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Tom & Jane Wills’ Testimony

TOM: We are grateful for the opportunity to share how faithful God has been to us. We are also thankful to be part of what God is doing here at One Voice. Some of you know that before coming to OVF in April 2023, we lived 10 years in North Africa. Before that we were in southern Spain for 15 years. We had the privilege of sharing the Good News of Jesus and serving the growing church in those places. We had to learn languages and adapt to new cultures, like many of you do. But we saw God provide people in every place — brothers and sisters in Christ — who welcomed us and helped us integrate into our new lives.

JANE: One of the hardest things was watching our children suffer, especially in our first year in Spain. Our son, John, said: “I don’t fit in here! I can’t speak Spanish. I’m too tall and too blond. They’re Catholic and we’re Evangelicals. I just want to be a normal American kid!” Our children often felt like outsiders and they missed our family back home. But God was faithful in providing good teachers and friends. Now our sons say about themselves: “parts made in the USA, assembled in Spain.”

All of our children are adults now, and the experience of living overseas greatly influenced them. Julia is a bi-lingual lawyer who lives in Arlington. She is married to a Bolivian man and they have 3 children. John works for a multinational energy company in Santiago, Chile and is married to a Chilean woman. They will be moving to this area next month. Our youngest, Tim, is a medical doctor with a heart to serve God in needy areas of the world. He just moved to DC this summer for further training at the National Children’s Hospital. In the past 25 years we have never lived in the same place.

So it will be a HUGE blessing to have all 3 of our children close by so that we can do life together in-person! This November, they will help us celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary!

A few years ago, while in North Africa, we started thinking about moving back to the US. We wanted to integrate into a new church community and get involved in ministry while we were still young enough. Then my mother had a stroke and needed fulltime care. So we moved back to my family’s home in McLean to help take care of her. One Voice was just the kind of church and ministry we had prayed for! Being part of the life of this community has made our adjustment to life back in the United States much easier than we had feared. We had wondered how we would fit into a homogeneous American church after starting and supporting multicultural churches overseas for 25 years? God again showed his faithfulness to us by bringing us here to One Voice Fellowship and made you our church family.

TOM: So that accounts for the past 25 years. But like we said, we are about to complete 50 years of marriage! Our journey has not been ordinary. It has taken some very unusual twists and turns. But Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, has been at work in us.

I grew up on a farm in the far northern part of Michigan, the 7th of 10 children. My father died when I was 11 and I remember the shock and crying out to God: “God, you’ve taken my daddy. Would you please be my Daddy?” Someone who knew my father showed me the love of God by taking me to a weekly Christian club for young boys, where I memorized many Bible verses. At Summer Bible camp my cabin counselor led me in saying the Sinner’s prayer to receive Jesus into my heart. I said the words, but I didn’t really understand what it meant to follow Jesus.

10 years later, I was in the Navy and very confused about life. One day a young evangelist on a beach in France challenged me to serve Jesus with my life. After I had proudly quoted many Bible verses to her, she said, “You know so much about Jesus. Why aren’t you living for him?!”

Her challenge rocked my world. I could quote the Bible verses, but did I believe them? I realized I wanted to believe, but I didn’t know how. I cried out to God for help. I asked Him to give me the faith to believe. He was my only hope. He answered my prayer and changed my life that night. I began reading the Bible every free moment I had. I got involved with a Christian ministry called the Navigators. I learned how to memorize Scripture, share the gospel, and lead Bible studies with the men on my ship. I believed God wanted to use me to preach the gospel, so I made plans to go to Bible college after the Navy.

JANE: I grew up right here in northern Virginia. My father was Catholic, but my mother didn’t believe in God. When I was 5, I developed juvenile arthritis. It is a painful condition that flared up every spring and put me in a wheelchair. One time, when I was in pain, I asked my father why God let me suffer. He wisely told me that it was so that I would be able to understand and help others who suffered. That gave me hope.

When I was 8, I understood that Jesus died for my sins, and I promised to serve him with my life. Singing became a way for me to express my faith and my ideas. I taught myself to play the guitar and joined a music group at church. I wanted to serve God with my talents and energy, but I didn’t really know the gospel. The gospel isn’t about what you and I can do for God, but what He has done for us!

