From Discouragement to Hope
As we start this wonderful New Year, I want to share an encouraging story from one of my colleagues in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region.
The story begins with a Master Trainer’s disappointment about a modified training that she restarted after the COVID-19 shutdown. It did not seem that the training had produced any results. However, God showed her later that even a student who had not completed the training was bearing fruit, much fruit, abundant fruit. Fruit of which she had no knowledge! As always, please feel free to photocopy this story and share it prayerfully with your friends and relatives.
Here is an encouraging story of how your support enables us to facilitate training for youth so that they can share the love of God with those that He has placed in their path. These efforts are constantly creating environments that foster transformation and change lives.
Trainings in MENA (Middle East North African) region had to cease for a while due to COVID-19. Later, the Master Trainer in the region decided to restart training with smaller groups of 5-7 trainees. Peter (not his real name) who was among the first to attend, did not complete the training. However, he learned the principles of CHE. Two years later, at a conference (not a CHE event) the Master Trainer met Peter. Peter introduced his friends to the Master Trainer, as the one who had invited him to the CHE training that had changed his life and helped him to change the lives of others.
Peter’s story is fascinating. After his incomplete training, he decided to put into action some of the things he had learned. He took a small portion of the money he had set aside for aid to widows, to use it to give out as loans instead. The first struggling widow he gave a loan to had three children, the youngest of whom was around 3 years old. This child saw a banana in the shop and asked what it was. His mother told him it was something to eat. She promised him that she would get him bananas someday. When she went home, she wept before the Lord, prayed, and asked Him what to do.
All this happened just before Peter decided to ask the widow if she wanted to take a loan! She immediately agreed and later shared with Peter that she believed it was the Lord’s direct answer to her prayer. Later, with the first money she earned, she bought bananas for her child! She said to him, “Thank God, for He is the one who provided the money to buy them.”
This experience not only changed Peter but his CHURCH’S SERVICE POLICY. They started to help people in need, not by handing out alms, but by giving them loans to start small businesses. The Master Trainer rejoiced that her God used even an incomplete training to transform lives. And that is what God does. Nothing that we do for His glory and honor is ever wasted!
So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. ~Isaiah 55:11
