Andy
One thing that really changed the culture of our company and changed us, changed me personally, was one, just the dedication and a commitment to walk out our faith in the marketplace. And it’s all started with prayer and the room we’re sitting in right now. But also just a commitment on a daily basis to be guided by the Spirit of God. And to make decisions not based off of financial gain, but to make decisions based on what the Spirit of God was telling us to do, who he was telling us to speak with, what, what time and place we’re supposed to be there. Last week was just an exciting example of God showing his faithfulness to our commitment to be obedient. I’ll let Tyler tell the story of our trip to Borger, TX.

Tyler
Yes, we were on our way to Borger, we sell construction projects and we just felt led to pray and say, “God, we want to see a new level of faithfulness. This week. We want to be pushed into a greater level of obedience. We want see you move like we’ve never seen you before.” We were just, for some reason, praying so expectantly that we would see him show up and we even forgot that we had prayed. So fast forward to the next day. Nine a.m. we’re starting our day, not even thinking about anything other than just trying to be good stewards of our day and, meet with the most people possible. I remember walking up to a commercial property and seeing it was closed. No one was home, but seeing a woman’s cell phone number on the door. So I end up calling this woman. Long story short, she responds well to the phone call, which doesn’t always happen on sales calls. She agrees to come meet us. We go–she takes us up to the roof because we want to talk about a roofing project for her, and 45 minutes into the conversation, I looked down at her shirt and it has a big symbol of Texas on it. And it says “river of life” and has some, I don’t remember which, but a psalm underneath in real small letters. I remember asking her, I said, “Hey, Rosie, what does your shirt mean?” And she goes, “I don’t know, this was given to me.” And for some reason, I don’t really usually do this on a sales call, but I just matter of factly I said, “Rosie, do you know that Jesus loves you?” And Andy can attest to this. But man, it was like the floodgates just burst open. She started sobbing uncontrollably. She’s just opened up through sobs of just how she’s been in darkness, since 2006, losing her son, tried to kill herself twice. Um… in and out of psych wards, depression and just just feeling alone. And right after that she she just looks at us so confounded and goes, “Why did you say that to me? What made you say that to me?” Like just almost like interrogating us. And I said, “Rosie, it’s the truth. He loves you.” I said, “And as a matter of fact, we pray that God would send us wherever he wants us. I said today we’re here with you. So we believe that he sent us here.” She looked at Andy, she looked at me. She said, “I woke up this morning, and I told myself today was the last day I was going to be alive.” She said, “I was going to end my life today and go be with my son and my parents so that I wouldn’t have to be alone.” I just looked at her I said, “Rosie, you won’t do that.” I said, “Your life, your life doesn’t belong to you, and if you don’t want it, why don’t you give it to someone who does?” I said, “Have you ever given your life to Jesus?” And she said, “Well, I’ve been in church” And I said, “Have you ever given your life to Jesus?” “Well no.” So I said, “Do you want to give it to him today?” And she looked at Andy, she looked at me. “Yes, I want to give it.”

Tyler
It was just incredible. So we start taking her through this prayer of: God, I give you my life. God, I repent of my sins. God I ask for forgiveness. God give me the Holy Spirit. And she she’s just repeating what I’m saying. But really meaning it and really… And all the sudden the Holy Spirit says, “Tell her to say, I give you my son.” And I’m having this internal battle like man that’s too close to home. I can’t say that. And he’s like, “Just tell her.” So I say, “God, I give you my son.” And she goes, “God, I give you my son. I give you my son, I give you my son.” And she just repeats it six or seven times through. I mean, just each time more passionate. And you see tears of healing just flowing, erupting from her face. And Andy’s just, he’s got her embraced, just his arm around her, just hugging her. Her head’s in his chest. And she’s just bawling.

Andy
I’m watching her. And as she’s confessing this, and literally giving her son to the God, that gave his son for her. It was this beautiful moment, standing on top of a roof. I’m sitting there with my arm wrapped around her shoulder. She’s drenching my shirt in her tears. I’m watching her countenance change in real time. In the midst of all the tears, she’s being filled with joy, like she’s being made free, made whole, made new. We get done with the prayer and she’s beaming like, she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Tyler looks at her and says, “Rosie, what do you feel right now?” She just says, “I feel peace. I feel joy.”

Andy
“Like how long has it been since you’ve felt peace like this?” “I can’t remember. It’s been over 10 years since I felt peace.” And we’re just we’re just in awe, we’re laughing, like God, you’re so good. And like Rosie, do you understand what this means for you? And she says, “Well, today is like the first day of life.” And she’s trying to think of how to say what she’s feeling because number one, her first language is not English. She’s struggling through the conversation continually apologizing for her broken English. Tyler’s like, “Rosie, you don’t know what you just said, like Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. You just received the life. Yeah, like today is the first day of your life.”

Tyler
So it’s like the Holy Spirit’s already talking through her and she feels she’s she’s explaining what’s already being manifested in her through this new life. And this, receiving of her salvation, and the giving over of her life. So we started explaining to her like how she’s a new creation, all things are new, the past is dead, she’ll never be alone again. She’ll be in continual communion and fellowship with her Father in heaven. And she’s just I mean, it’s just nuts. So we we start describing how, you know, hey, Rosie, you need community you need, you can’t do this alone. You need fellowship with other believers who are going to push you and just encourage you and, and so we asked her, we said, “Do you want to get connected with these people down the street?” I mean, almost immediately, “Yes, I want that.” And so we take her down, we go and meet these women. And I mean, no sooner we walked through the door and this coffee shop owner, Jane–Jamie almost runs to us. It’s like, what’s going on and starts embracing Rosie and we tell her that she just got touched by God.

