A Personal Encounter with Love

Our wonderful team goes out to work and serve in communities day in and day out, consistently making gradual, but impactful, differences in people’s lives. Here is the story of a single mother from one of our communities. Our team stopped and prayed with this mother and her children every week. The daughter gave her life to Jesus in October last year, and our team gave the family an audio Bible. She said they would fall asleep listening to the Bible every night and it encouraged them so much. The mother said her life had changed since knowing us and hearing about the love of Jesus, but she still didn’t have a faith of her own. We continued to build an ongoing relationship with her and her children, stopping and praying and talking with them every week. One week she shared with us that she has been having such a hard time and things had gotten so bad that she wanted to end her own life. She went to a bridge over the main river (a common place where people take their own life) and dangled herself over the edge ready to jump. She felt like something evil was trying to pull her down into the water. But in that moment she felt a Presence pull her back. She said it felt like arms wrapping around her and she was pulled back away from the edge of the bridge. She looked around and no one was there. She remembered what she had been told about the Love of Jesus and she knew it was Jesus who was pulling her back. In that moment she felt hope rise in her and she regained her will to live. It was the first time she discovered Immanuel - God with her in the here and now of her own life. When she shared this with us, she said she used to follow another god but now she wants to follow Jesus, because she felt His love for her that night. She had a personal encounter with Love, that is the start of her new life with Jesus Christ!