Stories - Page 65 of 83 - The Christian Heart

How Everyday People Live Out Their Christian Faith

Illustrating how men and women display their love for Jesus in their day-to-day lives.
Little things that may have an eternal impact. Might these stories motivate you to use your talents?

Adoption/Foster Care Children Mission Work
A NOT-SO-SHORT MISSION TRIP

My husband and I had finally finished the paperwork to adopt an American child. We discussed what we should do before becoming new parents. I had previously gone on several mission trips, and we decided to experience this together. Our church youth group was going to Haiti about six months after the massive 2010 earthquake. We had no practical or medical skills that could meet their needs but God was prompting us to go. I asked my husband, "What if our little boy is in Haiti?" But we both knew that would be crazy because we were prepared for a domestic adoption. On the first day of the trip, my eyes locked on a beautiful little boy, Izaiah. I can't explain it but I loved him immediately. He had tragically lost both his parents as an infant. We were told it would be impossible to adopt him since adoption of Haitian children had been completely closed because of the recent earthquake. But I loved him like my son, and so did my husband. God began making a way for us to move forward with pursuing the adoption of Izaiah. Doors started to open. But the journey was not without unbelievable trials. Paperwork that was supposed to be completed months prior had not been done. Numerous challenges came up that stalled the adoption. We wanted to preserve the special bond we had built with Izaiah so we thought I should stay in Haiti until the adoption was finalized. I ended up staying at the orphanage with… Read More

March 27, 2018
Financial Help Labor Loving Your Neighbor Overcoming Obstacles
HELPING IN TIME OF NEED

On the Sunday after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, I got up to go to church but I couldn't make it out of my driveway. I was stuck in my house for hours and saw television reports all morning about how fellow citizens were trapped in their houses with nowhere to go. I knew I had to do something. I decided we were going to use our two furniture stores as rescue shelters. We posted a video online and used our social media to tell people they were welcome to stay in our furniture stores as long as they needed. We let them sleep on our recliners, mattresses, sleeper sofas and couches. Some people couldn't make it through the flooded streets so we dispatched 10 of our trucks and rescued about 200 people trapped in their homes or stranded on the highways. We had over 600 people living in our stores. We've got a restaurant in each store so we cooked meals for them. We brought in portable showers. It cost some money to keep our stores open and for this furniture, but we can afford that. What we couldn't afford was to have these people lose hope. There was a lot of heartbreak caused by this hurricane. Being together during this time was helpful for all of us. People didn't feel like they were on their own. My parents always told me that you can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips, and I try to live that way. And I will until I’m no longer around. So I've got a… Read More

March 23, 2018
Mission Work Verbalizing the Gospel
THE HEART TO PERSEVERE

The Bible says it won't be easy to follow Jesus, that we'll be subjected to ridicule and scorn. I have sure experienced this throughout my life. When I decided to give my life completely to Christ thirteen years ago, this was strongly challenged by the people closest to me, especially my parents. "Why move to a different church?" "Why give your tithes when we are also in need?" The questioning was constant. The church I joined in the Philippines had very few members and rented a small space where the ceilings and walls needed significant repairs. Despite insulting remarks from people, I didn't allow anything to stop me from inviting everyone to come to church and worship Jesus. I held on tightly to God's word in Joshua 24:15 that says, "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." I knew we would be serving the Lord together one day. I had to endure the times my parents kept rejecting God and my faith. But after five long years of praying incessantly and patiently ministering to them, God finally broke down the walls of what was seemingly impossible. My family accepted Christ and are still serving the Lord today! Challenges remained as we tried to bring Jesus' message to others. I had led a team of young people on mission trips to various rural areas in the Philippines where people would yell at us and even throw buckets of water to drive us away. From a worldly standpoint, it was so difficult. But as a Christian, it… Read More

March 20, 2018
Hospital Mentoring Overcoming Obstacles
GOD’S TIMING IS AMAZING

When I look back on my life, I can see God's hands along every step, even when I experienced a rare brain tumor. Life was going along wonderfully. My wife, son and I had just adopted our 12 year old son from Colombia. I was doing well in my real estate job and even training for a marathon. One morning, I went out for a run and became extremely dizzy. If not for a park bench, I may have collapsed. I found my way home and thought it was just a chemical imbalance. But my wife convinced me to go to the ER. The MRI showed a tumor the size of a fist lodged in my brain. When the doctor said those words, I was devastated. It was causing my entire brain to be scrunched to one side. But by God's grace, it looked to be clear, meaning it was non-cancerous. Still, it was a very rare and large brain tumor. One of the country's top neurosurgeons performed my surgery, which was anything but smooth. There was a tremendous amount of hemorrhaging. He had to call his medical mentor in Europe for a consultation. I was in a medically-induced coma for two days while a team of neurosurgeons decided on a course of action. Four surgeries later, I'm a walking miracle. It took two months in the hospital and rehab before I was anything close to my normal self. I lost hearing in my left ear and still have some lingering imbalance, both somewhat common side effects with brain surgery.… Read More

March 16, 2018
Church Activities Verbalizing the Gospel
HITTING THE STREETS IN GHANA

As a pastor in Ghana, it pains me to see how few people follow or even know about Jesus. You can see it in the traffic patterns. During the weekdays, there's a lot of traffic in town whilst on weekends, there's very little traffic. A lot of people take their work more seriously than God.
But some others just haven’t heard the good news of Jesus. It struck me that only about 50% of the population of my region go to church regularly on Sundays. So I thought, how can we reach the other 50% to let them know how much God loves them and how much He yearns to fellowship with them? On 1st July, which was a public holiday in Ghana, my congregation hit the streets of Kaosa in what we called the Street Rhema. We shared the Word with everyone we met. We started in the township of Kasoa and went out to Kokrobite Beach. We were so surprised to find that some people had never heard the name of Jesus. We wore t-shirts and held placards with messages of hope. We played music along the streets of our town to draw people's attention to what we were doing. We had over 100 souls won to Christ that day. Most of them now go to church on a regular basis. One very important thing I learned from my father---until a soul grows to the point where he desires to bring others into the house of God, that soul has not been won completely. I believe the word of God… Read More

March 13, 2018
Children Labor Special Needs
WONDERFUL THEME PARKS

When God placed individuals with special needs on my heart back in high school, I had no way of knowing He was already preparing me for life with my daughter, Morgan. She has physical and cognitive special needs. Loving a child with special needs has taught me a lot about the fragility of life and how to see the world through a different lens. Just through her smiles and hugs, she is able to inspire others. I am blessed to have her in my life. And, she is the inspiration behind everything I do. After I retired at an early age, I felt called to provide services for the special needs community based on our own experiences with Morgan. I learned early on that Morgan is one of the lucky ones when it comes to having access to medical care. It is costly and difficult, and many of those in the special needs community simply do not have the ability to get their children the help they need. I wanted to develop things and places that would make their lives better and help them feel included. I developed Morgan's Wonderland, the first fully inclusive and ultra-accessible family fun park, after a personal experience. I was with Morgan in a pool one day where other children were playing. When Morgan tried to play ball with these children, they ran off. As a parent, I recognized the hurt and confusion in my daughter's eyes. Because of this incident, I started thinking about where I could take her to play with children where everyone would feel… Read More

March 9, 2018

Browse all categories

Adoption/Foster Care 38

Church Activities 60

Financial Help 18

Loss Of Loved One 40

Loving Your Neighbor 67

Mission Work 52

Overcoming Obstacles 119

Prison Ministry 12

Senior Citizens 22

Special Needs 47

Unique Ministries 170

Verbalizing the Gospel 77

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