Life Is Good With God

To Sabbath School teachers: This story is for Sabbath, December 20.

Life was good when Mom worked at Northeastern Adventist School in Brazil. The family always had enough food.

Anderson was six years old when Mom began washing the clothes of teachers and students at the school. A river ran through the school campus, but Mom didn’t wash clothes there. Its water was too dirty. Mom carried the laundry some distance away to a river with clean water. There she washed the clothes by hand. Then she dried, ironed, and folded the clothes.

Mom took Anderson to the school church on Sabbaths. The boy learned about God at the church.

But then disaster struck. When Anderson was 11, it began to rain more than usual. The water of the dirty river rose higher and higher. Before long, the water covered teachers’ houses. The water covered the school church. The flood covered Northeastern Adventist School, and the whole school was destroyed. Anderson’s house also was destroyed. The boy and his family no longer had a place to live. Mom no longer had a place to work.

Life became hard for Anderson and his family. They moved to a small farm for a few months. Then they moved to a city. After that, they moved to another city.

Anderson stopped going to church. He stopped learning about God.

Three years passed.

When Anderson was 14, he got a job as a store helper. He began to learn about God from another store worker, a young man named Marlon. Marlon liked to talk about God, and he said God forbade people from eating pork and other unclean meat.

Anderson decided to play a prank. One night, he secretly took some pork from the store freezer and wrapped it around the handlebars of the bicycle that Marlon would use for work the next day.

In the morning, Marlon came to work and was surprised to find pork wrapped around the handlebars of his bicycle.

“Who did this?” he asked, as store coworkers chuckled.

Anderson pretended not to pay any attention, but he smiled.

Marlon didn’t want to touch the pork, so he grabbed a broomstick and used it to push the meat off the bicycle and onto the floor.

Anderson nonchalantly walked over to the meat on the floor, wrapped it up, and put it back in the freezer to sell.

He liked the prank, and he played tricks on Myron again and again. Myron caught on that he was the prankster, but he never became angry. He just shook his head and said, “No, not again.” Then he invited Anderson to church.

Anderson didn’t go.

A year passed. Two years. Eight years. Marlon kept inviting Anderson to church. Whenever he saw Anderson, he said, “Come to church.”

Then one day Anderson went. The church was holding evangelistic meetings, and Marlon was preaching about Jesus. Anderson returned the next day and the next. As he learned about Jesus, memories came flooding back. He remembered Mom taking his hand as a boy and leading him to the church at Northeastern Adventist School.

Before long, Anderson was baptized.

Then it was Anderson’s turn to invite people to church. He wanted everyone to know about Jesus.

Today, Anderson has planted three churches in Brazil. He also has led more than 100 people to baptism, including his own mother and other family members.

Anderson said life is good. He said life is good when you love God and love other people. He invites people to church again and again and again — just like Marlon invited him.

“Because of Marlon’s example, I never gave up on my family,” he said.

Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, also known as the Quarterly Mission Project Offering, will help open a church at Pernambucano Adventist Academy in Brazil. The academy was opened to replace Northeastern Adventist School after the flood, but it still doesn’t have its own church building. Your offering will help open a church where children can worship with their families just like Anderson worshiped with his mother as a boy. Thank you for planning a generous offering for this important project next Sabbath