I want to share a recent story with you because God is so incredible! I met Samira* two years ago at an English club. She is also friends with a few of the girls in our church through the English club. I had not heard from her in two years and she suddenly showed up to our young adult night at church the other day. Multiple people have shared the gospel with her previously, through the English club, but she always said “It’s not for me.” So when Samira showed up the other day, we were surprised and excited!
After the service she pulled me and another girl aside, saying she needed to talk to us. She then told us she has had some really bad sleep issues for the last couple of years. She tried everything to solve the problem but nothing has worked. Finally, she decided to pray and asked, “God, give me some kind of sign.”
Later she had a dream. Samira said it was a really intense dream and remembered it all so clearly. She woke up and the thing she remembered most clearly was the word, “Metanoia.” Not knowing what the word meant, she looked it up and found out it means “repent” or “a spiritual conversion; a change of life.” Samira immediately reached out to my friend saying she needed to come to church. When my friend and I heard this, we both got goosebumps all over! We thought the word sounded Greek, so we looked it up and found out it was the Greek word for repent. We then told her the New Testament was written in Greek, and proceeded to look up all the places that “metanoia” showed up in the Bible. The word “metanoia” was used 22 times in the gospel. It was part of Jesus’ continuous message to “repent and believe.” We were all astounded.
In Samira’s dream, she remembered feeling so much shame and condemnation towards herself. We explained to her that in the beginning God created the world perfectly. Because of the fall, sin entered the world and separated us from God. The first thing Adam and Eve felt after sin entered the world was shame. When we told her that, Samira responded, “That’s exactly what I felt in the dream!” We then spent more time discussing the gospel and how God wanted to restore the human race back to Himself through Jesus. Jesus came and showed the people how to do that – through “metanoia” – repentance and belief. Samira was shaken to her core. People had explained this to her before, but God Himself showed up in her dream and told her to repent and believe. Samira has not decided anything yet, but she’s now reading the New Testament. Please pray for her. Pray for clarity, peace and that God would continue to reveal Himself to her.
What is even more amazing is that these stories are very common here! I heard a testimony of another girl recently just a couple of weeks ago. She decided to follow Jesus because He showed up in her dreams. Jesus showed her two doors to choose from and she chose His. Then another friend just told me last week of a man from the same English club, who was a very committed atheist, had a dream and Jesus talked with him for five hours in his dream. He woke up, came to church and decided to believe and follow Jesus! He is now studying the Bible with a friend of mine. As they were reading together, multiple times he would say, “Oh yes! Jesus was talking about this in my dream.” God is working in this country! The population might be 0.01% Christian but God MOVING! Please pray for more dreams of Jesus! Thank you for being a part of this!
*Name has been changed.
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