Back in 2019, I was in Secondary 1 and faced verbally bullying behind my back.

As such, I wanted to transfer out to another school — and there were actually vacancies when my mum checked for me.

But it was then that God spoke to me and told me that He wanted me to stay in my current school. I felt He wanted me to bring at least one of my friends to Christ.

It was a tough decision, but I decided to obey God and stay on.

From then, I began sharing about Jesus in my school and inviting my friends to come for church service and other outreach events.

But to my disappointment, though I reached out to my friends for about a year, none of them wanted to receive Christ and all my invitations were rejected.

Evangelism-wise, this disappointment grew in my second year of secondary school.

After I invited one of my friends to our Christmas outreach event, I heard her saying the Sinner’s Prayer during the time for a personal response.

I thought she received Christ and was over the moon for her, but when I followed up with her it turned out that she only said half of it and ultimately did not want to receive Jesus into her life.

Later when I was in Secondary 3 last year, I shared a video explaining the gospel to one of my friends during the Christmas season.

This friend of mine actually fully said the Sinner’s Prayer as I led her.

But when I consolidated with her some time afterwards, she shared that she actually did not want to commit to Christianity just yet and wanted to explore the different religions.

After these disappointments, I felt very discouraged.

My friends came so close to receiving Christ but ultimately did not. It had been three years and I still had not seen any salvations yet.

I started to doubt God as to whether I had heard from Him correctly in the first place. I questioned why it had been so long and yet no one had received Christ.

I did not want to continue to reach out to my friends anymore due to a fear of disappointment and that the same thing might happen again.

However, when I told my cell leader about it, she encouraged me to not give up.

My cell leader urged me to press on in the hope that I might just be the one who sows the seed of the gospel in my friends’ hearts (1 Corinthians 3:6-8) and not necessarily the one who reaps the harvest.

So I decided to trust in God. It was hard but I decided to hold onto God’s truth in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that He has made everything beautiful in His time.

I just had to keep trusting that He is still working even if I can’t see it.

It was not until 2022 after my O-Levels when I finally saw one of my friends receive Christ on 19 November 2022.

At the end of 2021, I sent another friend a video about Jesus.

However, she told me she was very against the idea of receiving Christ into her life because she did not want to be the only Christian in her family and would never want to convert.

It was another rejection, and I again felt sad and hurt by how things turned out.

But God challenged me to pray for her salvation. It was hard as I just could not see at the time how she would ever receive Christ, but I decided to obey.

Nothing seemed to be happening until the middle of this year, when she confided in me about not being able to find a community that would accept her for who she is.

I decided to take the chance to share with her about my cell group and how we welcome all, and invited her to join us.

To my surprise, she agreed to come which showed me that God had really softened and worked in her heart.

I just could not see at the time how she would ever receive Christ, but I decided to obey.

She attended cell group with me a couple of times, my baptism service and even had a few encounters with God — receiving a vision from Him during our O-Levels period!

In time, I decided to invite her for my cell group’s outreach event. She agreed to come and to my delight, when it came to response time, she decided to receive Christ into her life!

Finally, after four years, one of my friends received Christ — and it was the person I last expected to receive Christ!

Through these four years, I learnt to fix my eyes on what is unseen. I learnt to focus on God’s promises.

My journey taught me the importance of praying earnestly.

He used these years without “success” to draw me closer to Him and to fix my eyes on Him.

This is my testimony of the past four years. It was definitely not a smooth sailing one, but it was worth it in the end.

Witnessing your friend come to receive Christ always is!