Staff member Heidi Faulkner desires to tell students about God’s gift on her birthday
Heidi Faulkner met 17-year-old Filipa Sousa-Pinto at an “American party.” During their short-term mission trip to Portugal, Heidi’s team spoke to students in public-school classrooms about their lives in America. They invited students to parties after school to get to know students better and explain their faith.
Heidi (above, left) is a staff member with Student Venture, Campus Crusade for Christ’s ministry to high-school students. At almost every event, Filipa (above, right) asked about Heidi’s life in California, played with Heidi’s children and questioned God. “She was in a crisis of faith,” says Heidi. “She didn’t understand the things the church was teaching her because it wasn’t an experience for her heart.”
On Heidi’s birthday, Filipa threw a party for Heidi.
At the party, by a river shore, Heidi voiced her birthday wish: “The best thing you could give me for my birthday is to let me share,” she said. The nine students immediately agreed and listened as Filipa translated for Heidi, explaining salvation through Jesus Christ.
Heidi stirred something new in them: the idea that a belief system could be a relationship, not merely rituals or culture. Filipa understood this well. “After some years,” she says, “I started understanding and believing in God ‘by myself,’ not only because my family taught me to.”
Heidi now encourages Filipa online, as Filipa continues to speak with her many friends who don’t believe in God. “Being a Christian fills me up everyday,” Filipa says. “I advised some friends to read the Bible. I really hope that they can find God in their lives, and I pray that they can open their hearts to Him.”
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