HE SHUTTLE BUS WAS JUST PULLING up to the front door from its routine trip from the airport. It carried eager, although somewhat apprehensive, guest/participants for the next 19-day health recovery program beginning that evening at the Lifestyle Center of America.

My thoughts temporarily shifted to the page on which the schedule of events was noted. As the center’s dietitian,

I would prepare the necessary forms for doing a nutritional evaluation on each guest during the first week.

I glanced over the preregistration information. The preexisting diagnoses were listed for each individual: heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, arthritis, etc. I knew the list by memory because most of our participants come with at least one of these diagnoses—sometimes more. It would be our challenge, as a health-care team, to address their medical needs in the next 19 days. We knew from experience that when our guests saw improvements in their health and body image, they would be motivated to continue the program on their own at home.

Many of our guests came with spiritual needs as well. The staff was expected to offer advice and counsel regarding spiritual health along with their other routine duties. But how could we evaluate those needs?

The center regularly uses students and interns who need to fulfill required practicums in physical therapy, fitness, dietetics, medicine, or other health-related areas. One of them was unusually cheerful; she giggled when she spoke, and a guest called her “giggle britches.” With red hair and dark-brown eyes, Amy was always happy and smiling. Her supervisor told me that Amy had joined the church a short time before and was now studying at an Adventist college.

One of a Kind
After the first few days of the new 19-day live-in program I had made my initial interviews with each one of the guests, completing my nutritional evaluation.

One of the new guests stood out from the rest. Fernando was a middle-aged hypertensive diabetic who had a Jewish background. He was congenial and outgoing, and made friends easily. Early in my interview with him I learned he had an interest in learning more about God. Fernando owned a tour company and had been exposed on various occasions to Adventists. He had even visited Adventist churches while serving as a tour guide in Israel and other places.

On one of these tours an Adventist pastor mentioned the Lifestyle Center of America and suggested that we might be able to help Fernando with his hypertension and diabetes. When he followed up on that suggestion, he found himself sitting in my office. I was thrilled to hear him say, “I really am searching for truth, and I believe God is leading in my life. Your church and its teachings are very interesting to me.”

Fernando faithfully attended the morning worship services. On several occasions he played the tambourine with the guitars that accompanied our group singing, adding to the excitement of the songs. Several songs had a Jewish melody, and only a person with a similar background could add that special rhythm and feeling to the music.

Later Fernando asked if he could conduct a “Shabbat Shalom” service at the beginning of Sabbath one Friday at sundown. The staff and interested guests gathered to attend and witness a moving experience. We learned that years earlier he had accepted Christ and belonged to a group of Messianic Jews in California. But what transpired in the remaining days of his stay surprised us all.

A Match Made in Heaven
Even though the staff all try to witness to our guests and try to help them in their Christian experience, time sometimes conspires against us. We get busy with our daily routines and forget that there are guests who need individualized attention, not only medically but spiritually as well.

Fernando apparently wanted his relationship with God to move along faster than any of us had expected. He was reading voraciously all he could find in our library. We needed a full-time chaplain to guide him through this new faith experience, but we didn’t have one. How could we help? What could we do?

The Lord answered our prayers through Amy, our bubbly young intern. God used her, available and friendly, to bring Fernando to a life-changing decision.

The last Sabbath afternoon of the program Fernando was alone in the meditation room. He was reading The Desire of Ages. Diabetic retinopathy was interfering with his reading. When his eyes got tired and the words began to blur, God sent Amy, who offered to read to him.

As the words flowed easily from Amy’s lips, they told the story of the child Jesus in the Temple with the Jewish teachers. Fernando’s attention was captured as he visualized the group leaving Jerusalem without Jesus, His parents coming to the realization He was not with them, and their going back to search for Him.

The way Ellen White painted the picture, explaining each part of the story in detail, opened Fernando’s eyes wide; her detailed description of the Temple where the parents found Jesus caused him to exclaim in amazement, “How could she have known that, not having been in a Jewish temple or knowing Jewish customs?”

Jesus’ reply, read by Amy, stating that He was not lost, but only left by His parents, triggered an emotional response in Fernando. As tears began to flow, he thought, Yes, I’ve been looking for Jesus in many ways and in many churches, including Messianic Jewish synagogues, and He’s not far away. He’s right here in this very room, waiting for me to return to Him.

With that thought in mind, he fell to his knees and declared, “Jesus, I give my life to You.”

As Fernando recounted his story at the graduation banquet a few days later, we all listened with rapt attention. Later he told me of his desire to be baptized and of his thankfulness to Amy.

here is no unique time, place, or experience when God will call us to work for Him. Rather, each of us can play an important part in bringing someone to Christ.

Some may preach, others may pray, and some, like Amy, may just read. It can happen anytime, anywhere, often in the most unlikely circumstances. We don’t have to be a certain age or have a certain position in life. We just need to respond when He calls us to share in His service.

Thank you, Amy, for being available when God needed you.

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Judith Jamison is a nutrition consultant with the Lifestyle Center of America in Sulphur, Oklahoma.