Service leads to salvation
They didn’t know it, but someone was watching the Nazarene students from the Nazarene Seminary of the Americas (SENDAS) in Costa Rica one Saturday as they gathered to pack clothes for people affected by violent storms in the Atlantic.
Nearly 80 students had come to study for ministry at the seminary at the same time that tsunamis and extreme rain and flooding damaged towns near the ocean. Roads had been destroyed and entire harvests were lost.
As the government evacuated people, and brought in medicine and food, the students gathered to help sort and package donations being received by the Costa Rica National Emergency Committee. Leila Ramírez, a student and director of Central District’s Compassionate Ministries organized the students and volunteers from local churches.
While they feverishly sorted, classified and boxed up packages of clothes, toiletries, toys and shoes, other volunteers and 25 policemen joined them.
But one person had been watching them all day. By the end of the day, he finally approached them to introduce himself as the chief of the security police force for the vice president of the Republic.
This colonel had noticed that the students were of different nationalities, so he asked which countries they were from and why they were in Costa Rica. During the conversation, the ministry students invited the man to their seminary campus for a tour.
At noon the next day, he arrived with his wife and two daughters, bringing souvenirs to give each student. After the tour, the students presented the Gospel to the family, leading them to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. A student purchased a new Bible as a gift for the family.
The students invited the colonel to return again to pray with them. He shared his testimony that God had been speaking to him since the day he saw the students serving in the donations warehouse. First he had noticed that many of them were young and from different cultures. Then he observed their willingness to work and serve, and how they were joyful and unified. He was so touched, he realized there was something in them that he had not seen in other volunteers.
The colonel promised to attend El Alto Church of the Nazarene and begin studying his Bible. Everyone hugged and cried, exchanging contact information to stay in touch.
Through these seminary students’ humble service, a family saw Christ and joined the kingdom.
-- Ruthie I. Córdova, missionary and professor of the Nazarene Seminary of the Americas
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