Married couple Leyla and Juan, who describe themselves as ‘amateur evangelists’, went through some basic evangelism training and then started volunteering for Every Home for Christ in their spare time.
They were sharing the gospel in Sabaco when they came to a home that made them pause. Through the closed door they could hear a woman wailing uncontrollably.
Inside they found a man lying on a couch vomiting blood and foam. Jose, a farmer, had got drunk and mistaken a bottle of toxic fertiliser for alcohol. The doctor had said he would die in a few hours. Leyla and Juan decided to pray with the family just as a sign of solidarity, rather than believing things would turn out well.
They felt helpless and ashamed as the man got worse and their prayers seemed to go unanswered. But without warning, Jose suddenly sat up and cried out for water. He asked who the strangers were and a conversation began that continued over many weeks. They introduced the family to a world in which God Himself had reached out and healed Jose. (Although the inside of his mouth was scarred, his internal organs were miraculously unscathed.)
Jose now calls himself a new man. He says: ‘When I gave my life to Jesus, I felt a kind of joy and peace I had never felt before.’
All of this because two amateur evangelists knocked at his door. They were like other ‘biblical amateurs’: Moses the amateur deliverer; Esther the amateur queen; not to mention those amateur disciples.
A hero is rarely recognised in real time. The title is applied in hindsight and usually by someone else. In our moments of true heroism, we usually feel inept and uncomfortable – even ashamed. But that’s when we get to make a difficult choice. Fight or flight. In or out. Those are the moments when heroes are made.
