The Agostos: A Marriage Revival

"I wanted somebody that would understand me. I wanted someone that when I said to them what I had gone through that I could have that shoulder to lean on as opposed to being judged."

Linda had just moved from New York to live with family members in Florida when she found that person. At her new school, she met Rafael.

He recalls, “When I got to school that day, I saw a group of friends of mine, and I saw this new girl standing there. I said, 'Wow! That’s a new girl. She’s beautiful.' So I walked up to the crowd and introduced myself.”

Linda says, “As soon as I looked at him, I said, 'Wow.' I liked him at first sight.”

Linda and Rafael felt an instant connection and started spending time together.

“It was just a lot of talking at first. We fell in love that way," Linda says. "Me pretty much airing out all my feelings, all my frustrations and him doing the same thing having gone through the life that he lived.”

Rafael was coping with the loss of his mother. She was a drug addict and died from AIDS when he was 13. Linda had her own problems.

“I looked to alcohol as a refuge due to everything that happened in my childhood with my father drinking and the domestic violence that was in the home," she says. "I was sexually abused at an early age.”

But their troubles were just beginning. Linda was only 16 and Rafael was15 when she became pregnant.

Rafael says, “There were people that were telling me, 'You guys are too young to have a baby. Get rid of it.' 'Don’t worry about her. Women have raised kids by themselves before.' You know, 'don’t throw your future away.' But I was set on it. I was like, ‘I don’t care what it takes. I’m gonna stay with Linda, and I’m gonna raise this baby. We’re gonna have a family.'”

Rafael and Linda moved back to New York to live with Linda’s family. After the baby was born, the young couple realized they weren’t ready to settle down.

“We would still go to the clubs," Linda confesses. "We would still go to the bars. So that life didn’t change. It was like now I had somebody to join me at the clubs. I wasn’t drinking by myself. ”

Just three months after their first son’s birth, Linda got pregnant again.

“Because things were a little shaky at the time, we decided to just get married," Rafael says. "We were like, 'OK, maybe it’s time to make things right.'”

instead, they had more complications.

Rafael continues, “The problems really started once we got married, and things became very, very difficult My stepfather passed away, and we had custody of my brother and [our own] two children.”

Rafael worked hard to support his growing family. Then he met a man at work who made things even harder.

“One day he invites me to his house for lunch, and he pulls out a bag of cocaine. I had vowed I would never do drugs. My mother was into drugs, and she actually died of AIDS when I was 13-years-old. I always vowed that I would never use drugs. So I was like, 'Put that away. Do whatever you want but I don’t do that.' A week later, I don’t know what happened, but we ended up at the same house. He pulled it out, and this time I tried it. From the first time I tried it, I was hooked. I was addicted."

Rafael’s addiction grew. He was soon spending $500 a day on drugs.

Linda recalls, “That’s why we lost everything. Every single dime would go into his habit. We would get income tax check -- sometimes $3,000, $4,000. I never saw them.”

“It was a really bad situation," Rafael says. "Lying to my wife, wouldn’t come home. From the time I would get up in the morning, I couldn’t resist having it. So I’d do whatever it took to get it.”

Again, Linda became pregnant, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She packed up the kids and left.

“I arrived at my sister’s house. He never followed me," Linda shares. "He loved the drugs more than his family -- that’s how I saw it.”

Linda realized that the one who would love her and never leave her was God. She accepted Jesus as her Savior and began praying for Rafael. Just three months later, she saw a flyer advertising a revival.

"It said on the top that if you need a miracle come at 7:30.”

Linda needed a miracle in her marriage. She convinced Rafael to come along.

“We’re sitting way in the back," Rafael says. "He starts to preach his message, then he stops and he says, 'I’m not gonna preach yet. There’s somebody here that’s tired of living the way they’ve been living. The living God tells you today, if you give Him a chance, your life will never be the same.'

“A lot of people came, and they threw like boxes of cigarettes on the altar. But he kept insisting that the Lord was saying that there was still someone. He kept on and on until he finally just stood, right in front of our section. He said, 'Somebody in this section, today is your day.'”

Linda says, "I was just praying and praying. Finally when I opened up my eyes and I looked to the side, my husband was going to the front.”

Rafael opened up his heart to God and was immediately delivered from his drug addictions.

He says, “I instantly felt something change. I felt something right away. I said, 'Whoa, something happened here.' And I cried. I cried in front of that platform. My life has never been the same. I haven’t touched another drug, another drink since that day.”

