One day, she went home, slammed her door, and turned her rage on God: “Why are You letting this happen to me? The solution is so simple! I need a boyfriend! Why can’t You come through for me just this once?”
A few days later Kate realized God had come through for her—big-time. A friend told her that two of the boys who had been flirting with her had been asking out lots of freshman girls. All they were interested in was “getting some.” Kate sat stunned and humbled. She realized, My heavenly Father’s hand has been on me all along. He has not gone on a business trip; He has been busy building a hedge of protection around me.
Things started looking up, and during her sophomore year in high school a Bible study began to meet at Kate’s house. She thought her heart would be safe if she surrounded herself with other Christians. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen that way. One day Kate was asked to help resolve a conflict between two of the students, Rob and Lara. She was glad to help. She dug up Scripture that applied and gave her findings to Rob. The whole situation ended up spinning out of control and Lara’s group of friends left the Bible study—furious with Kate.
She cried out to God: “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep on putting myself out there just to be hurt and rejected!” Kate had already forgotten God doesn’t forsake His children.
At the end of her sophomore year, Kate’s parents persuaded her to go on a short-term mission trip to Quito, Ecuador. She couldn’t see how God could use her in Ecuador if He couldn’t even use her at home. Kate would soon realize that God’s plan in sending her wasn’t to “use her” but rather to bind up her broken heart. Kate’s heavenly Father wanted to set her free from all her strategies. There was a plan behind her hurt. God wanted to demonstrate to her that He would never leave her or turn her away.
Within the first two weeks, God provided Kate with fast friendships with other girls on the trip. She had never felt so loved and accepted by a peer group. Kate slowly began to realize she had stopped loving people and was relying on judgment and anger for comfort. Through this new experience God was teaching her how to “be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer” (Rom. 12:12).
But Kate’s trials didn’t stop. When she returned to school, her reputation as a prude continued to grow. One day at lunch a girl Kate always sat with taunted, “You know you’re going to break, Kate. The longer you try to hold out, the wilder you’re going to get. You’re probably going to be a porn star.”
Kate cringed at the thought. The girl obviously didn’t understand that Kate’s decision not to date wasn’t due to some tremendously repressed passion but to her growing love for God. She was determined not to allow her healed heart to be broken again by anger and bitterness.
Kate’s newfound assurance in God’s faithfulness must have disappointed Satan. Perhaps the devil thought if he sent more pain her way, she would crumple and accuse God of leaving her. She got hit again the next day. A group of kids got on the porn-star kick and began drawing up cartoons of her in her “new profession.” Amazingly, God shielded Kate’s heart from Satan’s filthy attack.
Around the same time, another “friend” began publicly ridiculing Kate for being a Christian. She poked fun at Kate’s faith and her obvious stupidity for believing anything so base. God had already carried her through a lot in high school. So, that time Kate stood firm with His hand on her shoulder. Kate began to see how far she’d come in trusting her closest and dearest Friend.
Kate wasn’t exactly persecuted for her faith at school, but she regretted that she was closed off and angry for so long. It also saddens her to think that girls don’t recognize how damaging gossip can be. Still, she doesn’t regret the pain and frustration she endured. Because of it, Kate knows God is with her no matter where she is or what she’s doing. Kate is safe. God is closer to her than her breath. And today Kate is certain of this: God is her shield of protection when accusations and insults are thrown her way. He is the Protector of her heart.
If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
(John 14:23)
5
crystal rains
Allies for Christ
allies n. pl. 1. Those who are united with others in friendship or relationship. 2. Those that come together for a common purpose and shared goal.
Crystal Rains had enjoyed a couple of amazing summers as part of a high-powered summer camp. Revival seemed to be a daily occurrence with students responding to energized worship and messages about salvation. Then, toward the end of her second summer, between her junior and senior years in high school, God began to stir something new in her soul.
At first it was just an idea. But then the idea began to grow. While Crystal had seen many come to Christ at camp, her thoughts began to turn back home. “A compelling passion for my lost friends pulled me to my knees in prayer,” she says. “I couldn’t really stop it, even if I’d wanted to.”
As she prayed, the idea began to expand until it was far bigger than she was—but in no way bigger than the God she knew. By the time the camps were over, her idea had become a vision. Crystal knew what she needed to do: one way or another, she wanted to see every middle school and high school student in her city have an opportunity to hear about Christ. She just wasn’t sure how she was going to do it.
Back home, she began to talk with her close friend, Renee. “She was immediately excited. We had been leading an on-campus Christian club at our high school called Allies. This new passion seemed like a natural, yet much bigger, extension of what we were already doing. It was scary, but we felt God telling us we needed to try.”
