By Abbi Hartzler, Salt Company Summer Missionary,
This summer, my friend Coco became a believer. I first met her at an international student festival that our university held, and we talked for a bit, super nice girl who had almost perfect English. Then she sees Nate (a boy on our team) and chose to go sit by him. Nate is kind of annoyed but is still nice to her, and they exchange information. Fast forward about five weeks, Nate and Aaron want to read with their friend George, but last minute he invites his friend, and it happens to be Coco! At first, Nate and Aaron were very discouraged, but she wanted to read the Bible too, so they read for a while, and Coco ended up being very interested. She asked lots of questions, and her story was similar to Aaron’s testimony. Later that week, they grabbed dinner again, and my ministry partner got to go with, and have more deep conversations about God and the Bible. One of our final days in our city, all four of us, plus Coco got lunch. After, we asked her if she wanted to read the Bible with us again. She asked me if I was also a Christian, and I said I was and got to explain how believing in Jesus changed my life. We decide to read John 4, the woman at the well, and we dive into the Word for about two to three hours, explaining to her things, and asking her meaningful questions. She wanted the living water. She struggled with finding her satisfaction in boys, and she has experienced feeling constantly unsatisfied. She said she wanted the living water and said that she now wants to believe in Jesus for the rest of her life. At first, she thought she had to read the entire Bible or get a paper signed at a church, but we got to explain to her that the beauty of the gospel is that it is nothing that we do, but all the Jesus did.
God also did so much in my own life as well. Overall, I learned the sovereignty of God, and what it means to have real faith. I am someone who values control; I value clarity, knowledge, and information about my future. When I am in control, I feel “good” because I can, at some level, know what is going to happen. In China, however, I had no control really at all. I had no idea what was going on. I just knew that I was supposed to love others and make disciples. In that, so many times I wanted to be the one to “save my friend”, but I am not in control. I wanted to choose how well our friends spoke English, but again, I am not in control. So many little things too, where I noticed that I was not trusting God in certain areas. I realized that whatever will give God the most glory, is what He will allow and carry out. I need to trust and have faith in that. I learned to trust in God’s timing, His decisions, and the people He surrounded me with. He is sovereign over everything and I am not. That takes so much pressure off of myself; now I can be present in the moment, not worrying about the future as much as I do. I can live free from my sin, and when I obey God and give glory to Him in everything, then I know that that is al that I can do. Jesus did the rest for me on the cross. I want to live by this here in America, trusting God daily, and knowing his faithfulness/being faithful myself.
