GRACE UPON GRACE

A family of seven: father, mother and three girls, with the unwed girls’ respective two children. Sorko was only 21, Fiona 22. When we first visited them, the rented flat in which they lived was in shambles, the balcony crowded with piles of clothes, boxes, toys, a mattress, a broken chair… The house reeked for lack of airing and the older girls were so scantily dressed that it was an embarrassment to visit. We would send them first thing to their rooms to put on a proper shirt. Veronica, the youngest of the sisters, was 9 years old, distressed by all the angry shouting, with everyone venting their frustrations on one another.

Migel is a short, stocky, very muscular man. The mother died two years later of cancer. Both had made credible professions of faith, but they had a deep hole out of which to climb and the effect of their long dissolute life receded only ever so slowly. When it became clear that the mother was dying, Baruch went to Fiona and Sorka, who had since left home in a puff with their parents, informed them and brought them to the hospital.
Relations were restored, and when their mother finally died, Migel moved in to live with the girls, bringing Veronika with him.

It was sheer chaos. Unbelievably so. Often, we were called upon in the small hours of night to resolve a family fued and to persuade Migel to come back into the house, not to beat his daughters and not to expect them to cater to his every whim. The girls, too, were rudderless. Then Sorka made a profession of faith and a remarkable change came over her. She evidenced a hunger for God’s word, an eagerness to serve, a readiness to learn to be a faithful mother to her child and a gracious daughter to her father. Two years later she began working for the church as a graphic artist. Then she fell. Veteran readers of MaozNews will have heard her story.

On the evening she was solemnly excommunicated, Migel, with tears flowing down his cheeks, was the first to vote in favour. The whole church followed suit. We prayed for her for years. Then God showed Sorka favour, renewed her faith, taught her repentance and she was ultimately restored to church fellowship.

Fiona had been watching from the sides. She witnessed the serious attitude to sin, the loving discipline, the joy in restoration. She too wanted to know the God who changed people in such a way, especially in the way he had changed Sorka.

On Saturday, June 6, Fiona was baptized following a very clear testimony, after about a year of professed faith and four months of pre-baptismal courses. Pray with us for the sisters, for Veronica and for Migel, as they seek to walk the way of the Lord.

Baruch Maoz