Prayer and the Gospel, Hector D. Felix

Well, hello dear reader! My name is Hector Daniel Felix and I am a second generation Christian. Although my grandparents are believers, my parents were the ones who began to seek the Lord first. When I was born in Aibonito, Puerto Rico in 1976, my parents had been Christians already for some years. Not too long after that they left Puerto Rico as missionaries to the Dominican Republic. After four simple, happy, and useful years serving the Lord, the free group that had sent them called them back to Puerto Rico where my father became a pastor for three years until he felt he had no choice but to leave because of the politics that was prevalent among the elders. We eventually moved to Newington, CT were we have met with believers who very much appreciate the writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.

I've grown up surrounded by believers to whom God was much more than a name or their faith; God was their living. I therefore grew up in a very sanctified environment and thus had a good personal relationship with God. But as I moved on through high school and the first years in college, my lack of witnessing of Christ to others began to bother me more and more. I knew well the verses in John 15 where the Lord calls Himself the vine, and calls us the branches, and later declares that we did not choose the Lord but He chose us and set us to bear remaining fruit. The barrenness before the Lord was obvious and troublesome to me, but I could not get myself to speak to others concerning the One who had given me so much all my life.

So I began to pray. And I attached myself to some neighbors who were also believers, and we began to pray for my campus, for my friends and for me to open my mouth with boldness. Not too many weeks later, the Lord provided an opportunity. A friend of mine, right in the middle of the laboratory for one of my engineering classes asked me a deep, difficult question concerning God! I was shocked, and then nervous, but I knew right away that the Lord was beginning to answer our prayers. Later that semester my friend was saved! That semester others of my friends heard the gospel. I found that the more I spoke, the more I enjoyed it, and the more I wanted to speak about the Lord. I did realize that I needed a lot of practice and a lot of training. Therefore, I decided to go to a Christian training center where I could spend a considerable amount of time not only being perfected in the truth, but also practicing to bring the good news of the gospel of the kingdom to others.

In seven weeks I graduate from this training center where not only have I gained a lot of valuable experiences and learned many lessons on reaching man with the good news of the gospel, but also have been learning to bear the ones I am taking care of in love, struggling to present them full-grown in Christ. I've also realized this is a life-long process.

In the meantime, I've learned a most valuable lesson and practice--prayer is everything. Prayer is my roots and my walk; my fuel and my strength; my real work, my life. Prayer is everything. Without it, any work I do or any words I speak are vain and powerless. As I finish with my training and look to the Lord for the direction of my life in the near future, I am glad I've learned the safest way to live--in fellowship with the Lord through prayer and fellowship with the brothers and sisters in Christ the Lord has surrounded me with.