It was the first time Lauren Howard had ever cried like that.
Studying language in Spain, she was on a train when the weight of her teacher’s lostness hit her.
“Just out of the blue, I started crying uncontrollably for her salvation,” Howard said. “This was the first time I had cried for someone’s salvation, and that was the moment God spoke to me and said, ‘You have to come back.’”
She did.
Now an International Mission Board journeyman in Sevilla, Spain, Howard spends her days walking the cobblestone streets of the quaint city building relationships with university students.
“It’s so dark and there is so much sin and disregard for God,” said Howard, whose home church is Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, in Birmingham Baptist Association. “It seems like no one is interested in the gospel at all, and when they hear it, it doesn’t penetrate their hearts. They’re so consumed in their sinful lives that they cannot see the truth.”
It’s hard sometimes to keep sharing, she said. But she’s compelled by the need and the bondage she said comes from a tradition of Catholicism but no real knowledge of Jesus.
“They’re all searching for something more and no one is happy. It’s very obvious (that they need something), but they don’t think Jesus is it,” Howard said.
But she is seeing God at work despite the hardness of the soil she’s tilling, especially through a new Bible discussion group she and her roommate started in their home in January. At the meeting, nonbelievers read Scripture and then discuss its message in a casual environment. It’s something that has drawn a lot of interest from students.
“This time has given us great opportunities to talk deeper with many students and share the entire gospel with them,” Howard said. “The Lord has definitely been using this to open their eyes, and many of them come back each week without hesitation. And they come with questions and eager to learn more.”
She works through Connexxion, a university ministry that offers English conversation classes, Bible discussion groups like the one at her house, parties, excursions and discipleship groups.
“I’m constantly hanging out with students in order to build relationships, share the gospel and bring them into our group,” Howard said. “We need so much prayer because this is a hard place.”
She asked that believers pray
• for God to break the hearts of the people.
• for Him “to reveal their futile and sinful lives and to show them the emptiness in their idols of alcohol, partying, friends, family and all the Catholic tradition that isn’t based on truth.”
• for them to see that God is real and relevant and wants a relationship with them.
• that their preconceptions and stereotypes of God and Christianity would be destroyed.
“Please also pray for me and my team, that we would continue to be obedient in sharing the Word and continue to seek the Lord first in all that we do,” Howard said.
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