I was really surprised by the reactions I got later….

At the end of the day, I had actually forgotten about lunch. It had been a crazy busy day, and I was leaving work a bit frustrated.  As I left in the elevator, a woman (who is a Christian) said she really appreciated what I had done for [the server].  She was also aware of [his] situation and had given her phone number to him if he needed anything. But she encouraged me for making a difference and that she was glad I had prayed for him.

The next day, I had a message on Teams from [the server’s] mom, whom I’ve met because she also works at the same company in a different department. She thanked me for praying for her son.

And, when I went down for lunch later, I saw [the server].  I asked how his dad was doing, and how he was doing.  That’s where I got the status update. 

[The boss] was at the cash register, and he said my lunch was comp’d and thanks for helping [his employee].  I protested a bit – saying, it was just the right thing to do. Still, free lunch wasn’t bad.

Later in the day, my boss came up to my office and said that I was the subject at lunch. That the people who work in the cafe were amazed that I had prayed for [the server], and that it meant a lot to them. That in a hospitality culture, there is a focus on serving guests but not showing employee’s problems or praying in public. [The server’s] boss had apparently wanted to do something for him, but didn’t know what to do. Everyone seemed really appreciative that I had prayed for him. My boss, also a Christian, said I did a good job.

I just wanted to share this story because in the midst of our conversations in a hostile culture series, it hit me that yes, there are times and places where sharing Jesus leads to suffering. Walking with Jesus is HARD. But, there are also times and places where the world yearns for and appreciates when Christians step out to care and love on others. And sometimes our conversations might affect more than just the folks with whom we converse.