The Next Wave is equipped with a mini prayer wall in the library where anyone is free to make their prayers public. That way others can join in praying, besides the bonus of learning about each others’ families, finances and futures! When my team arrived on the boat about 6 weeks ago, we each wrote down something we believed God wanted do before the end of outreach, then we abbreviated those onto slips of paper that Loren put up on the prayer wall. My paper simply said: “pray for a Jesus explosion, and that I would get to baptize someone.” A Jesus explosion didn’t sound very safe and baptizing someone was a completely new thought to me, but it was what God said to write down, so I did. We started praying fervently for these God-inspired dreams to come alive!
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A few weeks later, I met Vanessa. We started talking at the park in Palamos on a day when a group of us had gone to play music and meet people. She innocently asked the question that changed her world: “What are they singing about?” She had never heard of Jesus until I told her His story. She believed immediately, and prayed to open her heart to Him on the spot!
I lost touch with her for the next few weeks, since I was too happy to remember to exchange phone numbers the day we met. In those weeks, I prayed every day that I would see her one more time and have the chance to give her a Spanish Bible, at least, before we sailed to France.
When I ran into her on the street the day before we left Palamos, we were both delighted! She came to the boat the next day, and I told her about the Trinity and the Bible and stories from my life to prove that Jesus is real. I mentioned baptism as our sign of dedication to Jesus, and she responded willingly that she wanted to do that! Even when I explained Jesus’ words about laying down our lives and taking up His cross, she was not intimidated. “This is the truth, and I believe it,” she told me.
That is how it happened that I found myself in the Mediterranean Sea a few hours later, immersing a new Spanish believer in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit! When I showed Vanessa my request on the prayer wall, her eyes filled with tears. She realized, as we all eventually do, that God’s kind hand had been drawing the way to His heart even before she knew Him!
