Written by a NAME Gateway student
To give a little back story, I am a skateboarder who had to leave right in the middle of a mission trip to bury my brother-in-law who died protecting my sister in a home invasion. After the funeral, I was able to return back to NAME and the mission that God sovereignly led me to. Before leaving for the funeral, I was able to connect with some local skaters. So on my journey back to NAME, the TSA, for some stupid reason, said that I could not bring my skateboard on the plane. All they could say in English was that it was forbidden. Instead of arguing back and possibly getting arrested, I walked away looking at my skateboard getting thrown in the trash. Such a discouraging feeling, first a family member taken from me, and now, in some sense, a piece of who I am gone. This was my way of a connecting with locals, a way to build relationships and trust, all with the motive so that they take what I have to say about who God is with respect.
I made it back to my assigned NAME country, updated my family that I had made it back safely but that my board was taken by the airport security. Then I had to tell my new skater friends what all happened and that I was not going to be able to skate with them anymore. They were bummed, but they told me there was a skate shop in a city about and hour and a half away. However, there was no way I could afford a new board. Things in this NAME country are super cheap but no matter where you are you will spend about $200 on a quality skateboard. Two days later, my mom messages and tells me that the ladies in her Sunday school class wanted o buy me a new skateboard. I was so stoked! I had convinced myself that I was just going to have to trust God and connect with NAME peoples another way, but He thought otherwise.
The skate shop was located by the Mediterranean Sea, so my skate homies and I decided to make it a day trip – hang out on the beach, explore the city, get the board, then go skate the city. This is when the story begins to get really good! After swimming and hanging out on the beach, we went back to the hotel to change. I was sitting there next to my friend *Brad.
Brad out of nowhere says to me, “I really want to go to Brazil.”
I was like, “Cool! Why?”
He said, “I have a friend there that skates for some type of Christian skate organization.”
I immediately saw the door crack open so I took advantage of it and responded, “Oh that’s awesome, I thought you were Muslim though?”
Brad, “I am but I really want to do something with skating and get out of this country.”
Me, “I feel that, well you know since they’re Christian, you’d probably do more than just skate right?”
Brad, “What you mean?”
Me, “Well since they are a Christian organization, they will probably teach you about the Bible, you know about the Bible right?”
Brad, “Ehhh I’ve heard of it, can you tell me about it?”
Wow… I was thinking he just straight up kicked open the door for me! I responded, “Yeah man, the Bible is centered on Jesus. What do you know about Jesus?”
Brad, “I don’t know much man. Can you tell me?”
It’s hard to see the work of God when you are walking through a series of unfortunate events; but it was at this moment when I realized what God was doing. Peace flooded my spirit, as I realized that traveling home to a funeral and getting my skateboard taken had all led to my friend Brad straight up asking me to tell him the Gospel of Jesus. It led to me telling someone for the first time about the Son of God who came to this earth, lived a sinless life, took on the wrath of God on the cross that all humans deserve, and offered us His righteousness so that we can be deemed righteous in the eyes of God through faith by grace.
This was the first of many conversations about God, Christianity and Islam, salvation by faith or works. Sadly though, to this day Brad is still a Muslim, but the seed has been planted in him. All we can do now is pray that God convicts his heart of the sin in his life, shows him that he needs a Savior, and that Brad chooses to trust in Christ alone.