Adriana was a new student in my TUMI class. As I do with most new students, I asked her to share her testimony. When she started, her story seemed very familiar to me, and before long, I knew World Impact was part of it.
Adriana told us that she trusted in Jesus when she was about eight years old. Her mother was on drugs so she would let her kids run the streets and did not expect them back until evening. With this “freedom,” Adriana began getting in trouble, but she also started hanging out at a storefront church and ministry.
As she continued her story, she articulated her love for the people who shared Bible stories with her, played games and took her to camp. She described the camp as having huge tee pees. She lost contact with the ministry after a while and became caught up in the street life and fell away from Jesus. Adriana started using drugs, dropped out of school, and had several children.
About two years ago, Adriana became fed up with her life. She declared to her husband she was going to follow Jesus like she did as a kid and was going to find a church to start going to that very morning. The first church she came across was City Heights Assembly of God, which hosts one of our TUMI classes. She walked into worship, was touched by Jesus and has not looked back since.
As she finished her testimony, she exclaimed that she sure wished she remembered who those people were so she could thank them for sharing Jesus with her. At the point where she started talking about the camp and the tee pees, I knew we were the people she was talking about. She was touched by one of our church ministries. She was so excited to hear this! She is now an emerging church leader and taking TUMI classes.
We are so blessed to be part of Adriana’s life again. At the age of eight, she trusted in Jesus through a World Impact church plant and now she is involved with us again through TUMI 17 years later. Sometimes we can get so frustrated and impatient in ministry and forget that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord! It is a reminder to be in it for the long haul and never give up.
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