“What? My son is going along to a Church that doesn’t even meet in a proper church building! Heaven knows what they teach there? The Christians call out encouragement during the service?”
It seemed quite noisy and irreverent to me, and they all hugged one another! . . . . .
In 1993 I visited the Melbourne Church of Christ as my 19 year old son had begun attending there. I came along only to make sure he was safe. Tony began studying the Bible, and was baptised that same year.
I saw that Church is “the people.” I listened and evaluated what I learned and saw folks who actually took seriously and lived what they read in the Bible.
Could this be what I had been searching for?
They spoke of heart issues, and were open and honest about their lives, not like me trying to look and be soooo good.
My husband George reluctantly attended with me although he made church very uncomfortable for us by purposely being late, and communicating in an antagonistic way on sundays, driving in the car, then criticizing and questioning the service on the way home. It was extremely upsetting!
I was very sad and discouraged with our relationship. One Sunday he had a fit of anger at me in the car and dropped me at church and drove away. I had been coming to the
I vividly remember one morning as I read my bible, being verbally attacked by my husband, “My Mother thinks you read the bible too much, everyone thinks you are a religious cooke” etc. As he walked away I looked blurry eyed down at my bible and read 1Corinthians 16: 13-14,
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage; be strong, Do everything in love.”
George had a strong character and I had easily slipped into allowing him to speaking for me and taking charge over the years. This was my time to step forward and take a stand for God no matter what he did or said. It was so character building and as I studied, I became very determined and convinced of the Truth of the Bible.
I often read Jeremiah 17:7-9
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water, that sends its roots by the stream, it does not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green, it has no worries in the year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
This became my favourite !
My husband continued to come along and just sit there. It seemed that nothing was going in, but God was at work in his heart.
Godly women in my life encouraged me to just love him even while he was mean and difficult. I am so grateful for them as my tendency was to become sarcastic, and self righteous.
So many good hearted disciples did bible studies with him over the next 15 years ! ! !
I read James 1: 2-4
“Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance, perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
God had a special time in mind for George . . . . . . . . . . . .
In January, 2009 a family came to visit
In May George was passing a travel agent’s window and there was an ad for
Without knowing it we were stepping out into the most amazing, life changing two weeks of our life ! !
To see the hearts of the disciples there in Jakarta,how they lived and served God was eye opening. We were invited to join their bible discussion at the business office and also to a full house of 30 disciples and friends sharing dinner and bible discussion at their home.
We spent Saturday driving in a three car convoy, hours out of town, to study the Bible with a man who was in prison and wanted to study; it was so incredible to be all allowed into the prison. George was watching everything. The following morning as we awoke George’s first words to me were, “You know, Honey I have run out of excuses, I hear the things I say to people about why I am not a Christian and they sound stupid, I need to study the Bible when I get back to Melbourne and get baptised.”
I think I froze to the spot, hardly breathing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“I am so proud of you” was eventually my reply. We snuggled up, now we could be ‘soul mates’. We loved the sound of that!
Over the following ten days we spent in
God continued to flood our days with a never ending stream of unbelievable luxurious experiences, more than we could have dreamed or imagined (Ephesians 3: 20)
The generosity shown to us by our host through our two assigned angels (disciples in the church) in
On returning home to Melbourne George diligently studied the bible with Peter, Mark, and Louie, and two weeks later, on 12th July, 2009 he was baptised, making Jesus LORD of his life! The whole church was so excited, and emotional, what a celebration it was ! !
Many friends joined with the disciples to witness what was called . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“A Miracle in the
*Hebrews 13: 2
Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
If you have stories of courage and encouragement to share, please send them to us at nadine.templer@dtoday.net, meghna.thomas@dtoday.net, or elvi.levang@dtoday.net.
