We invited Matt, a young single friend, over for dinner. He had called several times asking if he could come visit me, since I had not been able to come to our weekly English conversation group because I had a surgery recently. We had a good time of visiting at dinner. After dinner my wife went to the kitchen to clean up, and Matt and I spent time together in the living room.
Matt claims to be an atheist; however, not to the extent he will not listen to a witness. He told me the reason that he was an atheist is because every person claims that the way they believe is the correct way to heaven, because of the way they were brought up. So that is why he is an atheist. Who knows the right way?
I told him that I was not brought up as a Christian. My parents weren’t Christian. I then explained to him that while I enjoyed high school and playing sports, many times after losing games and walking home I would feel depressed. I thought that there must be more to life than this. I also told him that a friend of mine and I would sit in his car after an evening at the movies, etc, and wonder if we would go to heaven.
Then after moving to Minneapolis from my small town, I met my now wife and began attending church. The young people at the church had so much joy, and I realized I did not. Finally, I chose to believe in Jesus. I had a dramatic change in my life from that point on and never questioned again whether I would go to heaven. I shared with him that the Bible tells us that God wants us to “know”’ that we will go to heaven, and that is written in I John 5.
My wife said that Matt was telling her he was going to take a test in order to go to Australia. She told him she would pray for him. Then she said “God is going to show Himself to you one of these days.” He responded with, “I hope so”. Pray with us that Matt, a dear friend to many workers here, would come to know God and the joy that comes with a relationship with him.

This was posted on October 26th, 2009 and is filed under Turkey: Asia Minor Alliance.