A verse from God’s Word is enough

Bible Society supporter José Damásio dos Santos Filho tells how he lost his wife, came to faith and became an evangelist

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — My wife Christina was an evangelical Christian but, to her sadness, I wasn’t. For a long time she tried very hard to get me to change. She tried several times to persuade me to go to church with her but I wouldn’t. My job in the shipping business gave me quite a good salary, my only vice was smoking and everything was apparently going very well.

Yet although I didn’t share her convictions, I never tried to stop her going to church – I just didn’t like her to get home too late!

Thinking

Then, in 1985, she became ill and that set me thinking. In particular I began thinking about the verse that says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies” (John 11:25).

She had to go into hospital for an operation and during that time I had a conversation with one of our neighbours who was herself a very devout Christian. I told her that Christina was in hospital for an operation and that I was very worried.

I also told her that I had taken a verse from a votary box [a box of Bible verses used as a tool among groups doing Bible study]. The verse was the same one which had come to me before. I told her that I found the verse comforting because I thought it was God’s way of saying that everything would be all right.

My neighbour looked at me. “Mr Damásio,” she said, “it could also mean that your wife will not come through the surgery.”

Desperate

When I was told that my wife had died, I felt desperate. But that word from the Bible brought me consolation: I understood that salvation comes through Jesus. I committed my life to Christ on September 22, 1985 and from that day to this I have tried to walk with the Lord and I shall never leave him again.

After my wife died I was a widower for almost seven years and then I remarried. My second wife is a Christian – in fact she is a counsellor at the church – and a good housewife.

Supporter

About ten years ago, a woman at our church told me about the work of the Bible Society of Brazil (BSB) and I decided to become a supporter. I also began helping with the church’s social outreach program.

As I often travelled by bus from Rio de Janeiro to Natal, I began to take advantage of the journey to witness to people. I began at the Rio de Janeiro bus station and then I continued it at other places along the way – at Leopoldina, Vitória da Conquista and Governador Valadares. I became a BSB evangelism partner (buying quantities of Portions from the Bible Society and undertaking to distribute them) and I enjoyed that.

Some time later, I went to live in Curitiba. And one particular thing there surprised me: I noticed that nobody dropped any litter – however small – in the street.

You can witness to a whole bus full of people – and the buses there are big! – handing out leaflets to everybody and when the bus reaches the terminus not a single leaflet will be thrown away. People put them in their pockets, in their wallets, inside a book – but nobody throws them on the ground. Their attitude certainly helps people who use leaflets for evangelism!

As well as handing out leaflets on the buses in Curitiba, when I go out wearing a coat I fill the pockets with leaflets and leave them in the letterboxes in my neighbourhood.

One leaflet I left in a letterbox reached a lad in my neighbourhood who was going astray. In fact I left various leaflets at his house, without knowing his situation, and they brought him back to the church. Today he is on the right path and attends Sunday school. There could be more cases like this which only God knows about.

You may think that a leaflet can’t have an effect on a person’s life but a verse from the Bible led to my conversion, so why shouldn’t a leaflet be enough to change someone else’s life?

“He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (John 11:25). That is my encouragement to those who have not awakened to the great work the Lord has entrusted to us.” (WR 366/26 - 1/2.02) [PHOTOS]