Location: Venezuela
Antonella heard the bathroom door lock behind Simón. She picked her way across the apartment floor strewn with shattered fragments of things he had thrown during their argument. In her bedroom, she began to pray. Where else could she turn?
Like many young people in Venezuela, Antonella had gone to church as a child. But she left all that behind when she fell in love with Simón, a hitman.
Simón’s dangerous work drew Antonella into a world of violence and fear. Dread that one day Simón would be killed weighed heavy on her, and her anxiety increased after their first child was born.
Alone after a heated argument with Simón, Antonella prayed to the God she remembered from her childhood but didn’t truly know.
“I was terrified,” Antonella writes. “I thought Simón was going to harm himself. I broke down and cried until midnight. Then, the peace of God came into my heart. In that moment, I began to experience God’s presence in my life, making me free.”
Antonella didn’t know that God was already at work in Simón’s life, too. A local believer had begun sharing about the love of Jesus in one of the places Simón and his friends hung out.
Shortly after, a group of believers trained by Every Home Venezuela visited the hitman’s home.
As their visitors shared the gospel, “something supernatural happened, and Simón and Antonella felt the presence of God,” shares Juan Carlos, Every Home Venezuela ministry director. In their conversation, truths about the couple’s relationship were revealed that only God could know.
Like Paul on the road to Damascus, Simón and Antonella experienced a powerful encounter with Jesus, who saw them, knew their hearts, and called them to a new life.
That night, Simón and Antonella gave their lives to Jesus and began attending a discipleship group using Every Home’s Discovery Method.
The couple’s lives transformed day by day, and eventually, Antonella said, “Simón, we have to decide what we are going to do. Are we going to serve God in the church or the devil in the world?” Only Jesus could give them true and lasting freedom, but to follow him, they would have to leave Simón’s dangerous livelihood and every part of their old life behind.
Without hesitation, Simón responded with conviction: “We are going to serve God in the church”.
So, Simón and Antonella’s little family moved to a new city where they are leaders in the church, ministering to people seeking freedom from crime and violence.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. —2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 (NKJV)
When you support believers serving with Every Home in the Americas, you carry hope to people like Simón and Antonella.
Jesus uses the words, prayers, and gifts of believers like you to illuminate the path to new life!
