Holy O-Zone

My husband has joined forces with one of our teachers who teaches alone instead of in a team for field trips. Now these students have adopted him as part of their class. One of them invited him to enjoy her membership at a new gym called Holy O-Zone, on the sixth floor of a new mall next to our campus.

The name is exactly what he experienced Sunday. It was like breathing Celestial Air!

Four of the students have become “The Four Musketeers.” These other four hang out together so they can keep talking English with one another. We met one of them, E, this past spring. He told my husband in a text message, "I want to see if this God is someone I can believe in, because I need something to believe in."

The four students, and many others, went with us Sunday to the English worship at a registered church we attend. We had lunch together with some heavy spiritual discussions. The message was Opposition produces Opportunity to spread the gospel. Think of that message in this context. The preacher is a very powerful speaker and a woman! She didn't waste any opportunity to declare the truth. They announced that in the afternoon service (one of four or five on the weekend) they would be baptizing 181 new believers.

My husband has wanted to see a baptism for some time. When I mentioned this at lunch to the four musketeers, they all decided to join him. The church was so packed they had to go downstairs where there was a huge video screen with close ups of the baptism.

You can imagine the questions that came from the four about all that they saw and heard and experienced. On the way home on the bus he asked one girl what she thought of it all. She said, "It's so much new information. I can't process it all." He suggested she should hit his stop button to keep him from telling her more. Then, a moment later, she asked another question. He said, "I thought I told you to hit the stop button." She replied, "But I just can't stop thinking about it all."

At that point he leaned over to her and whispered, "That's the Holy Spirit working in you!" Can you imagine knowing absolutely nothing about the gospel and suddenly having it all dumped on you in one day including a baptism service where 181 Chinese all profess their faith in Jesus Christ publicly! It was a bit overwhelming.

There was one more good Sunday connection. As we were leaving the morning service a young woman who looked a little familiar came running up, calling my husband by name. She had been a student in our classes in 2005. She was so excited to see him and told him her story. She graduated in 2009 and got a job teaching kindergarten age students. She got so frustrated having little kids around her eight hours a day. Once she told a child, "Go home to your mother and leave me alone".  She was so upset about her feelings that it showed in her demeanor. There was a foreign teacher in her school, a graduate of Moody in Chicago, who began to share the good news with her. In 2010, she believed and is now an active member of the church we visit each Sunday with our students.

Over lunch she sat with one of our current Moody student interns, a young woman about her age. They had a wonderful time sharing their life experiences, ending with a time of prayer together.  God at work. Some sow, some water, and He gives the increase.

Holy O-Zone.