When I was 17, God showed me that I needed to surrender all my plans and let Him direct my life. After months of spiritual struggle, I finally let go of the things I was holding on to for my identity and sense of worth. I asked him to fill me with his Holy Spirit. I began to read the Bible and God’s Word came alive to me!

As young adults, Tom and I were both looking for a way to serve God. We had been brought up with the “American Dream.” That Dream tells you that you can be anything you want to be. But that wasn’t our dream. We wanted our lives to be significant, to matter for God.

Now imagine the United States in the early 1970’s. There was a lot of social unrest over the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. Young people were looking for alternatives in drugs, sex, and religion. There was a revival among young people in America called the “Jesus Movement.”

In 1973, Tom and I both happened to be in Barcelona, Spain. Tom’s Navy ship stopped in the port, and I was studying at the University of Barcelona. We had not met one another yet. We were both recruited by a group from the Jesus Movement called “The Children of God.” We met each other only after we had joined the group. A year and a half later, we got married in Madrid. While in The Children of God, we lived in Spain, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

TOM: While in this group we saw God provide for us in miraculous ways and people came to faith in Jesus through our evangelistic efforts. But there were also false teachings and harmful practices that got progressively worse. After 5 years, we left the group. We felt abused and broken both spiritually and emotionally.

We felt a strong feeling of failure after we realized how much The Children of God deceived us. We sometimes thought, “Jesus, can you still love me, even though I’ve been such a failure?” It took time for us to understand those experiences. But once again, God provided wonderful friends, counselors, and pastors to help us find our way.

We really wanted to go back overseas, but God was not in a hurry. He had so much to teach us. For the next 20 years, while we furthered our formal education, had our children and participated in healthy churches, God was teaching us about His grace. Isaiah 40 describes God as a shepherd who “gently leads those with young.” He gently led us and showed us his steadfast love through solid biblical teaching and in the ordinary rhythms of life and work.

We started seeing the Gospel in a new light. We saw that that the Gospel is not just the entryway into the Christian life. The Gospel is our daily food. We started seeing our sins of pride, judging others, complaining, speaking bad about others, and far worse things. We realized that even when we did good deeds, our motives were often mixed. We found the only remedy was preaching the Gospel to ourselves. We must remind ourselves of our sinful motives, words, and deeds; AND, we must also remember God’s never-failing grace and love for us. We learned what genuine, honest repentance looked like. In these ways, we experienced the joy and freedom that flows into our lives when we confess our sins and run to the arms of Jesus.

JANE: We still wanted to live cross-culturally and share the Good News with people who had never heard it before. But we weren’t trying to save the world anymore. We knew that only God could do that! But, we were so wrong before, so very deceived in the Children of God. Could we trust our ability to make wise decisions? We desperately needed God to direct our steps. Our church supported an organization that specialized in helping people see their brokenness and need for Christ. This organization valued people over programs and understood that God works through weak people just as much, if not more, than through strong people. We have happily served with that organization and grown in our faith for the past 27 years.

Jesus is our Shepherd and he leads us beside still waters; He restores our souls. He leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. He is faithful and good all the time!

And until we see him face to face, we will still need to repent of our fears and sins. Our hearts are sometimes tempted by fear or failure. We can be tempted to find our worth in what we do, rather than in what He has done for us.

In Revelation 3 Jesus said, 19 ”I warn and correct those I love. So be sincere, and turn away from your sins. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in. I will eat with that person, and they will eat with me.”

It is a joyous thing to turn away from sin and welcome Jesus into our lives.

TOM: God reminds us in Ephesians 2:8-10: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

What about you? How has God been working in your life? Do you need him to give you faith to believe? Do you need him to deliver you from the bondage of false teaching? Do you need to repent of finding your worth in what you do for God, instead of thanking him for Christ’s perfect righteousness given freely to those who trust in Him? Can you trust Him to work through you as you put your trust in Him?

When some religious people asked Jesus what was the work of God, Jesus answered: “The work of God is to believe in the one he sent.” That starts with believing he is who he said is: the Son of God who came to save sinners! And that believing continues to grow and deepen as we repent of our sins and trust him with every aspect of our lives. He is worthy!

