Hailing from Guatemala, Miguel and Laura G. (pictured here) are an extension of our Gospel Advance team as they serve the Iranian refugee community in Greece. Miguel shares how God is using them to help precious and desperate people discover new life in Christ.
Arturo, Sonia, and their little one, Alan, are a family from Iran that we began visiting in January. They are under a lot of stress and live in constant fear.
The ministry we work with here has been providing them with basic needs so that they can live in Greece. They don't speak much English, so with our Iranian brother's help, we started to approach them. And step by step, we have built a friendly relationship by visiting them at the small apartment where they live.
On our first visit, we asked them if we could tell them a story from the Bible and pray for them, to which they agreed. Now, they come to our apartment once a week. Each time we meet, we learn and study a Bible story.
This time has been wonderful because these stories, while they may be very familiar to us, for them are often entirely new.
When we shared the Creation story, Arturo told us that he had never heard before about how God created everything and did it in only seven days.
When Sonia heard the two stories from the first chapters of Genesis, she asked with a look needing an answer. "How can we go back to live in the perfect way God created everything in the beginning?"
Since they have suffered so much, the answers they need for comfort and hope, we know, can be found only in God's Word. And how beautiful it is when they can discover these answers for themselves in the Bible stories.
There have been days when they feel overwhelmed and emotionally heavy. There are even times when they come and don't want to talk; they sit and cry, and we just sit with them. We know we can't do anything for them, but when we study God's Word and pray together, at the very end, they have a big smile on their face, expressing to us that they are feeling much better. And that is just what God's Word can do for all of us.
A week ago, Arturo and Sonia decided to surrender their lives to Jesus. It is indescribable the change that Jesus Christ is making in our new brother and sister's lives. Just by looking at their faces, we can see that they are new people in Christ.
The situation is still complicated for them, but now they smile more, knowing that they rest in the Lord.
Please pray for Arturo and Sonia to grow in their newfound faith. Also pray that many families like them will find Christ in the midst of their suffering.