She Just Did Not Give Up

 

Lica's desire in life was to see her parents saved.  Ever since she got saved 11 years ago, she had been praying for her parents' salvation.  While in Bible college, Lica witnessed many times to her parents, but always to no avail.  She prayed and prayed for them.  Lica graduated from our Bible college in 1997.  In January of 1998 Lica began a simple Bible study with her mom, Mônica, and after a few weeks she accepted Christ as her Savior.  Mônica's biggest escuse for not coming to church was that she did not want to leave her invalid husband at home by himself.

 

In July, Lica's 80 year old father's health began to deteriorate and he was taken to the hospital several times.  Her father's name is José.  The church began to pray in earnest for his health and salvation.  Lica, concerned about her father's spiritual condition without Christ, went to the hospital and witnessed to him.  José heard the gospel from his 24 year old daughter and willing rejected it.  Two hours later, José went into a coma.  The doctors said he would never awake from that coma.  Four days later he did awake and was conscious for about a week before he died.  Two days before he passed away, they sent him home from the hostipal.  His health only deteriorated and he was rushed to the hospital about an hour before he went into eternity.  Thus died José.

 

The next day as the family members were collecting his personal items from the hospital room, they met one of the male nurses that helped take care of José.  The nurse had asked a few days before, when the family was visiting, if José was a Christian.  They said: no.  While they were collecting José's personal items, they saw that nurse again and asked why he had asked that question.  The nurse said that before José had left the hospital, José told him that he was a "Christian."

 

After the furneral, José's wife said that 24 hours before he died, he had told her in a weak whispering voice:   "I  ....... accepted............ Christ ..........   as ..............   my............. Savior."  We did not know about that until after the furneral. 

 

For ten years Mônica had taken care of her invalid husband.  She did not know what to do.  She was 60 years old and was not in good health.  She just became depresed and two months later, she also died.

 

God answered a daughter's prayer after 11 years of praying diligently for her parents.  Did she ever get discouraged?  Did she ever get hurt that they rejected the Christ she loved so much?  Did she ever wonder if God was going to answer her prayers?  Did she ever wonder at times if she was just wasting her time?  The answer to each of these is Yes.  But did she let that stop her? No!

 

Lica: Our Church's First Missionary

Since January of 1999, Lica has been a missionary of David & Geri Smith's church in Curitiba, Brazil.  She will be making soul winning and follow up visits at our church.  She will work with us for a few years while she is raising additional support.  After that, when this church is better on it's feet, she will decide if she will help another church in the area, work at some mission works along the Amazon River in nothern Brazil, or work at some new works that are being started by our Brazilian Bible College in the African country of Moçambique. 

 

"The effectual prayer of a righteous man [or woman] availeth much."  Pray for Lica and her soul winning ministries.