介绍Clément Tendo

Clément Tendo

Clément Tendo

对我来说,一个声音奖学金是”杜贾迈斯-武”——这是我以前从未见过的。然而,我非常兴奋,因为我对不同语言和流派的歌曲的兴趣,以及它们如何用于崇拜。我相信一个充满圣灵的教会就是用我们主耶稣基督的不妥协福音,与所有国家接触。一个声音代表了基督教会在准备羔羊的婚姻晚餐时所称的,每个部落和舌头的人们都会一起崇拜我们伟大的上帝(启示录19:6-10;5:9-10)。

我在相信圣经的家里长大,这只能归于上帝的恩典。然而,当我看着我的生活,我不会说,这种祝福使我免于诱惑和罪恶。当我继续信仰的时候,我意识到我的罪有多少——还有我的救主耶稣基督是多么伟大和伟大。我感谢上帝赐予我每一刻的成功、焦虑、忧虑、怀疑和不确定性。他们提醒我,上帝必须保持光,通过它我看到所有的光(诗篇36:9)。当我挣扎时,我的安慰和庇护的来源是通过祈祷来寻求上帝,回忆起他回答的祈祷,唱歌和制作福音音乐,学习神的话。在深深的黑暗中,我来看看,除了每天耐心地信任上帝,而不是依靠自己的理解(谚语3:5-6),我别无选择。

在乌干达非洲圣经大学学习期间,我观察了非洲教会的状况,发现大多数牧师对福音充满热情和热情,但对如何正确处理真理之言(2 Timothy 2:15)几乎没有什么培训。我觉得有必要与这些福音的部长分享我所学的东西,以便知识和激情能够共同促进福音的推进。作为一个知道上帝仍在日复一日地塑造我的人,我的祈祷是,上帝会让我成为他手中的工具,成为每天的乞丐,向其他乞丐展示他们可以通过教导、说教和唱主的教导找到生命的面包。我目前在威斯敏斯特神学院的研究是具有挑战性的, 但在许多方面塑造和神圣化我。我通过圣灵的力量,通过恐惧和颤抖来完成我的救赎,因为上帝每天都在我从事的工作(菲律宾人2:12-13)。

我的神学硕士学位需要在当地教会实习,所以我祈祷上帝能帮助我找到一个教会,通过应用我在威斯敏斯特学到的东西来帮助我成长。感谢上帝赐予克里斯牧师的爱和谦逊的人,他号召我作为田园和崇拜实习生参加”一个声音”联谊会,我认为这是一个回应的祷告。我希望并祈祷,当我们互相服务,用一个声音走到一起崇拜我们的神(罗马书15:5-7),我们将继续成长在我们的主耶稣基督(2彼得3:18)的知识和恩典,为彼此的教育,为我们的喜悦,最重要的是,为上帝的荣耀(罗马书11:36;1科林蒂安斯10:31)。

介绍Kashif和Sana

Introducing Kashif and Sana

卡西夫,他的妻子萨那和他们的女儿

我们都是巴基斯坦人。我们出生于基督教家庭,非常参与教会的青年事工和合唱团。在巴基斯坦,参加每一次教堂活动是我们的日常活动,因为我们知道没有神生活对我们来说是多么困难。当我们于2019年12月移居美国时,我们担心自己的基督徒生活。当您搬到一个不认识任何人的地方时,这很可怕。但是我们为自己,特别是为我们的女儿乔伊祈祷了很多。

在巴基斯坦,我们有一个想法,就是美国人民远离上帝,如果您去教堂,您只会看到老人,因为年轻一代不会来教堂。
但是,当我们来到这里与克里斯牧师会面时,我们感到我们已经认识很多年了。他是我们精神上的父亲,总是乐于助人,并且像基督爱我们一样爱我们。因此,当克里斯牧师向我们介绍OVF时,我们感到非常兴奋。我们以为,“哇!在一个其他人也会听我们用我们的语言祈祷和唱歌的地方,用我们自己的语言祈祷将是多么神奇。”

我们真的为OVF的一部分感到骄傲和感谢上帝。没有基于您来自哪里的区别。人们听到我们的见证,讲述在巴基斯坦成为一名基督徒的生活有多么艰辛。因此,我们在这里感觉都一样。正如圣经所说,我们应该彼此相爱,就像上帝爱我们一样!

ZH