We live in the midst of great controversy between good and evil, God and Satan, and this spiritual warfare directly affects the tent-making mission. When my husband and I were tentmakers, we realized that we needed God’s power and protection and the Holy Spirit more than ever before.

When we moved to our new city, our goal was to mingle with people, build friendships, and share the love of Jesus as the Holy Spirit led us. We settled into a rental house in a small village about a 20-minute drive from my husband’s workplace. We were excited to become friends with our neighbors. But this didn’t happen quickly enough for me. While my husband was at work, I had a lot of time in the house alone. 

One day, I thought to myself, I didn’t come all the way here just to sit in the house! That day, I talked with a friend on the phone about my loneliness and discouragement. She suggested that we pray and that God would provide the solution. After hanging up the phone, I decided to take a short walk in front of my house. I don’t know how this happened, but within ten minutes, I was sitting with a group of about 15 village women. God had answered my friend’s prayer immediately!

My husband and I really wanted to share spiritual truths with the local people and were praying for this. We wanted them to experience peace and joy in Jesus. One day, we received a message from our local Adventist union that a young man had contacted them for Bible studies--and he was from the city where we were living! 

For the next year, we were able to study the Bible with this young man. One time while we were studying, the police arrived at our house. Personal and public evangelism was illegal in the country, and we could be kicked out of the country. It was a Sabbath afternoon, and we were shocked that they would show up then. Thankfully, the police just looked at my husband’s ID card and left us in peace. Thank You, God!

The young man we were studying with really loved animals, especially dogs. We decided to keep a puppy at our house for him to play with when he visited us. He absolutely loved that dog, and the dog was a comfort to him after his little sister died. Everything was going well with the puppy until one day it got sick. We tried everything to nurse the puppy back to health and prayed our hearts out for the dog. Then, a few days later, the puppy died. We were all heartbroken, but the young man felt the loss especially hard. 

However, the following Sabbath, the young man got up in front of a small group and shared that because of the puppy’s death, he now better understood the pain that God went through when Jesus died on the cross. Praise God that he turned this sad situation around for good!

One time while my husband and I were back in our home country at a conference recruiting more tentmakers to work in the region where we were serving, we received news that someone had broken into our house. This news was so upsetting to us! After the long flight back, we arrived at our house and found that parts of it had been ransacked and the front door had been busted in. Our landlord blamed the burglary on our security guard and wanted to put him in prison for years. This would have been devastating to the guard and his family because he had four small girls. Also, we had realized the burglar was not the security guard. Desperately needing God’s intervention in the situation, we asked friends and family to pray. After we had prayed a lot, the landlord dropped the charges against the security guard. Praise God!

These are just a few of the challenges we faced as tentmakers. My husband and I realized that the battle is raging on the front lines of the mission, and we had to fully depend upon God. Every day, we decided to ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit and give us the strength and wisdom we needed for that day. We also asked people to pray for and with us. We learned through experience that relying on God is a tentmaker’s greatest need!

Tentmakers are making a difference for Jesus, but they need your help. Please support their ministry with your prayers and donations.

This article was originally published on the Adventist Mission’s website