She used to be the owner of a strip club in Texas, catering to people who delight in seeing and doing things that are far from godly. But Teresa Fears had an epiphany when she became friends with the “church ladies” of the Mobberly Baptist Church. Fears first met Laney Wootten, one of the church ladies, who befriended her on Facebook. Wooten found out that although Fears owned an establishment that a true Christian wouldn’t want to be associated with, she was also a woman with a passion for helping special needs children, regularly volunteering her services at a children’s care centre for sickly children and feeding homeless people from her club.

Fears eventually became friends with the church ladies. During a time when Fears was feeling depressed and suffering from chronic pains, the ladies visited her at her home, bringing beans, cornbread, flowers and a book. That marked their ‘first truly meaningful spiritual conversation.’ Teresa said later ‘the tangible things we brought to meet her physical needs spoke to her’. Mobberly associate pastor, Gregg Zackary, and his wife also reached out to Fears, even going to her adult club twice to offer help when they learned that Fears was heartbroken.

After meeting with the pastors of Mobberly church and other ministry leaders in August 2016, Fears surrendered herself to Jesus. After that, she posted on Facebook that she was closing the adult club. “Her perspective changed totally, and she saw it as evil, not honouring to the Lord,” Zackary said. “She was not pressured. It was the Holy Spirit who convicted her.” Fears was baptised on December 4th.

An even more dramatic transformation by the Holy Spirit occurred at a county jail in North Carolina on June 26th last year when convicted murderers, rapists and other criminals came out of the
water as newly baptised Christians, casting off their sinful past and beginning new lives as followers of Christ. Thirty men and nine women at the Durham County jail in North Carolina were baptised one, some of them crying uncontrollably after feeling the power of the Holy Spirit inside them, according to CBN News.

Source: Baptist Press; CBN News; The News & Observer

Bible Study: Ephesians 2:8-9

NOVEMBER Praise God the Holy Spirit is in prisons to minister to castaways and that the blood of Christ takes away all sin.
PRAY DEEPER prisoners will become powerful saints.