Walking to Church

One Saturday morning, our church had a men's breakfast. 

I decided to do something I'd never done before: I decided to walk to church instead of drive. (It's about 7 kilometres.)

Something else I'd never done before: I took my Cebuano-language New Testament off the bookshelf and put it in my back pocket. 

When I got about halfway or more, on that sunny morning, I said to the Lord, "I really want to do your will". 

Straightaway I felt the Lord answer, "Okay, turn up that street".

I crossed the road and turned up the next side street.

There was a young woman washing-down a caravan parked on the kerb, and I stopped to talk. 

I soon realised she was a Filipina. As it turned out, she was from a remote part of the Philippines - from a village I happened to visit many years ago. And her language was Cebuano. So we talked in her language (as best I could) for the rest of the conversation.

She told me she'd only just arrived in Australia, and hadn't had a chance to meet anyone yet. She'd only just gotten married - and her husband had been speaking roughly to her, she said. So she was feeling misunderstood, vulnerable and very alone. 

I listened and sympathised as she poured out her distress. We talked a short while. I got the Cebuano New Testament out of my pocket, and desired to comfort her.

(I don't think she had any idea what the odds were of the first person she would properly meet being a Cebuano-speaking Aussie who had been to her remote village and who happened to have a New Testament in her language in his pocket. But she was expressing herself uninhibitedly in Cebuano - like that's just what we do on the streets of Broadbeach, Qld!) 

By now she was feeling noticeably relieved. I invited her to our church's Filipino service the following day.

Next day she turned up, all nicely dressed for church. The women in the church hugged her and loved her - and our Filipino Pastor at the time led her in a prayer to receive JESUS Christ as her personal Lord and Saviour, and comforter and friend. 

I don't remember exactly how I got home from the men's breakfast after that, but I don't think I ended-up needing to walk home. But it doesn't matter! 

When you consciously make yourself available to do God's service, that's when He can speak to you.

"...when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I” (Exodus 3:4).