2020 was… life giving?
If you ask the media, a politician, or even your neighbors, they would likely describe the last year using words like depressing and difficult. Indeed, COVID19 turned the past twelve months into a challenging year for many families, organizations, and churches. But if you ask Febe (pronounced like "Phoebe"), an 18-year-old Argentine, she would say that the pandemic was a life-giving time for her family.
In 2019, before anyone was talking about quarantine, Febe was already struggling. She had no interest in spiritual things, despite being a part of several churches in the past. However, one day her cousin invited Febe and her sister to Iglesia Crecer Saldán, and the impact on Febe's life was immediate. She recalls, "From the first youth group meeting, I could tell something was different. They were teaching things from the Bible that I'd never heard before!"
Over several weeks, as she grasped the concepts of sin and grace, Febe came to know Christ. But there was a hurdle yet to come: her parents, Saul and Andrea, were against Febe's desire to attend Iglesia Crecer Saldán. Her father explained, "We already had a local church, and I had no idea the teaching was different from one to the other." In Saul and Andrea's mind, Febe ought to go to the "family church" they had traditionally attended. When Febe DID go to her family's church, they spoke poorly about her new church, accusing it of teaching strange doctrines.
Febe was torn.
But to honor their parents, she and her sister Persi stopped attending Iglesia Saldán and went to the family's church, albeit half-heartedly. Then the quarantine hit.
When quarantine began, many churches switched to virtual services, and Febe was once again able to hear God's word from Pastor Ariel and the other leaders at Iglesia Crecer. Persi joined her as she listened, and both became more and more convinced that what they were learning about God was true. They met with Pastor Ariel and his wife several times to start discipleship and also to ask questions about how to share the truth with their family. Since the entire family was working from home, there were opportunities to talk about spiritual things together, and the sisters took every chance to share the gospel with their family.
Little by little, the ideas and truths that Febe and Persi shared began to take root in their parents' hearts. Eight months after prohibiting their daughter from attending Iglesia Crecer Saldán, Saul and Andrea attended themselves, virtually. Although both parents had been a part of different denominations - "we thought we knew about the Word, but we didn't," remarks Saul - their reaction to hearing clear biblical preaching was profound. From that moment onward, they experienced a hunger to understand who God is and what his word says. When Iglesia Saldán once again opened for in-person services, the Carboni family - Saul, Andrea, Febe, Persi, and their ten children who live at home - were there.
Since Saul and Andrea came to Iglesia Crecer Saldán, the truth of the gospel has spread like wildfire through their family, even crossing state lines. Their younger daughter Sarah has recently made a profession of faith. Their oldest daughters, living in Buenos Aires, listen to the sermons and have awakened to the truth of God's Word, and then shared the teaching with their in-laws, who also realized their need to follow Christ! 2020, the year of quarantine, became a year of revival for their whole family and a clear before-and-after in their spiritual lives. The domino-like testimony of the Carbonis is evidence that the power of the gospel is something that distance, resistance, and even pandemics cannot overcome.
You can be a part.
Families are hearing the gospel and coming to faith in Christ through the ministry of church plants in Argentina. When you partner or donate to these church plants, it allows them to expand their ministries and reach more with the truth of God's word.
