Oxford
That´s none of your business! Just follow me!
(Jn 21, 22)
The sun rose with words in my heart that confirmed that Jesus knew my thoughts and had called me into a new life with Him. It happened at the meeting with people interested in joining KOINONIA, it was May 27, 2000.
There are words that touch your heart and even though you don’t understand them, you know for sure they are for you and just you and to say “Yes, Lord” means to leave everything behind and walk with faith. I kept nagging the Lord with the questions, “How do you want me to do it Lord?” “What should I do?” “Will I know how to do it?” But His reply didn´t change: “You just follow me. I am your Lord, your God, who is teaching you to be successful, who leads you along the way you are supposed to follow” (Is 48, 17). “From now on I shall announce to you new things and hidden things of which you don´t know. They are being created now…” (Is 48, 6-7).
So I made that first step. I did not change my work, my friends, or my home, but it was all enriched by a real sense of joy and fulfilment, which only God can offer. Koinonia meetings, evangelisation courses and personal prayer became my everyday reality. God had given me the grace to experience community life in Zlatá Idka and then the best agapito and the best shepherd for me. The years went by and I was growing, I was becoming stronger even by struggling and tripping, falling and getting up again until such time came when God took the most valuable thing I had – friendships and relationships. I considered it a great blow and didn´t know how to coupe with it.
It is easier to write about it than to live it. However, the wonderful thing is that every darkness has its end and mine finished too. It took three years until Jesus, as the saviour, freed me from the avalanche which had overcome me. In September 2005 I terminated my 5 years employment and took a step into the unknown, Oxford, England, was my destination. I knew it would not be easy, but I did not expect it to be so hard. I had my weapons though, praise, prayer, and praise again. I had a place to stay but no work, no money and no friends. I am not a person who would sit with her hands in her lap, so I travelled several times from a small village which only had a four times daily bus service to Oxford. On the way there I had to change buses twice. Two months later I found a job in a small hotel as a receptionist and a month later God blessed me with another job in a hotel on the main street in Oxford. The job was a blessing. After a short time the hotel manager trained me into the post of duty manager. That allowed me to sleep in the hotel two or three times a week, so I was available to solve any problems and, in case of fire, manage the evacuation procedure. I opened a House of Prayer on the first of February 2006 and prayed in the hotel room, and then again and again in the hotel. Sometimes I laughed that it must be prophetic and I praised the Lord for giving me a place to pray and stay the night. I felt like Ruth who went to pick after the harvesters on Boaz´ field . Ruth didn´t know then that one day she would become the wife of owner of that field. She walked it and… God had a plan. He knows when and where is the right place and when it is necessary to push. I am becoming ‘an owner of my own field’. God helped me to “wander” off to my field and after 8 months of wandering and picking crumbs I have found a home – a beautiful, bright clean house in a most beautiful part of Oxford and to live with somebody who is a member of KJB in Germany so we share the same vision – KEKAKO.
We moved in yesterday, we gave our house to God in prayer and proclaimed this house a House of Prayer.
God planted me. I testify, brothers and sisters and to you, God is good, God is faithful, that God is our Lord and King, Alfa and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the One who knows everything. I testify that what I have experienced myself, I experience every single day. I testify to His love, grace, mercy and to everything what has happened since I decided to answer to His calling 5 years ago – ‘It´s none of your business how I do it’……….. YOU, TATIANA, JUST FOLLOW ME.
If you hear these words in your heart too, do not be afraid to take the step. You have nothing to lose, you can only win. Win life in its fullness, in a garden which for us is Koinonia John the Baptist. It is the garden where I grow, where I have my roots and where I bloom. It is the garden where the One who created me has planted me and who blew a new life into me.
Tatiana