Rafael and Linda are now teaching their children about God’s power and how He transformed their lives and brought them back together.

“We’ve had our ups and our downs like any family even after being saved. But there’s one thing that I think is the most important thing is that I have them there. I know that it’s because of God. God is powerful. You give your life to God, and God will take care of you."

Psalm 1 - 2

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the season;

Abraham Deng and The Lost Boys of Sudan

“The enemy was running after us, and my best friend was older than me. He was on the other side with me, and he told me, ‘Abraham, get into the water. Cross to the other side.’ But I told him I would not because I didn’t know how to swim.”
Abraham Deng was just 10 years old when he and thousands of other children were driven from refugee camps in Ethiopia.
“So we jump into the water, and we crawled to the other side. I thought I was going to die,” Abraham shares with The 700 Club. “About 2,000 lost boys and girls died in that river as a result of enemy attack. Some were eaten by crocodiles, and some got drown because they didn’t know how to swim.”
This wasn’t the first time Abraham’s life was threatened. The danger began the day he fled from Islamic militants attacking his home village in Sudan. He was just six years old.
He recalls, “As we’re attending cattle, we heard the sound of guns, and we tried to come back to the camp, but we met some kids who were running in different directions. They told us not to go to the camp because we would get killed.”
Abraham and some other boys ran into the jungle.
“I thought there would be a time for me to go back to the camp, and I’d eventually go and see my family in the village,” he says, “but that wasn’t possible, so we stayed in the jungle.”
Most of the children were young men and boys. They became known as “The Lost Boys of Sudan.”
Abraham didn’t know why he’d been separated from his family. He missed them and wondered if he’d ever see them again. Then a man came to their camp and gave him a message of hope.
“After some weeks, there was an Evangelist by the name of Barnabas,” he explains. “He led me to Christ. He talked to me several times and also to the other kids about having hope.”
Over the next decade, “The Lost Boys” searched for a place to call home.
He says, “I didn’t have any clothes. I had only a pair of shorts that I was wearing, and I didn’t have shoes with me. I didn’t know where I was going, so I thought eventually I would die.”
Abraham walked more than 1,000 miles across Africa with bare feet. He stayed in a refugee camp in Ethiopia for four years and in a camp in Kenya for nine. Though he survived the journeys, many of his friends did not.
“Some got killed, and some were eaten by the lion population in the area. Some died of exhaustion; they could not walk farther. Some died of starvation.”
Abraham eventually heard that his own father and five uncles had been killed. His mother’s fate was unknown. Abraham only knew that he missed her.
“There was nothing more significant than to be with your mother. You find [that you are] by yourself, missing all that comfort and parental love and care. It was so difficult.”
It would be 19 long years before he learned what happened to his mother.
Today, Abraham is no longer a little boy trekking through Africa. He’s a young man living in the United States. He was one of nearly 4,000 “Lost Boys” resettled in America.
Once here, Abraham was on a mission.
He says, “I had been praying to God when I was over there that God would make it possible for me to go to school.”
God listened to Abraham’s prayers. Through hard work and faith, he made his way to Southern Wesleyan University in South Carolina. There he began studying to become a doctor.
“I am going to touch people’s lives, spiritually and medically,” Abraham says. “I know for so many reasons that God brought me to the United States to impact the lives of other Christians here and to accomplish what He wants me to do. That is education.”
As Abraham followed God’s will for his life, his prayers continued to be answered. One day he got a phone call…
“I went on the phone and talked to that guy [who] told me, ‘Abraham, you don’t know me, but I have good news for you. Your mom is alive, and she is a refugee in Ethiopia.’ I could not believe.”
His new friend helped arrange a phone call between Abraham and his mother in Africa.
“Mom told me, ‘My son, your siblings want you to come and see them, and besides that, I’m getting old.’ It broke my heart, and I said, ‘Mom, I know you are getting old, and my siblings want to see me. I know God is going to open a way for me to see you all.”
And God did. Through donations from other Christians, Abraham was able to return to Africa in 2006. He finally felt his mother’s arms around him again!
“When I saw my mom for the first time in 19 years, my world was completely changed, and I could not help crying. My mom lifted me up into the air with my sister, and I ran into the small house. [She] has been kissing me and kept calling me all the nicknames she used when I was a little boy. I try to respond to her, but there is not a word that came out of my mouth. It’s very difficult to explain. It was amazing.”
Abraham and his family were overjoyed by God’s answer to their prayers. But Abraham was saddened by his family’s living conditions.“There was a reason why God led me to go there. Not only to see my family, but to see what people are going through,” Abraham says. “My heart was broken when I was in camp.”
His own mother was suffering from both typhoid and chronic malaria. His brother-in-law needed immediate surgery. Fortunately, enough money had been raised for Abraham to pay for his brother’s surgery and to help many others. But Abraham wants to do much more.
“I give my life to God. ‘You do with me whatever You want. Just whatever You want of me, so that people have to come into Your kingdom.’ That is what I consider of myself. The reason I want to be a doctor is because there is a great need for doctors in my country. People die because of simple diseases. People die with no hope, and if I become a doctor, I will impact the lives of these people. I will tell them about God and take care of them medically. If one dies, I will give them that hope to die in Christ. So that’s what my mission is, and I know God is going to let me accomplish that.”
Abraham has returned to college to finish his degree. He plans to go to Africa again to see his family and to fulfill his calling. Though he’s had to overcome intense pain and tragedy in his 25 years, Abraham has also gained an indestructible faith.
“I know God is going to use me in a number of ways, not only in Sudan, but in many places," Abraham says. "Thank You so much for letting me suffer. Perhaps if I didn’t suffer, maybe I would not know God."

