When I left for Costa Rica in September 2006 as a team member for The Quiet Hour and ShareHim evangelism project, I wanted to help evangelize people in Greece, Costa Rica. I had no idea that God would use this trip to evangelize me. He would come into my life in a powerful way and I would renew my commitment to Jesus Christ.
The lay evangelism team was made up of: Milca and Christina Brown, mother and daughter from San Bernardino, Calif., who would be involved with the health and children’s ministry; Gary Gregory, a retired Adventist denominational worker from Costa Rica who was my translator; and myself, a retired public health official from Richmond, Virginia.
Our team was midway through the evangelism meetings when a life-changing event happened to me. Each evening about 5:45 p.m., William, our driver, a member of the church where the meetings were being held, would pick us up at our hotel in Alajuela and take us to the Adventist church in Greece. This trip each evening was about 30 minutes through the winding, mountainous region of Costa Rica. These mountains reminded me of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.
We were on a curve of a two-lane road when our driver, William, decided to pass the car in front of him. The problem was that he didn’t observe the double lines on the road because they were faded and difficult to see at night. As he tried to pass the car on the curve, two headlights were staring at us in the same lane and coming toward us from the opposite direction. We all knew we were not going to pass the car in front of us. We gulped and took a deep breath. Could these be our last seconds on earth, we wondered as we stared at death in the oncoming car lights? Fortunately, William slowed his car down and so did the oncoming car. We safely passed the car ahead. William apologized to everyone that he had made a judgment error in trying to pass on a double-lined road. I told him that he was forgiven, but please not to let this happen again. We had prayed before our trip began this evening for God’s protection and God had answered our prayers.
That evening before I began my sermon, I told the people who came that I was frightened because of this near-fatal incident. I told them that I was not ready to die and that I wanted to see my wife, daughters, and grandchildren one more time before I died. I also told the church members and visitors attending that I was not prepared to die because of unconfessed sins in my life and that I was not ready to meet my Maker.
That evening and the next day, I thought about this brush with death and decided that I would come clean with God. I confessed and repented of sins that had crept up in my life over the years. I made a new commitment to Jesus and asked for forgiveness. I read Psalm 51 and identified with David as he repented and confessed his sins before God. When I did this, the peace of God came into my heart. I knew I had a clean slate and that my guilt was gone. I also knew that from this moment on, I was prepared to die, if it was God’s plan for my life to end while in Costa Rica.
The following evening, I told the church that the previous night I was not ready to die, but now after confessing and repenting of my sins, I was prepared to die if it was God’s will for my life. I asked the church to remember what I wanted put on my tombstone if I should die while in Costa Rica. “He died in Costa Rica because he loved Jesus.”
My experience as a lay evangelist has been life-changing for me. I had no idea that God would love me so much that He would help me to realize how fragile life was and that I needed to live my life each moment, each day, like it could be my last. To seal my decision, I wanted to be re-baptized with all those new members who would be baptized at the mass baptism on the last Saturday of the meetings.
However, God had different plans for me. I received an urgent e-mail from my wife, Elaine. My father, who would soon turn 91, was hospitalized and was not doing well. Elaine urged me to return to the States as soon as possible. I left Costa Rica the following morning, four days before the conclusion of the meetings. The Quiet Hour and ShareHim team members, and members from the church in Greece, prayed for my father. I praise God that my father recovered, although he nearly died in the hospital intensive care unit. He was able to leave the Maryland hospital after nine days of treatment and answered prayer.
In October 2006, I was asked to conduct a Week of Prayer for the high school students of Richmond Academy in Richmond, Virginia. I was re-baptized along with the students of Richmond Academy who committed their lives to Jesus. My first baptism occurred when I was 14 and in the eighth grade. Now, because of my Costa Rica experience, I was baptized again, fifty years later, at age 64.
I encourage you to join a Quiet Hour short-term evangelism mission in the near future. I guarantee that it will be a rewarding experience and change your life, as it did mine, for eternity. Christ is coming back soon and He wants us to get out of our comfort zone and help others get ready. He says to each of us today, “Go into all the world, to teach and baptize in My name.
John Benko is a retired public health official living in Virginia. He took his own advice, and joined The Quiet Hour’s 50 evangelism teams in Ukraine in September/October 2007.
