Inside Story: The Second-Hand Church
Pamela Obero sat beside her mud house in Kenya and listened to the preacher’s sermon over the loudspeaker.
She was curious about the Seventh-day Adventist meetings being held on a nearby vacant lot, though she belonged to another church.
The messages touched Pamela’s heart, and at times she felt that the speaker talked directly to her. So on Sabbath morning she took her five children to the meetings instead of to her own church. When the pastor invited those who wanted special prayer to come forward, Pamela took her children to the front. Her husband had died, and she was the sole support of her family. Life was difficult.
Pamela had been an ardent member of the charismatic church to which she belonged. She had donated the land on which the church members built their mud-brick house of worship. So when she did not attend church for three weeks, some church members visited and asked why she was no longer attending. “I have found truth that I never knew before,” she told them simply. “And I am learning how to properly raise my family.”
Pamela and her children joined the nearest Adventist church, which was three miles (five kilometers) from her home. Then she learned that the charismatic church to which she had belonged had abandoned the mud-brick church they had built on her land. Pamela invited the church leaders to hold small-group worship services in the abandoned building, and the church accepted her offer.
When Pamela’s friends from her former church asked her questions about why she left, she shared with them new truths she has learned and invited them to worship in the new Adventist church—their former building. So far three of her friends have joined the Adventist group that worships in the mud-brick church.
The little congregation of 25 met in the mud-brick church for a year before it deteriorated to where it was no longer safe. The church members decided to rebuild with more permanent materials.
Pamela makes and sells porridge and buns to provide for her children. She is poor, but she shares with those in need when she can. When her friends laugh at her poor house, she smiles and tells them, “My God is my husband and my provider. He is so good to my family; I cannot thank Him enough.”
Your mission offerings reach searching hearts like Pamela’s around the world. Thank you.
Pamela Obero shares her faith in Kendu Bay, Kenya.
Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission.
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Thank you for this message of hope, my soul has been weary but God has supplicated my needs, surely His mercies are new every morning Lamentations 3:22-23
The lesson of contentment is very important to all of us. We have to thank God for everything he gives us. 1 Tim 6
I like this message. God help us to give His words to his chosen people. Amen.
Thanks for sharing the story. I know Kendu Bay area and it is such poor areas where the Gospel is most readily received. Children raised in such families as Esther' often become the rich people in the future, not just in this World but the World to come. May God bless the great work there.
I'm glad I have lots of families around the globe sharing Gods love and telling others of His soon coming!
Be blessed
I know that God will provide all that they need