Kim Menon was an avowed atheist. As a child, her parents took her to church but no one could satisfy her with the answers she sought.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought believers just weren\u2019t intelligent enough,\u201d Menon said.<\/p>\n
Now a kindergarten teacher in Seattle, Washington, education is a central part of Menon\u2019s life. Striving to get involved in her students\u2019 lives and to know their parents, she believes that\u2019s how students best learn and grow. But Menon had no idea this path would lead her into a Christian commitment.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, Andy Brown moved from Camden, Arkansas, to Seattle to plant churches, aided by Southern Baptists\u2019 Cooperative Program missions and ministry outreach funded through their tithes and offerings.<\/p>\n
Larry Bailey, missions pastor at Central Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas, a sponsor church for Brown\u2019s mission, noted, \u201cTogether we are able to [impact] places like Seattle because it\u2019s so expensive to live there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown, after arriving in Seattle, registered his son for kindergarten at the local school, where he was placed in Menon\u2019s class. The school building seemed to be in good shape but Brown noticed that the grounds needed landscaping and care.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the ministry we do is community service,\u201d Brown said. \u201cA constant presence in the community is the best way to reach people, so we kind of adopted the school.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Brown talked to the principal about his desire to help the school, she was hesitant. Brown agreed to work with no mention of his religious beliefs. Everyone knew he was the pastor of The Landing Church but there would be no pressure from Brown while he was on campus. He was there only to serve. Many teachers were curious why he would do all that work with nothing in return, so it piqued their interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could answer my questions when asked,\u201d Menon said, \u201cbut that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown noted that in a small church like The Landing in Seattle\u2019s secular environment, \u201cmost of the new believers are still not comfortable being bold with their faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have to have a lot of outside help to have a constant presence in the community\u201d since The Landing does almost all the landscaping at the school along with some painting and catering several times a year for the teachers and other special events.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why mission trips from sponsor churches like Central Baptist are important. Bailey was involved in one of those mission trips as a volunteer in Menon\u2019s class, making copies, grading papers, helping with projects — anything to be of service.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was very suspicious,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018I don\u2019t get it. You fly all the way from Arkansas to Seattle to make copies for me. Why?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He simply explained, \u201cBecause we want to love you and show you that God loves you too.\u201d<\/p>\n
As they worked, Menon sat in the back of the classroom and watched with tears streaming down her face.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never met anyone who did things like that without wanting something in return,\u201d Menon said. \u201cI thought Christians were predators who didn\u2019t really care about who I was. They just wanted me to say a prayer and then not give a care about me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Persistent love<\/p>\n
For more than two years, the Brown family continued to minister to the school and to Menon, among others. They invited her to birthday parties, neighborhood get-togethers and holiday events. They never hid their faith; quite the contrary — they continually invited her to church. It even became a joke, with Menon saying it would never happen. But as time went on, they all became friends, and she fell in love with this family.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Menon\u2019s marriage was falling apart, and she wanted to save it. She knew the Browns were pro-marriage and came to them for help. Menon felt hurt, unloved and rejected by her husband, but the Browns showed her that they would love her no matter what.<\/p>\n
It made Menon wonder if there was something to all the talk about Jesus. \u201cI loved them at this point,\u201d she said, yet \u201cI didn\u2019t want to come to church and get their hopes up and then disappoint them.\u201d<\/p>\n
So she began to learn about God on her own. If she heard them mention a Christian book, she would secretly buy the book and read it.<\/p>\n
Then Menon\u2019s mother became very ill after a series of heart attacks. In spite of her fragile health, she was scheduled for heart surgery. Menon needed a miracle, so she did the only thing left to do: She called Brown and asked him to pray for her mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe what I was hearing,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
What surprised him even more was what he heard come out of his own mouth: \u201cGod will heal your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown panicked. What if God didn\u2019t heal her mother? What if this pushed her even farther from God? Yet he did what he knew he should do — he started praying. He called everyone in the church, emailed and posted on Facebook so that every believer he knew praying for Menon\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrayer and fasting are first and foremost on Brown\u2019s mind,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cLike the saints of old — he\u2019s patterned his life after them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone waited with expectation as Menon\u2019s mother underwent surgery. But when the doctors opened her up, they could find nothing wrong with her.<\/p>\n
Menon was relieved, but also frustrated and angry. She wanted an explanation, but none of the doctors could tell her how her mother had been healed. She called a friend, an atheistic cardiac nurse, and her only response was, \u201cSometimes we don\u2019t have the knowledge yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
She called Brown, and when she questioned him, he simply said, \u201cWhat do you think about it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Menon searched her heart, and she knew who healed her mother: God.<\/p>\n
Ready to believe<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t long until Menon was ready for the \u201cGod talk.\u201d She was alone, listening to Christian music, and a song came on the radio that spoke to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not alone,\u201d she said. \u201cEven though my husband leaves me, God will never leave me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She called the church, and Brown wasn\u2019t available, so she spoke with a woman there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel something different inside me,\u201d Menon began to explain. During the conversation, the woman led her in a salvation prayer over the phone.<\/p>\n
Menon brought 19 of her unsaved friends to her baptism, and she is now the part-time children\u2019s minister at The Landing Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life has changed immeasurably,\u201d she said. \u201cI used to omit the words \u2018under God\u2019 from the Pledge of Allegiance. I was for gay rights, and now I have a different definition of marriage — God\u2019s definition. I didn\u2019t even know what a Gospel tract was three years ago, and now I\u2019m handing them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Browns continue to help Menon grow in her faith and help her reach others.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell the people in Arkansas, \u2018Thank you,\u2019 and that they are changing lives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a teacher next door to me, and she\u2019s been burned by believers. They need to come volunteer in her class. They can give their time and prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pacific Northwest is 96 percent unchurched, and many of the traditional churches that do exist make little or no effort to reach people in their communities.<\/p>\n
In addition to Brown\u2019s church plant and his efforts to reach people through the school, he has started a homeless ministry called SALT, which supplies food, clothing, personal health supplies and biblical teaching.<\/p>\n
Through Brown\u2019s efforts, 48 people have come to Christ since March 2014.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Sabrina McDonald is a freelance writer in Cabot, Ark. This article first appeared in the Arkansas Baptist News ( www.arkansasbaptist.org ), newsjournal of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kim Menon was an avowed atheist. As a child, her parents took her to church but no one could satisfy her with the answers she sought. \u201cI thought believers just weren\u2019t intelligent enough,\u201d Menon said. Now a kindergarten teacher in Seattle, Washington, education is a central part of Menon\u2019s life. Striving to get involved in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,1134,1742,391,1743,1744,402,1745,386],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}