But there were plenty of obstacles. For starters, the city where they lived was divided by a mountain, which pushed the city into an east side and west side. Each side had its own high school and several middle schools. The mountain was not the biggest barrier, however. A bitter rivalry between the schools had recently erupted into fights and vandalism. Several students ended up in the hospital, others landed in jail. One weekend, the administration canceled a football game and other activities for fear of more east-west violence. If Crystal’s vision was to become a reality, she would need to build a bridge over the mountain, across the prejudice, and through the violence.
Crystal, an “east-sider,” had one connection on the other side of town—a friend named Nick. On the day she called him, he just happened to be meeting with Drew and Timmi, the other leaders of the Allies from the west side. “That alone seemed to be an amazing ‘coincidence,’” Crystal said. “By the end of that phone call, everyone was all for it.” The Allies from each school came together as a single team. United with one desire, they would give every student in town an opportunity to hear about Jesus.
They planned to begin by mobilizing citywide prayer and support through churches, then launch three citywide rallies where students could come and hear the gospel. “Through prayer and compromise we made it happen,” Nick said. “We had to learn to flex and forgive like never before. We had to respect and rely on each other’s gifts and skills.”
First they needed a name for their outreach. The city’s youth were in trouble. Suicide and drug abuse had taken the lives of several students the year before. Rape and alcoholism were draining the life out of many, many others. Therefore, the Allies decided to call their plan Desperate for God, because that was exactly what their city was.
The first rally was a mobilization event for other Christians. It was packed in the school’s theater that night. God was raising up an army of youth groups behind the Allies, and the word began to spread. The second rally exceeded everyone’s dreams. Every seat in the auditorium was taken, the band was awesome, and when the speaker gave an invitation to receive Christ, the aisles filled. As students walked down front, tears streamed down Timmi’s face. She held the door open for them to enter the counseling room, where they opened the doors of their hearts to Christ. It was an amazing night, and the whole
plan seemed to be right on track.
“We needed to raise over fifteen thousand dollars to cover all our expenses,” Crystal recalls. “One day, we were short a thousand dollars to pay a band. That day a man came into a church and donated just the right amount to make the payment. It was one of those stories about God’s faithfulness that you read about, but it was our story.”
In May, however, just before the third and largest Desperate for God rally, every one of the Allies was under pressure. Crystal seemed to be struggling the most. “It was a huge mental and spiritual battle. In my own heart I was fighting insecurities and physical temptation with my boyfriend. I kept thinking, I don’t have time to struggle like this! I’m supposed to be a leader. I can’t do it! Two days before the rally I went to the park alone and completely broke down before the Lord, repented of my selfishness, and gave my struggles to Him. It was a small breakthrough, and I left feeling God would be sufficient in whatever came our way.”
On the morning of the final rally, a heavy cloud seemed to hang over the team. “We read together from the Psalms, and that gave us some hope. We prayed and believed, but we didn’t ‘feel’ much peace. We clung to His words, but we still felt only tension and stress. I had never experienced spiritual opposition like that before,” Crystal says.
During the setup, the sound system blew fuses and the lights didn’t work. The stage crew was having lots of trouble, and arguments flared up. When the band members flew in, they were tired, frustrated, and angry—and that night their music sounded like it. A special evangelist flew in, but when he spoke, his words seemed to bounce off the walls, echoing without meaning in the hollow gym. As he began to make an invitation to come to Christ, several groups of students headed for the door.
But then something happened—something beyond what could be seen, beyond all that had been done, beyond the bands and the lights and all the money that had been given. God began to touch desperate hearts with His Spirit, and slowly, one by one, students came forward to give their lives to Him. The floor of the gym was crowded that night with students. Those who came with a need left with eternal life.
“That’s when I knew this was all about Him and not about the Allies,” says Crystal. “He had chosen us for His service and brought us together that year for a specific purpose. He was the one who was at work, not us.”
How many students did the Allies reach that year? Only God knows for sure. All we can tell from this side of heaven is that the world and eternity will be different because one young woman listened, prayed, and obeyed—and then saw God build a team of allies who invested their senior year of high school in something that would last forever.
In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
(1 Peter 3:15)
WEEK FOUR JOURNAL
• If God were to ask you to take a major step of faith, what might it be?
• Right now, where could you be investing your time, energy, and creativity in things that will last for eternity?
• What kinds of “allies” has God placed around you?
• How could you work together with others to fulfill a common vision?
• What Bible verse or passage of Scripture has been most meaningful to you this week? Why?
week five
1
manche masemola
A Life of Faith
She never went to school. Born in poverty in 1911, Manche Masemola was too busy working on her family’s farm (if the barren piece of dirt in what is now South Africa could be called that) for formal education. Manche and her family, along with the other members of her Pedi tribe, were confined to a reservation that barely produced enough food to keep them alive. It was not until she was a teenager that Manche first entered a classroom.
