"My mom and younger brother were baptized first,”Jennifer told me. “I waited a little while longer…,” she continued.
Jennifer is a young woman from Taoyuan, Taiwan. She found the Aroma Cafe in Ximen over a year ago when she and her mother were searching social media for an internship opportunity. Jennifer and her mother were so impressed with our Coffee Talk ministry that she decided to take the leap and pursue an internship here. She’s been here ever since!
Now Jennifer is one of our full-time baristas and so I often get to converse with her. One Saturday, I took some time to ask her a bit about her story. I was curious because she is the only barista we’ve employed at Ximen whose family is also Christian.
“My aunt used to have a lot of spirits that bothered her,” was her opening sentence when asked about her family’s path to faith. Jennifer went on to explain how her family did everything they could to help her aunt. Multiple temple visits from a range of local religions didn’t seem to help. After some time Jennifer’s aunt committed suicide.
Death seemed to latch onto her family as her uncle soon developed cancer and passed away. “After that, my cousin also committed suicide.” Jennifer told me.
School was rough for Jennifer. One day after being bullied Jennifer asked her mother what to do, “She told me to stop talking to them.”She complied, but her silence ended up separating her from the rest of her class. This would last through out junior high school. “This is the reason I became so quiet.” She said. “I felt I wasn’t part of any of the groups. I even started to think that if I disappeared maybe they would know I actually existed.”
Breakthrough happened in the form of a friend. One day, a friend of her mother invited the family to church. Her mother took Jennifer and her brother along. Even though Dad wasn’t initially interested, Holy Spirit would work on each of their hearts. “My mother was baptized and the pastor told her that our entire family would be saved because of her decision.” Soon the entire family gave their lives to Christ. A year after her brother and mother were baptized, an overwhelming peace would come over Jennifer and she decided to be baptized also.
Since knowing Jennifer here at Aroma Ximen, I’ve noticed this peace too! While she works, when she talks, and even when she began leading worship at the Aroma Church. It’s been a rich blessing seeing her grow with us. Jennifer is one of the most intense prayer warriors we have here. What a great testimony this is of how the Holy Spirit uses one to save many others! Through Christ’s redemptive gift a family was saved from the clutches of death!
‘And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. ‘ Romans 8:2
This post originated from chopsticksandscooters.com and was used with the permission of Justin Siemens.