NORUEGA lives in the Dominican Republic. She was sixteen when she heard the gospel for the first time. She was an attractive young lady with dark smiling eyes and long wavy dark hair. Although she was so young, much of her time was spent in the pleasures of this world—which are only for a season—and the things of the Lord were not in ally of her thoughts.
One day she was helping her grandmother in the kitchen. They were talking about a little meeting room that had recently opened near the school where she attended. Just then one of her school friends, who lived near the missionary, came in and told her that the missionary often allowed the boys and girls who attended the gospel meetings to use his bicycle. Then she said, “He has a new bicycle now; why don’t you go to the gospel meetings, Noruega? Maybe he will let you ride it!”
The next night Noruega did go to the gospel meeting with her grandmother, and she enjoyed the stories of the Lord Jesus very much. However, she could not understand why the missionary so often referred to the “Lamb.” Neither could she understand how the death of a Lamb could save us from our sins, as the missionary told them so many times.
Some weeks after she had started to attend the meetings, she was to celebrate her seventeenth birthday. The same day was to be the centennial of the independence of her country. Plans were being made to have a grand celebration all over the land. Noruega was very excited, because she had received an invitation to a big dance in the Capital, and for many days she was busy making a dress, with the help of her aunt, for this special occasion. She was anxiously awaiting the day when she would attend that dance. But the Lord had His eye on Noruega, and in His love for her He desired to keep her from the evil of this world.
The night before her country’s great celebration, Noruega’s mother had a dream that upset her very much. She dreamed she heard Noruega screaming because of the crowds of people arriving in the Capital. They came not only from the many towns and villages in her own country, but from many friendly nations all over the world, to take part in this great festival. It was only a simple dream, but the Lord used it to keep Noruega from getting too occupied with the things of this world. Her mother learned that if she went to the Capitol she would meet with some terrible accident, and insisted that Noruega should not go. Because of her mother’s distress, Noruega’s father would not give her the money for the bus fare to the Capital.
Noruega was very disappointed and sad, but to her surprise, although many of her friends were going to celebrate in her own town that Sunday night, she did not have any desire to go with them, but went with her grandmother to the gospel meeting instead. That night was the most marvelous night in her life. For the first time she truly understood the preaching of the gospel. The preacher spoke from John 8, and told of how Jesus was “the Light of the world,” She still remembers so well his words, “This day the Dominican Republic is celebrating the first centennial of its independence; and so I desire that the souls here present will he free front their sins.”
From that moment the life of Noruega was changed. Now she understands that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us front all sin,” and that He is the “Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” A few days after that she confessed the Lord Jesus as her own personal Saviour according In Romans 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9): “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
Since then Noruega has been used of the Lord in blessing to many of her own people. She has joy in telling others of the grace of God.
ML-07/24/1960