In 1927, when Manche was fifteen or sixteen, Christian missionaries were just starting to reach the Transvaal, where Manche lived with her parents; two older brothers; a younger sister, Mabule; and her cousin, Lucia. One evening after the work was done, Manche and Lucia walked several miles to an evangelistic service, where Manche heard Father Augustine Moeka share the message of the gospel for the first time. That night, she accepted Jesus’ love and forgiveness, and she became a Christian.
After her conversion, Manche traveled twice a week to Father Moeka’s mission in the nearby town of Marishane to study the Bible and prepare for baptism. When her parents found out about her new faith, though, they were angry. The Pedi people were suspicious of Christianity, which had been brought to the region by the same Europeans who forced them to live on the reservation. Most Pedis held onto the pagan faith and traditions of their ancestors. Manche’s parents feared that their daughter’s new religion would bring shame to their family, especially if Manche refused to marry the man from her tribe that her mother and father had chosen to be her husband.
Manche’s mother told her that she could not attend the Bible classes anymore, but Manche went anyway. By the fall of 1927, her parents realized that words alone would not influence their headstrong daughter, and they began to beat her severely, sometimes twice a day. “Manche’s mother said she would force us to leave the church. She beat Manche every time she returned from church,” Lucia said later. Concerned that the Pedi gods would punish the entire family for their daughter’s choice, Manche’s mother became so angry that she even attacked Manche once with a spear.
But Manche’s faith was stronger than any fear she may have had. She continued to defy her parents by going to church and attending classes for baptism, an important sign of faith to the Anglican church.
Despite her persistence, Manche seemed to know she would never complete her classes. “I will be baptized in my own blood,” she told Father Moeka. She believed that her parents’ abuse would eventually kill her, and she shared her fears with both the priest and her cousin. Yet she continued to travel to Father Moeka’s mission for class and professed her Christian faith openly to the people around her.
In February 1928, her mother had grown desperate to make Manche renounce her Christianity and return to the faith of her ancestors. On the morning of one of Manche’s baptism classes, the older woman hid all of her daughter’s clothes to try to prevent her from going. Although she was naked, Manche fled the house and hid in the barren brushland. Her mother and father searched the hills around the house until they found her. When they did, her parents called a sangoma, a spirit priest, and told him their daughter was bewitched. The witch doctor tried to make Manche drink a traditional potion to rid her of the evil spirits her parents believed were controlling her. When she refused, Manche’s mother beat her severely and forced the vile substance down the girl’s throat.
“They went on beating her till she drank it. Then she died,” Lucia reported.
It is not clear whether Manche died that day from the medicine or the beating. Her parents left her body in the remote wilderness, burying her beside a granite rock. Although everyone knew and talked about what had happened to the young Christian girl, her mother and father were never punished for taking the life of their daughter.
A few days after Manche died, her younger sister, Mabule, became ill, and although no one could find out what was wrong with her, she died at the local mission. Her parents buried her near her sister, and the girls’ father planted several native euphorbia shade trees near their graves to mark the site.
Tales of Manche’s faith and suffering spread, and seven years after her death, a group of Christians traveled to her gravesite to pay their respects. Another group came a few years later, and after that more and more Christians made the pilgrimage to the South African wilderness to honor the brave Christian girl. Her story became the foundation on which many African churches were founded, and many people came to know Christ because of Manche’s sacrifice.
In honor of her commitment, the Anglican church recognizes Manche Masemola every year on the anniversary of the day she died, F
ebruary 4. In 1998, an almost life-size statue of Manche was unveiled with a group of twentieth-century martyrs above a door in the famous Westminster Abbey in London, England.
Perhaps more importantly, though, forty years after Manche’s death, her mother accepted Jesus as her Savior and was baptized, in part because of the witness of her daughter. Manche Masemola—young, uneducated, and raised in extreme poverty—continues to serve as a testimony to what the simple faith and single-minded determination of one girl can accomplish.
LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless
and who does what is righteous.
(Psalm 15:1-2)
2
janine ramer
Speaking the Truth
Whenever people in Dalton, Ohio, think about Janine Ramer, the first thing most remember is her smile.
When the popular, active high-school junior died tragically, she left her friends, family, and neighbors plenty to remember. She was president of her class, a varsity cheerleader, member of the National Honor Society, a cross-country runner, and an active church youth group leader. She played softball, participated in short-term mission trips, and maintained an almost 4.0 grade-point average.
More important, Janine was a committed Christian and one of the nicest girls anyone—classmates or adults—ever met. “I’ve probably coached six hundred kids in thirty years,” softball coach George Strong says, his voice catching as he thinks about the bright, energetic girl who lit up his team for two years. “I never coached one like her. She never had a cross word for anyone. She never saw a negative in anyone.”
Janine’s parents, Keith and Florence, remember their youngest daughter a little differently; Flo describes Janine as a normal, happy girl who naturally was bothered by some things. “Of course she had down days. She would be upset if she didn’t get enough playing time [on the field], but she didn’t let it show. In the long run, she realized that’s not what really mattered.”
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