“Love your neighbors” and your coworkers too

As newlyweds we blindly and faithfully moved to Houston from NYC exactly one year ago. We packed everything we could into a tiny truck and left everything else behind.  We had been called to reach Muslims with the Gospel and we had just enough to get us here. Once we got here it seemed that God had something else in mind.  When we first arrived we met other workers and were taking classes on apologetics, Bible history, etc and we were being prepared to share the Gospel with Afghan Refugees in the greater Houston area. While in these classes, we decided to work part time instead of raise support traditionally for our ministry. This seemed like a bad idea initially as we wanted to spend all of our time helping refugees and sharing but we persevered. After months of very little traction with our people group, we felt discouraged and spent many days praying for people with open hearts to come our way.  It seemed like our mission was failing and our friends quickly reminded us that it is God’s work more than any of ours. It’s not our clever words, our aspirations, our efforts that lead people to Christ but it’s his entire working in that persons life that is the driving force. His love for his people, his desire for them to be in relationship with him that leads people to repentance and salvation. We just had to be obedient and share when the Holy Spirit instructed us to do so and he would water the seeds. I (Alex) decided to focus on my part time job more than refugee ministry for a period of time once we finished our classes.  One day, as I was working at my job, a coworker told me there was something different about me and he wanted to know what it was. I went on to share my testimony and the Gospel with him as I stocked shelves. He was broken by the weight of the Gospel and he miraculously put his faith in Jesus that night and when I tell you a floodgate opened, it opened wide.  I was in awe to see what God was doing in my coworkers life and I wondered if this was an answer to prayer or an anomaly. “But I’m here to share with Muslims, not Americans” I selfishly thought to myself and God quickly reminded me of his heart for the nations and all people.  We prayed and asked God for clarity as we wanted to know what people group to pursue, Refugees or Americans. And he inaudibly responded, “all of them..”. Wow. What a game changer.  In my fleshly ignorance, I originally wrote off southerners as people who were over saturated with the Gospel and I told myself “everyone who lives in Texas has had to have heard the Gospel at one point or another so why bother with them”. Lord forgive my ignorance. Everywhere you go, whether small town USA or desolate desert village Middle East, there are lost people thirsting for living water, there are countless lost sheep in need of a Shepherd and God wants us to be obedient and share with them.  From that day we felt an overwhelming revelation that there is opportunity all around us, even right next door. In our neighborhood, in our workplaces and we started sharing with whoever we could. 1 profession of faith turned into 2, turned into 3, turned into 4. Turned into baptisms, turned into new workers. All praise be to Jesus, the only driving force of this work.  For the last 2-3 months we have focused on making disciples who make disciples. Teaching new believers to obey all that Jesus commands them as we see in the great commission. We felt a really strong call to gather as a church body, but my flesh discouraged me yet again. “This isn’t what we do in America.. we need a big building, a worship band, maybe some cool lighting and smoke machines?” But that’s what I was used to right?  The Bible is Countercultural, it always has been and it’s a tough pill to swallow. After much study and guidance, we found out we can actually do this. We can meet as the church in our small apartment and it is completely okay. We often hyper focus on what a church needs to be and we often forget what the beginning stages look like. A biblical church body begins with a group of believers who meet, break bread, pray together and commit themselves to biblical teachings. That’s the beginning.  Well here we are Houston, a 2 month old tiny home church with 7 regular attendees (3 new believers) and a pug named Lyla.  Following the will of God and the calling on our lives has been a journey of ups and downs and it has truly challenged everything I thought I knew about the body of Christ. We have had to deny ourselves, deny our fleshy ways and pick up our crosses daily, surrendering our will to the will of God and stay teachable. There are many details I had to withhold as there are not enough words to cover all God has done in our lives over the last 12 months.  I hope all of you reading this would be encouraged and know that you are not alone in the work. You are part of a large family who desire to see everyone be reconciled to God. Keep fighting the good fight and I pray blessings on all of your lives.