When I prayed before starting my devotional, I gave thanks to God for surrounding me with such amazing people here in Peru.
Ruiz and a friend.I have made close friends, and the pastor’s family has taken me in as their daughter. Everything is in place, and God has placed me exactly where I am suppose to be.
The most beautiful thing that I just cannot wrap my head around is how Christians can come together without even knowing each other and just pour out their love to complete strangers. After Sunday school class, one of the youth came up to me and invited me to have lunch with her sister and a friend. I agreed to go with them, and time flew. We all talked and shared stories about what God was doing in our lives.
Ruiz playing Jeopardy with the class.After that, the girl who invited me to lunch asked if I wanted to take a walk up the mountain to her land and help them bring some back some food for their animals. I agreed. As we walked, she told me that what I said during Sunday school was speaking directly to her heart. She poured out her problems, her dreams and her life to me.
“It is not easy for me to open up with anyone. The truth is that I do not really have Christian friends that I can trust, but I feel like I can talk to you and tell you everything. I sense I can trust you,” she told me.
“This is all from God,” I said to her. “What I spoke during class was what God put in my heart. It was he who spoke to you.”
She smiled. I offered to do a Bible study with her to help and encourage her spiritual walk. She was more than delighted to accept. She has opened her home to me. It is no coincidence. It did not happen by chance. The God I serve is one with a purpose and a plan for all.
I am not the same person I was when I came to Christ. I am not the same person I was four years ago. To tell you the truth, I’m not the same person I was three weeks ago. God is working in my life daily, he is renewing my mind constantly, and he is replacing all the filth and broken parts of my life with unending love for people that I do not even know.
Only our living God can bring healing and transformation to a broken world and change a life to bring glory to himself.
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Janet Ruiz, a student at the University of Texas-Pan American, is serving with Go Now Missions in Peru.
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