On a snowy and dark winter’s night, my brother and I were driving to town to run an errand. The snow was falling and the traffic was nearly gone because of the snow. We stopped at a stop sign. There were no cars in sight, and Wayne turned to me and said, “Gene, the Lord has instructed me to say this to you. He is aware of the difficulties you have had, and he knows of your desire to be of service to him and the church. He wants you to know that your ministry will expand and you will be given many opportunities to serve, and your ministry will go to lands and people across the sea. I am telling you this because the Lord has constrained me to say these things to you.”
And then we were quiet for quite a while, until we started back on the road. Nothing more was said, nor could there have been. Wayne was given, at that particular time, a gift of prophecy. Since then I have indeed taken my testimony of Christ to another land across the sea. In 2005 I was invited to Tahiti by a minister in our church, to stay with him for a week and to speak at his church in Papeete, the Heberona congregation of the Community of Christ.
I won’t go into all the details, but I gave it a lot of preparation, and Riri, my Tahitian friend, typed out my testimony in the Tahitian language, and then taught me the correct pronunciation of all the words and phrases, so that on the Sunday morning when I was scheduled to speak I could do so in their native language. I was told after the service was over that I did okay, and the congregation understood every word, thanks be to God, to whom I give all the credit.*
*excerpt from my book, Journey of a Disciple, now available at amazon.com
Gene Groner, author and biographer geneallengroner@gmail.com
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