Out of Nowhere

The call came out of nowhere. An unknown number buzzed on the phone of a staff worker in FOCUS, the IFES movement in Sri Lanka.

When he answered, things didn’t become much clearer – as a Tamil-speaker, he couldn’t understand what the Sinhala-speaking caller was saying. But, bridging the gap with English, he discovered that this was Janaka*, an engineering student in the country’s northern province. He was calling to enquire if there was a church near his campus.

“Are you a Christian?”, the staff worker asked.

“No, I’m a Buddhist,” came the surprising reply.

A Curious Request

Janaka explained that he was asking on behalf of a friend, so they arranged a call all together. Since the campus was far from any churches, the staff worker suggested that Janaka’s friend could meet online with a group of other students who had asked for help with reading the Bible.

The friend happily agreed. But when the day came, it wasn’t just the friend who joined the group. Janaka had messaged the staff worker to see if he could also attend. The staff worker recalls:

“I must admit that I was a little suspicious at first – I had no idea what his intentions were. But we welcomed him anyway.”

Janaka became a regular. He heard how Jesus’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection is good news for all. He was so intrigued that when he returned home for vacation, he tried a church service in his village.

An Unexpected Step

Some weeks later, after online Bible studies had resumed, the staff worker received another message from Janaka:

“I was shocked. He said he’d just been baptised! I hadn’t expected such a step so soon. I knew I needed to meet him in person and hear his story.”

When they met face-to-face, Janaka shared how he’d been involved in a serious accident. From initial scans, the doctors said he’d need surgery. So, that night he prayed, “God, if you are the true God, please heal me.”

The next day, he insisted on another scan. The doctors finally agreed and saw that the potentially life-changing condition had vanished.

A Sure Commitment

That inexplicable healing stirred Janaka to act on the gospel he’d heard through the Bible studies. He turned to Christ as his Lord and Saviour and publicly declared his faith through baptism.

He is now on an engineering internship and growing in his faith. Even though he’s the only Christian in his family, he’s eagerly following Jesus.

With a seemingly random phone call, an impromptu online Bible study, and a powerful answer to prayer, God was at work – out of nowhere.

Pray

Give thanks for Janaka’s journey to faith in Jesus – for the Christian friend for whom he first enquired, for the FOCUS Sri Lanka online Bible studies, for Janaka’s courage to be baptised into Christ.

Pray for FOCUS Sri Lanka’s in-person and online Bible study groups – that all would show such openness to students from different linguistic and religious backgrounds.

Thank God that over 20 students were able to gather for a FOCUS camp this month in the northern region where Janaka lives. And pray for the national camp on 11-14 April – that many students will be strengthened in their witness and see God at work in the ordinary and unexpected.

*Name changed