"Do you have a new boyfriend?"

Jelena was teasing Bilijana. “You are just beaming” she said, “Have you found a new boyfriend?” Bilijana’s smile did not falter at all, but her answer was unexpected, “No boyfriend; I found a Savior!”

Bilijana is the result of two years of steady weekly investment and work by my wife Brenda. People inch toward Christ here and have huge social and cultural hurdles to cross in order to embrace the Savior. Thus Bilijana’s statement is all the more powerful. And frankly we don’t hear these things very often here in the Hairy Armpit. Bilijana came to Christ twice as fast as the average believer here!

Then I was talking to a powerful businessman today who attends the International church where I pastor and he was telling me about some folks that he has been cultivating for two solid years! They inch forward and then take two inches back, three forward, two back. It is difficult to have the patience for these kinds of investments in people, and even more difficult to see God’s big picture in the whole process. But in the end, as Bilijana discovered last week, a Savior is far superior to a new boyfriend.