Andy
But what was incredible is the organic way this happened is that a week prior to Rosie giving her life to Jesus, we met an on-fire-for-God group of women believers, directly next door to her, who owned a coffee shop that was running Bible studies out of that place continuously. And had we not been obedient a week before, to walk into that coffee shop 30 minutes before they closed and shared the love of Christ with them, we would have never had that connection to connect Rosie, to the church–like to the church scattered, not the church gathered. And it was eye-opening to me as someone who’s been in the established church for over 21 years, was to see the church, the body of Christ functioning in this Acts 4 model, outside of the four walls, literally in the streets, on the roof tops, in the coffee shop, and that it’s happening organically. And that someone who myself had only been in that town for three weeks, within three weeks, we were connected with the body in that town. And by simply being obedient to ask the Lord, “Who do you want us to talk to? Where do you want us to go? And to be obedient to simply say the most cliche thing in Christian terms, “Hey, you know, Jesus loves you.” The power of that simple statement, which we take for granted so often, literally saved this woman’s life.

Tyler
Yeah. It was interesting, because you would think like, why would a woman who’s about to, or at least considering suicide that day, why would she come and meet you about her building? Right? And so she was actually describing that to us and saying, “I can’t even tell you why I’m here today, because you just– I heard this young man on the other end of the phone. And for some reason, your voice just reminded me of my son’s.” And she goes, “I just felt peace through the phone. So I don’t know why. But I just showed up here. I didn’t even like, I didn’t even want to come, but I did. But I just felt this peace. Like, I should just show up. So I did. And that’s why I’m here.” And and she’s just we’re having this exchange about why she’s even there, even though she was contemplating taking her life that day.

Andy
Yeah, because we were, so this was, that was after she gave her life to Christ. And she’s telling us some of the backstory. Yeah. And she had explained in more detail that she prays in the mornings. But this morning, she didn’t pray. And she had this overwhelming memory of her son. And like, she was having a conversation with him. And she had told her son, “Baby, I’m going to see you soon. I can’t take this life anymore. I’m coming to see you and mom and dad. And I’m going to kill myself today. And I’m actually going to do it this time.” And she said she just felt like her son told her, “Not yet, Mom.” And then immediately after that is when Tyler called. And she hears the voice of a young man on the other line saying that he wants to help her. And she was there within seven minutes. I mean, it was a quick. Yeah, like she was just down the street. That never happens. You don’t just call a number on the door, and then the owner shows up. And so we didn’t know all this. Whenever she pulls up, and we go through the store, she shows us around, it’s in disrepair, the ceilings falling and in some areas, we get on the roof in disrepair. She’s literally on hands and knees with tar, slathering it over cracks and holes, as we’re taking photos and assessing the damage. So her hands are covered in tar and she’s sweating and just doing the work. Like she doesn’t know what else to do than to do it herself. And after we share the love of Christ with her, and she gives her life to Jesus, and she’s just in awe and she’s just full of the joy of the Lord. She’s laughing uncontrollably. It’s really amazing.

Tyler
Oh yeah, the joy of the Lord hit her. She was laughing and crying uncontrollably. And it was just like incredible.

Andy
Yeah. And we’re we’re just shaking our heads. And she can’t, she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s never felt anything like this before. We walked downstairs and we walked to the cash register. And it’s like a glass countertop with products inside of it and a cash register. Above the cash register, is a large photo of her son. She points at it and says, “This is my son right before he died, just 21 years old.” And she goes on to tell us a story that in 2006, she had come to the store and dropped off some food for her son and now her her ex-husband was there. And she had left to go home and grab some things to come back to pick them up. Or when she arrived back, the location, the store was blocked off with police tape. And when she arrived, the police officer, small town, said, “Rosie, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” And she asked what was happening, I need to get in. My son is in there. My son is in there. And, “You can’t go in right now. We’re not sure what happened.” And all she remembers is screaming her son and waking up in the hospital. And her son had had fallen asleep at the cash register and never woke up. He passed away right there where we’re standing. As she as she’s telling us a story. And she’s trying to explain in the best English she can, that she just went, she went crazy. She didn’t know what had happened to her, why it happened, where she was. And for 18 months she spent in the psych ward of the local hospital. And then between–that was around 2009 and now, 2019, so almost a period of 10 years, she’s had her daughter, and that’s basically it. She’s got the store to herself. She doesn’t quite know how to how to keep it up, how to make it, how to make it profitable, and is just struggling with the loss of her son to the point where it overwhelms her. And while she was on the roof, and she gave her son to Jesus, she was literally delivered of that remorse, that grief, that pain, that anger. And we watched it happen right in front of us. And one thing that you prayed, I don’t know if you remember this or not, but “Lord release her of the ….” Can you remember what you prayed?

Tyler
Something like, something about giving up the grief but not the memories of him? Yeah, releasing the grief, releasing the sorrow to him. Not that, not that he would be forgotten, but that the Lord would bring healing, yeah, to him or to her in that case. And so it was it was just incredible. I’m forgetting if it’s a psalm or a proverb right now–it’s it’s escaping me–but it says commit your way to the Lord and He will act. And so I really believe that we we saw that in action. “God, we’re going to go along doing our thing. And we’re going to try to be profitable and and make money, but we want to see you move. We want you to put us where, wherever you want to use us. And as we feel prompted, we’ll we’ll do our best to move in obedience.”