“Okay guys, have you finished writing your questions? What are they?” I asked my newest class of teenage Brazilians. Whenever I begin teaching a new group, I always like to let the students ask questions about me, as it helps put them at ease and builds rapport. Plus, I let them try to guess the answers, which always provides a lot of laughs.
I listened now as they called out their questions, most of them like all the other questions I had heard from previous classes. “What do you do in your free time?” “Why did you become a teacher?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” Then suddenly: “What religion are you and why?” Butterflies fluttered into my stomach. No one had ever asked me this in class before, and I was excited and nervous, especially as I knew that the majority of my students were not Adventists. I wasn’t even sure how many of them were Christians. What and how much should I say?
Help, God! I breathed silently. “What do you guys think?” I smiled, continuing with our guessing game.
“Well, this is an Adventist school . . . so, are you Adventist?” one of the
girls ventured.
“Yes,” I replied. “I was born into an Adventist family, but when I was a teenager I decided I didn’t want to be an Adventist just because my parents were. I needed to study the Bible for myself.” I told them about the times I went to church, to all appearances a good Christian girl, but without my heart being in it. I told them about my mother’s miraculous healing and how it had started me rethinking my spiritual life and my concept of God. I told them how I had studied the Bible and decided that I did actually want to be an Adventist after all.
“That’s a really cool story!” my students nodded as I finished. And then they continued to ask their other questions.
I ended up forming an unexpectedly close bond with this group. It is my heart’s desire—and, I know, the desire of God’s heart—to be able to meet them all in Heaven someday. I don’t know exactly what impact my story had on them, but I trust the promise in 1 Corinthians 15:58 (The Message): “Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.” If God can use my story and my influence in any way to draw my students to Him, then it will be one of the happiest accomplishments of my life.
