An Unworthy Testimony...

Avriel had just finished putting the stamps on the thank you cards for those that gave to SALT.  (I only had to carefully remove and reposition one of them.)

Within each envelope is a handwritten note from the student that supporter sent to SALT with some pretty extraordinary testimonies of breakthroughs, rededications, roads to salvation, calls to missions, calls to reach fellow students, and more.  It made my heart happy as I folded each letter and carefully inserted it in the thank you cards and sealed them, but there were some I was not satisfied with and it all surrounded one student.

She was an African international student that went with us on full scholarship.  Let’s call her Esther.  Esther is from Rwanda.  She is friends with two of our amazing international students, Faith and Joyce.  She has been in our space and generally has hung around the fringes of the room keeping to herself.  She mostly comes to the fun stuff and deep conversations are not common.

At Salt, she went to the first service and after that disappeared, with the excuse that it seemed that everyone was not authentic.  Faith and Joyce prodded her to come and hang out and engage but she refused.  In the back of my head, I knew she had a supporter praying for her and I had to lean into that.

When we got back, I looked at the supporter list and realized that unlike any other student she had 4 supporters praying for her.  Why?  Because she was the last one that I funded and it took the money of 4 different supporters to do it.  I looked at Lana, the staff member that knows Esther best, and I told her.  “There were 4 people and their spouses praying for her this weekend.”  We had to conclude that God did something in that service and she decided to run from it because it seemed impossible with that much prayer that she felt and heard nothing.

On Friday night, we had a bowling night outreach that was crazy successful, but I was also surprised to see Esther show up.  She didn’t bowl.  She went to the back of the room and sat by herself, but someone sat beside her, not knowing her story or how we were praying.  It was a friend of ours that is a missionary to an unreached people group that is home raising support. Let’s call him Phil.

So almost all night Phil sat with her and conversed with her, and later I asked him how the conversation went.  He heard her story.  She grew up somewhat of a Christian and ended up with two very good Muslim friends.  While hanging out with them and talking religion, they all concluded that they believed in the same God.  Phil listened to her talk and at the end of the conversation, he said, “In the country I work in, all Muslims say the same thing, but I have to tell you that the Bible says that there is only one God and the only way to Him is through Jesus.”  He encouraged Esther to learn more about Christianity from Christians and not from Muslims, and she said she would.

I informed Phil that God was using him because she had been so closed off to all of us.

The next night, he went with his wife to the gym and two treadmills down from them was Esther, whom they had never see there before.

She is definitely being chased by God!

Back to my disappointment as I stuffed envelopes this evening.  Those of you that prayed for “Esther” will find a different testimony from another student in your envelope, and at first I considered Esther’s an unworthy testimony to thank the four of you for your prayers and giving, but what more worthy testimony is there than God using 4 precious people’s prayers from California, Minnesota, Missouri, and Utah to chase down the lost sheep…and using a missionary from the other side of the world to tell her that there is only one way to God.  He is infinitely wiser and more loving than us all.

I’ll let you know when she is found.