“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8, ESV).

We sat next to D at lunch at our annual Albanian mission conference. She told us her story, “I am a second year student in nursing. My nursing school friend, Paula, is a Christian, and she has been encouraging me to go to church for two years. She got me to come to the conference last year. When Dr. Johnston spoke and told me about his son who had leukemia, I just started crying. On the way back to Fier in the van, Paula led me to Christ. I was baptized in the river on Christmas day.”

N stopped me in the conference hall: “You know I became a Christian this past year. I have been coming to the conference for four years. The first year I sat in the farthest back. The next year I came to the middle. Then, last year I came to the front. I intellectually decided Christianity was right and planned to do the right things, but I didn’t do them. Then I went to a March conference in Pogradec. There I really felt the desire to surrender to Christ, and I did.”

What a blessing to see what God is doing.

I learned some things when I listened to these two lost-then-found children of God share the story of their transformations.

I grew up thinking most people came to Christ through an abrupt encounter at church or evangelical crusades. However, I suspect that most, like these two students, come to Christ through multiple encounters with different people and events where Christ is introduced much like a sculpture would introduce a masterpiece by chipping away the dead rock that encases it. And then, one whom God calls into a determined relationship, or one who speaks the compelling message, brings the lost person home. Through all of this, it is the Sculpture Himself, the Holy Spirit, who truly accomplishes the transformation.

And so, where do I fit in? My place with the lost may be the one whom God has chosen to dedicate my prayers, actions and words to finally bring them home, or it may be as one who speaks a word from the Lord in passing, or I may serve as a scaffold to support the church or mission that surrounds the witness. Praise God for His grace in giving me any role in His great act of redemption. May I prove to be faithful.

Dear Father,

Thank you for giving me a part in your great story in any way you choose.

Amen