It had been a hard day up until that moment. My stomach was hurting from something I had eaten, and I had a rough tear-jerking phone call a few hours before. As some of the team was headed to the mall bathroom, I followed behind so I could splash water on my face. Two teammates stayed behind with the backpacks. One was just going to wait and use the bathroom, but I thought, “I don’t really have to go. I can just wait and watch the bags.” So I switched places and sat on the chairs outside next to a young girl.
I was slightly hesitant because she had a distant look on her face, and I feared I didn’t know enough Tagalog and she didn’t know English. But as I sat there, I felt this pull in my stomach—the Holy Spirit telling me to talk to her. Then the teammate next to me encouraged me to talk to her. I sat for another minute working up some courage when the Spirit urged me to “just do it.” With that, I started talking to her, using the little Tagalog I knew in my first few phrases. She responded in English to the questions, so then I instantly became relieved. Being able to understand each other became a whole lot easier.
I was really thankful that we could communicate even though at times there were moments of awkward confusion. In those times, we started laughing, then went on trying to communicate by slower speech or with hand signals. In the beginning, her responses were really short, but then, all of a sudden, I asked how I could pray for her. She sat there for probably a good minute or two, and just when I didn’t think she was going to answer, she quietly mentioned, “Pray for my family, because it’s broken.” I thought to myself, “Wow—that took a lot of courage and vulnerability to say something like that. I haven’t met many people that would share that kind of thing with a stranger.” But in her saying that, I knew the Lord had guided me right where I needed to be. I knew that the Lord would use me.
I asked her, “Can I share my story with you?”
She nodded yes, and I shared my testimony; I shared how my family was “broken” too, how I was angry at myself, angry at my family, and angry at God, and how He healed me, all of it. How God gave me peace, joy, comfort and love.
Now I opened the floor up to her, “Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Do you have a faith?”
She said, “Yes, I’m Roman Catholic.”
I asked, “Well, what does that relationship with Jesus look like?”
She said, “Oh, I just go to God and pray about everything.”
It was still a little awkward, when all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit really spoke.
“Share with her Titus 3:5,” the Holy Spirit seemed to whisper.
So I told her, “The Lord saved my life, and He really showed me that it was only by faith and by having a relationship with Him. Titus 3:5 says, ‘He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.’” I kind of broke it down and explained what that meant.
I told her that it is by faith that we are saved—not by good works. I continued, “Have you ever heard this before?”
She said, “No. Only by you.”
Immediately I felt like God was saying, “Okay, pull out your Bible and show the verses to her.” She spoke really good English, so I prayed she could also read the Bible in English. In such a short time, it was like we had become instant friends and had known each other for a long time.
We kept talking. I pulled out my Bible and showed her Titus 3:5. I re-read it and showed her exactly where it was in the Bible.
Then I said, “Here’s another one- Ephesians 2:8-9: ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’”
We talked a little more about that. We prayed together. Then I asked her, “When did your family break up?”
She said, “When I was seven.”
I got a little giddy at this because it was amazing to see how my story related to someone else and at the same age. I managed to keep a straight face and said, “That’s crazy- me too.”
She also smiled at this, and we giggled a little bit. It may have seemed like a crazy coincidence, but our meeting each other was divine intervention. We got to hug each other goodbye, and I believe we both left a lot happier than when we first sat in those chairs outside of the bathroom.
So we had a lot of similarities in common. I feel like the Holy Spirit definitely worked. He pulled me toward her, and God definitely guided me, even when I was down, even when I couldn’t feel Him; because He’s still working, continuously and always.
That was definitely a very encouraging God moment. The Lord really supported me in that conversation. I had been so worried she didn’t speak English, or that I couldn’t speak Tagalog well enough.
But a little bit went a long way, and the Lord, and the Holy Spirit, really worked. A seed was planted because He saw potential even when I couldn’t.
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