Spanish Family Turn to Christ from Atheism

Aroa, a broken teenager and atheist, had her life turned around when her mother befriended a German missionary and was sneaked into the Bethany School for teenagers in Spain, leading this entire family to know the Lord.

Aroa was a troubled teenager. Her “existence was aimless,” she said, “based in pleasing the expectations people and society had in me.” She also suffered from panic attacks, not knowing what would happen after she died. She had a poor relationship with her mother, Esther.

But then Esther befriended Anna, a missionary from Germany. Their friendship led Anna to invite Esther to sit in at Bethany School over the summer of 2015. Although the program is for teenagers, sitting in the back row, Esther witnessed repentant teenagers weeping, confessing and taking steps to reconcile with their parents. Esther said, “Now I see hope for my country.” The following day, she invited her own 15-year-old daughter, Aroa, who responded, “Why would I go anywhere with you?” But then Aroa sat and wept, realizing she needed new life in Christ. On the third day as Esther was leaving for Bethany, she said, “You love those kids more than us. I’m coming too.”

Upon arrival, transformed teenagers warmly welcomed and befriended Aroa. “I sensed something very special and different that I never experienced in any other place where I had gone,” she said. She stayed for that night, then another four weeks, recalling, “I saw true and genuine love everywhere, when I thought life was about pride and selfish lifestyle.” Esther had taught her children previously that they should never let anyone convince them that there is a God. So, each night, Aroa used her mother’s arguments from atheism to try to persuade the other girls that they had been brainwashed. Then during one session, a powerful conversation with the youngest girl there was exactly what her soul needed to turn her to the Lord.

Aroa was a natural leader: extroverted, an artist and musician. By the end of the summer, she was the key figure in a pantomime performance. Her father Juan had also befriended the leaders, visiting almost daily with forgotten items from home for his wife and daughter. He watched the pantomime performance proudly, the story of Christ wooing Juan’s daughter and wife to Himself and His death. He, too, came to faith a couple of months later.

A key church linked to Bethany school hired Aroa’s younger brother, David, to assist with videos and slides during the service, as well as her sister Claudia to play the Cajon. As a captive audience, after several months, David accepted the invitation to follow Christ. Claudia still wrestled with the question, “My mother taught me never to listen to anyone who said there is a God. Which mother do I listen to, the mother from before or the one now?” About one year after her mother came to Christ, Claudia too, accepted the Lord.

After spending ten months at a missionary training center in Kenya, Aroa now is contemplating how God will use her in the long term. She reminds us, “Wow! God is soooo good and merciful and sweet, for real!! Thank you, Father, because I was blind and now I see!”

See more of her story here: https://youtu.be/XUNLQ9hRf3I