COMPLIMENT OF THE SEASON

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL. AND THANKS 4 VISITING MY BLOG.

Fatuma Shubisa: Twelve Hours in Heaven

Fatuma Shubisa works hard to provide for her and her husband’s nine children. She lives in the little village of Alelu in rural Ethiopia. She considers her simple life a gift from God, because it was God himself who raised her from the dead.
Fatuma tells The 700 Club, "For two months, I was very, very seriously sick."
One day Fatuma’s mother came to care for her daughter. But her daughter passed away.
"She came and touched my face. I was cold. My eyes were open. She closed my eyes and straightened my legs," Fatuma says. "My mother cried when she found out that I was dead. Because of that, everybody came and started crying."
The pain Fatuma felt during her long sickness was finally over. Fatuma grew up Muslim but had converted to Christianity. She says after she died, she felt herself being drawn to heaven.
"I was very happy, and I was going with a very merry heart."
Along the way, Fatuma saw someone she recognized. It was her husband’s brother, who had died two years earlier.
Fatuma recalls, "He came and took my hands, and he took me away. I felt like the earth was like an open ditch, but I had gone up very, very high. When I crossed and went away from the valley, I reached a place where everybody was dressed in gold. I looked at the earth as very dirty, but where I was was very free and clean."
Back at her home, more and more people were coming to mourn Fatuma’s passing.
"My relatives had come, and they were non-Christians, Muslims, and they were crying very much," she explains. "But a few Christians were praying."
A missionary named Warsa Buta was walking nearby.
Warsa says, "After my salvation God told me, 'I will raise the dead through you.' With that word, I was praying earnestly from that day onward."
Fatuma adds, "When he was passing by the way, he heard that somebody had died. So he came and started praying. The non-Christians came, and they were asking, 'Why is this Pentecostal man praying over a dead body?'”
As Warsa prayed, Fatuma’s vision of heaven continued.
"My mother-in-law was dead, and she was there in that place," Fatuma remembers, "She was begging them to send me back so that I can raise my children. Those people who were in gold said, 'She is quite young, so send her back. Send her back.'”
By now, Fatuma had been dead a full 12 hours, but Warsa kept praying.
Warsa says, "I had faith the Lord would work through me. I prayed as Peter prayed. 'Fatuma, be raised. I ask you in the name of the Lord. Come to life.' When I prayed that prayer -- 'Fatuma, rise in the name of Jesus' -- she sat up in the bed."
Fatuma says, "Then immediately I found myself in my body. I sat up in my bed and started asking, 'What is this? What’s happening? What’s going on?' Then everybody was surprised. Some were commenting, 'A Pentecostal man can call back a dead soul to a body? If this is real, then we all will become Christians.’ And they were shouting.
"I was a Christian, and my husband was an evangelist. When I died, I died as a Christian. These people called Warsa, and they started commenting, 'Your God is a very powerful God. Now make us believe.'
"I came back, because it was the will of God for me to live with my children. But I would be very happy to go back there. Now I have seen when a Christian dies, he goes to a better place, and his body goes back to dust. For a non-believer that is a place of sadness, but when a Christian dies, he goes to a separate place where everything is good, where everything is very, very happy."

