Last week, I was talking with my neighbor, Norma, who lives near us in Monterrey, Mexico. She told me of the story of a teenage boy who stopped at her home to ask her where “the Americans” live. Wanting to protect the privacy of the Back2Back American staff living nearby, she continued talking with him, attempting to find out his reason for wanting to find our campus. She discovered that the boy was a classmate of one of the teens in the Back2Back Hope Program. He was on his way to the Back2Back campus, so that they could work on homework together.
Our neighbor gave him directions. After an hour, he returned.
“Did you find your friend?,” she asked him. “How did your study time go?”
This innocuous question led to a deeper conversation than Norma had anticipated. He quickly divulged that when he first arrived at the Back2Back campus, he was carrying a lot of burdens. But once he walked through our front gate, he said that he felt different, like something had been lifted from his shoulders.
Later, after Norma had relayed this story to me, she said, “You know, Cathy, I’ve felt something different there too.”
It was the perfect opportunity to share with her, that I thought that “something different” was the Holy Spirit. It gave me a chance to talk with her about the abundant life that Jesus offers.
“We receive the Holy Spirit as a free gift when we ask Jesus to come into our lives,” I said.
She was intrigued but not quite ready to ask Jesus into her life. Please pray with me that God would continue to draw her closer to Him and one day bring her to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, the one that makes a difference.
Norma (in the pink shirt) standing with her family