When Your Words Came, I Ate Them

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight…

Recently Angeline invited us to her home because she wanted to share how Christ had changed her life.  Eleven years ago, Angeline was living in darkness, as she puts it.  Brewing and other wrong ways of bringing in money were part of her lifestyle.  She had many children to put through school and did not see any other way to earn money.  But she was unhappy with her lifestyle and tried to leave it.  She cried out to God for help.  About that time, a Tabitha Bible study began in her area.  Angeline had rejected the Christians who had visited her at other times to share Christ with her.  But the Bible study intrigued her and she began to attend.  Almost immediately she learned the seventeen verses necessary to earn a Bible and received her own Bible.  Having completed two years in high school, she could read well and eagerly read God’s Word.  As she shared her testimony with us, she shared the verse from Jeremiah 15:16,  When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty.

Angeline sang, “That God Should Love a Sinner Such as I”

The Lord changed her heart and her lifestyle in the months that followed, showing her other ways to make a living with the land that she owned.  Her neighbors were amazed to see the change in her, and to see how God provided for her to be able to put her children through secondary school, and some through college.  She gave God praise, quoting 2 Corinthians 5:17. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

Three of Angeline's daughters, on the left, have come to know Jesus, too.

Julie Ganey, Center Leader Monica, Peris, Leaders Alice and Grace, Angeline, Linda

Alice and Grace have been teaching Bible studies for ten years in Angeline’s community. We thank God for leaders who faithfully teach God’s Word, week after week, year after year, because they love the Lord Jesus and have a passion to see lives changed like Angeline’s. Thank God that He changes lives as we meet Him in His Word.  Pray that each of us would eat God’s Word with joy and delight.

A Faithful Leader

Having married into a family who brewed the local alcohol for a living, Florence was used to attending a church on Sunday mornings, only to come home and return to her brewing.  Church had little meaning for her. Some years into her marriage, her father-in-law died. A new Bible-believing church had begun nearby and they reached out to the family in their grief.  As a result, Florence came to understand the salvation message and gave her life to Jesus Christ.

God changed her life and very soon after, she began teaching other women the Word, gifted by the Holy Spirit in making biblical truths clear.  About that time, a Tabitha women’s Bible study was begun in her neighborhood, and she began attending.  Within a year, her gifts were recognized and she became the main teacher for the weekly study.

Florence with five of her nine children

Florence thanks God for the change in her life and in her family through the study of God’s Word.  She left brewing and God has helped her flourish in her gardening and small business so that her family is well cared for.  There is peace in their home, and the children are growing up to fear and love God.  Twelve years since her conversion, she continues to faithfully teach God’s Word and live it out. 

Betty and Florence

The day Peris and I visited Florence, our friend Betty, who came to know Jesus in 2006 through the Bible studies, accompanied us.  Unbeknownst to Peris and me, Betty and Florence had been friends in their before-Christ days.  Betty always knew she could get a free drink from Florence on Sundays.  Praise God for the change he has brought into both of their lives and families since then.  The bond these women have in Christ goes beyond anything the world can give.

Florence is moving into top leadership in Tabitha in her area in May.  Pray she will be able to mentor other leaders and share with them her enthusiasm and skills in teaching God’s Word. Pray that each member of the studies will have their roots go down deeply into Christ as they study, meditate on and memorize God’s Word.