The Big Faith of a Child

It was like an explosion. An SUV speeding at over 100 miles an hour ripped through the concrete wall of a music store. Rick and Teresa Hester had taken their four-year-old daughter there. Little Elise loved to play the drums.
Mom, Teresa recalls, "I was sitting on the drum set in front of her, and she was on the drum set behind me."
The vehicle plowed over the drum set where Elise was sitting and went through the wall into the mattress store, next door.
She continues, "I started to see maybe just two feet in front of me and there were pieces of debris on the floor. I looked down and all of the drums where we were sitting were taken out. Tthe first thought that went through my head was, 'Where’s Elise?" "
Rick remembers,"Teresa hollered Elise’s name out twice with no response. And, at that point, we just knew she was dead."
"I looked down at the floor to see if I could see her feet sticking up. Since pieces of the ceiling were caved in and pieces of the wall, the light was coming in more, and you could see pieces of the wall on the floor," says Teresa.
"I felt afraid. And honestly, this was so strange that in just a few seconds, I could feel so much emotion. But wow, it was like reliving the whole thing. I felt like if she was gone, I didn’t want to be here anymore. I remember that... feeling that I didn’t want to be alive if she was not alive," she says.
But to everyone’s surprise and relief— a little figure appeared in the midst of the dust and debris.
"About 15-20 seconds later, she came running from the very back of the store and was saying, 'I’m right here mommy, I’m right here.' And that was the biggest blessing, seeing that child run through there, that you’ve ever had in your life," says Teresa.
Rick and Teresa started to question little Elise—her story shocked everyone. "I said, 'Are you okay?' And she said, 'I’m fine.' And I said, 'Well, Elise, how did you get off the drums? You were right there on them.' And she said, 'Well, Jesus picked me up and moved me, mom.' She said that when He picked her up, He picked her up with one hand and she said, 'He has really big hands, mommy, and it felt like I was in water.' "
Since then, her story hasn’t changed.
"He kissed me on my right cheek. Jesus is bigger than the whole world," little Elise now says. The local paper reported that a medical condition may have been the cause of the driver losing control of the car. Amazingly, he went to the hospital with minor injuries.
Store clerk, Steve Totten, is still amazed at what he saw that day. "Yeah, the last I saw her, she was sitting at the drum set. It happened so fast. We thought she had gotten covered up by the debris. It’s just a miracle that nobody got hurt or killed. And to know that she was okay, that made me feel a whole lot better. We really thought she was covered up in all that stuff," says Steve.
Rick and Teresa believe that God truly protected their little girl that rainy, summer afternoon.
"I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they were in the fiery furnace, and they came out with not even the smell of smoke. She was so protected that she didn’t even have the fear from the accident that we had," says Teresa.
"It’s the most miraculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life. If I never see another miracle as long as I live, I mean, I can actually say I saw one that day," adds Rick.
Do you want to experience God like little Elise? Find out more.

The Writing on the Wall

Like many people in Ethiopia, Yilma Gudini grew up illiterate.
“I lived in a rural area, so I had no opportunity to go to school,” Yilma says.
Instead of going to school, Yilma spent his childhood herding cattle for his family. He was always healthy, but as an adult, Yilma was stricken with a strange disease that he says was demonic.
“Evil spirits bound my legs and closed my mouth,” he says.
For years, Yilma was unable to walk or speak. But when a missionary prayed with him for eight days, he was healed.
“The demons left me, and I could walk and speak again,” he says. “It was a miracle.”
Yilma gave his life to Christ. And just a few months later, he would experience another miracle.
“God told me to fast and pray for 15 days,” Yilma says.
After 10 days, he went to sleep and had an incredible dream.
“I saw the word of God written on the wall,” he says.
But Yilma didn’t just see the word of God. He could read it.
“I read the words for many hours,” he says. “And when I woke up, I got a Bible and I could read it as well.”
Yilma didn’t know if he was really reading or not, so he took the Bible to a friend who could read, and asked him if the words on the page matched what he thought they said. That friend confirmed that Yilma could read. Even though he was an adult, Yilma decided to go to school, but that proved to be a little more difficult than he thought it would be.
“But when I went to school I could not read anymore,” Yilma says. “I lost the ability God had given me. I was very confused. But when I stopped going to school, I could read again.”
Since God did this for me, I have read from Genesis to Revelation. And now I teach the Bible in my church.”
So why does Yilma think God healed him and gave him the ability to read? The answer is simple.
Yilma says, “I know God did this for me because he loves me.”