For Life Ministries: Sally’s Story
For Life Ministries: Sally’s Story
“Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me” – Psalm 66:16 (NIV).
For Life Ministries’ Love One Madison County program partners with local area ministries such as Manna House, Graces of Gurley, Valley Fellowship, and Lincoln Village to help feed families in our community. These organizations identify the families in need and organize food box distribution, while For Life works to find sponsors to fund the food boxes and develop and maintain relationships with the families who receive these gifts. Families come to the distribution sites once a month to receive their food boxes. There they meet with a core group of volunteers who pray over these families and genuinely want to get to know them. The sincere relationship development that happens over time between our volunteers and families is truly where we have seen God at work most in this ministry.
Three times a year, For Life hosts a “Beloved Event” that brings together families, sponsors, and volunteers from all four of our distribution partners and allows them to hear a gospel message, grow in their friendships with one another, have a meal together, and watch their children play and have fun in a non-threatening, loving environment. At every Beloved Event, people have prayed to receive Christ. The “God Story” I want to tell begins at one of these very events.
Last April, a sweet lady (I’ll call her “Sally”) came to know the Lord during a Beloved Event. Sally is a single mother with two children. She is from another country, with no family here. She thought she was coming to the Manna House every month simply for a food box. What she didn’t know was that there were volunteers waiting there to love on her, pray for her, and show her the meaning of true friendship. Sally’s new friends helped to disciple her in her faith. These volunteers understand that serving Jesus sometimes looks like handing out a food box, because it’s really about developing a relationship with others that will ultimately point them to a relationship with the Lord.
Sally was in desperate need of a car so that she could find a job and go to work to provide for her family. A local church was able to provide her with a car donated by a member. But that is not the end of Sally’s story. God has continued to work in her life through the relationships she developed at For Life. Recently, Sally found a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her new friends helped her find resources at church and she plugged into a cancer support group with other survivors. She has since had a double mastectomy and is now cancer free. Sally praises God that He has seen her through every trial; and all of this because she came for a food box.
We are praising God because we see that generations are being changed through this ministry, now that Sally is raising her two children to know the Lord and to walk in His ways! We know that none of this is the work of our own hands, but only by what God has done and is continuing to do. This is just one of many ways we continue to see God at work through For Life Ministries.
Would you please join us in praying for God to continue to bring souls to a saving relationship with Him through our Love One Madison County food program? If you would like to join us in seeing what God is up to, we invite you to volunteer and get to know a family. For more information on how to get involved and for specific volunteer opportunities, please contact info@forlifeministries.org or call the office at 256-203-2997.
Submitted by: Kendra Krell
Leave a Reply