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<\/a>Ava had overstayed her visa because she wanted to be near her only son, now an adult. For years in the Caribbean, she\u2019d raised him alone as a single mum. Unlike her, he had leave to remain in the UK due to his father\u2019s status.<\/p>\n
Without the correct documents, gaining regular work with an employer in England was impossible. No National Insurance number \u2013 no work. No National Insurance number \u2013 no routine healthcare. Life was tough to say the least.<\/p>\n
With troubles compounded by the cost-of-living (a premium for living in South-East England), all Ava could afford was a small one-room bedsit. To pay the rent meant finding work \u2013 in the underground economy, working cash-in-hand, cleaning the St. Albans city centre municipal toilets. It was a part-time seven-day a week job.<\/p>\n
While she held down the job, the fear remained. Needing prayer and support, Ava approached the pastor of the local church, even though her relationship with God was casual. Raised a Seventh-day Adventist, she\u2019d made some life choices which had taken her far away from both God and the church. But in such fear-filled times, turning to God was not a luxury but a necessity.<\/p>\n
The pastor listened. And as they prayed together, and shared Scripture, the verses and passages she knew from earlier years took on new significance and meaning. As her love for God grew, and as He spoke to her through His living Word, she met Christ once again, and decided to make a commitment to follow Him by being baptised. Thrilled by Ava\u2019s response, the pastor was also conflicted about a couple of matters – – Ava\u2019s immigration status, and her ability to keep Sabbath special.<\/p>\n
As for the immigration status, he advised Ava to resolve sooner rather than later \u2013 do the right thing, for this he believed is what God would want her to do \u2013 not live a lie. As for keeping Sabbath special, he invited Ava to have a conversation with her employer explaining why she needed to keep Sabbath special to worship God. To Ava\u2019s deep disappointment, the employer would not accommodate the request.<\/p>\n
On learning this, the pastor\u2019s heart sank. As he brought Ava\u2019s name before the local church board as, he knew he had to share with the board Ava\u2019s inability to keep Sabbath due to her work schedule. He also thought he knew what their response would be \u2013 they would praise the Lord for Ava\u2019s spiritual progress, but with the message, \u201clet\u2019s wait a while until her \u2018Sabbath issues\u2019 were sorted.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the discussion was prolonged, the board graciously wrestled with the disconnect between the desire and ability of Ava to keep Sabbath. Some were unsure about Ava\u2019s readiness for baptism. Others felt it should not be an expectation that the spiritual lives of individuals are fully sorted prior to baptism.<\/p>\n
Just as the pastor felt he should retreat on this matter with consensus seeming still a long way off, the Head Deaconess, who hadn\u2019t said a word until this point, spoke. \u201cI am in favour of Ava being baptised because I know she wants to keep Sabbath special. And so that this can happen, I will go and clean those toilets on a Saturday so give her the freedom to worship her new-found friend Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n For the pastor concerned, the words of the Head Deaconess are the most memorable of his ministry. Immediately following, the board voted unanimously to accept Ava\u2019s request for baptism. To this day, he remains incredibly and rightly proud of those in the room who took the spirit-filled decision to be winsomely inclusive of Ava.<\/p>\n Ava, with renewed spiritual energy on hearing that she was to be baptised, again approached her employer requesting Sabbath off. This time he said \u2018Yes\u2019.<\/p>\n Where is Ava today 20 years later? Still in the UK? Or back in the Caribbean? I don\u2019t know the answer, but if you do, I reckon that’s another story to tell!<\/p>\n \u00b9Not her real name. How far would you go to support a new believer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,1572,1588,7],"tags":[661,1336,1221,1335,1337,262,287,1338,769,600],"class_list":["post-13373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-evangelism-mission","category-ireland-united-kingdom","category-news","tag-adventist-mission","tag-border-force-officers","tag-commentary","tag-inmigration","tag-keeping","tag-mission","tag-news","tag-openminded","tag-refugee","tag-sabbath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13373"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13390,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13373\/revisions\/13390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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\n[Photos: Pexels pictures by Felix Ramirez and Liliana Drew, Unsplash pictures by Global Residence Index]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"