Like most of the people in the rural Paraguayan town of Caazapa, my friend Ruth was brought up in a Catholic family. She was sent to the Catholic school, where she was taught by the nuns. When she was a little girl, she would hear the nuns talk about God and she was curious to know more.

She says, "I would go to the chapel at school, and I would look at the cross, because the nuns told us that Jesus was on the cross. But I said to myself, 'Is that really Jesus?' I tried to talk to him and search for him, but the nuns didn't point me to God. They pointed me towards substitutes, saying, 'here's the Virgin Mary, here are the saints,' but I was looking for something else, something more; the presence of God."

"Nowadays there's more openness in the Catholic Church but at that time the Bible was a prohibited book in Catholicism. If you had a Bible, it was a symbol of Protestantism and a motive for suspicion. People would say, 'They're going to brainwash you.'"

"When I was 15, my brother brought the Bible to our home and he started to tell us what Christ had done for us. That was something so new for me because, through all those years of Catholic schooling, they had never told us about that. Religion was just a subject we had to study every day. So, my brother brought the Bible and he would read it to us, and then he gave us each a Bible."

Searching for truth

Ruth started to read the Bible, but in secret, because the rest of the family were very critical of her brother being a believer. She overheard her dad tell her brother that he was being brainwashed and that his new Christian friends were dangerous. One day, her dad saw Ruth reading the Bible and got angry with her.

"I believe that it was at that time that I gave my life to Christ. I began to watch evangelistic programmes on the TV. I felt a change in my life, a peace that only God can give. There was a Protestant church here at that time, but it was very persecuted by the priest. There were rumours that very strange things happened at that church. They even said there were wild parties supposedly taking place there. The horrible things they said put me off ever going to that church."

She was young and because she wasn't getting any Christian fellowship or discipleship, she was easily led into a partying lifestyle by her friends. Her initial fire for the Lord began to go out, she stopped reading the Bible, and her faith got pushed to the sidelines.

Years passed. There were times when she would have problems and she would remember her Christian beginnings and feel a need for God. SIM missionaries began working in Caazapa during that time, but Ruth never felt comfortable approaching them, because of what she had heard about Protestants when she was younger. She wanted to learn more of the Bible, but her fear held her back from asking for help.

The next step

One day, about 13 years after she had made her initial step of faith, she was at the local sports centre when she saw one of the SIM missionaries, and finally plucked up the courage to approach her. The two women began to get to know each other and gradually became good friends. This missionary started an aerobics class for the women in the neighbourhood and Ruth would go along every week. "At the end of each session, she would read the Bible and I began to get into it again, to participate, to ask questions, but I wouldn't go to the church. I needed it, but I wouldn't go."

Then, Ruth got the chance to go to a Christian conference, where she was impacted by the testimonies she heard and felt the Holy Spirit touch her heart anew. She began to cry and was filled afresh with the peace of God that she had been searching for—"I felt that peace, that strength that only God gives, to overcome many things. And in the Christian walk there are lots of trials and many obstacles but having that peace helps and encourages you to carry on."

Her faith grew from strength to strength and nowadays, Ruth has a very valuable ministry with the children at her church. It is easy to see she has a real gift and a love for it. However, her real passion is evangelism. She says, "I really enjoy sowing the seeds, until God does the work of salvation in a person's life." As a testament to Ruth's faithfulness and maturity in the Lord, her church recently named her a deacon.

However, Ruth has paid a high price for her faith. She is committed to waiting for God's choice of a husband and will not settle for being someone's mistress. But rural Paraguay is a very family and relationship-orientated culture. Marriage is seen as being the ultimate goal for every young girl, but at the same time there is a very high incidence of teenage pregnancy and infidelity is rife.

The temptation and even the expectation to sin surrounds Ruth in her community. And yet she remains faithful to God in her singleness. This in itself is an enormous challenge, but on top of that, she has had to deal with malicious gossip, started by a fellow Christian, spreading suspicion about the morality of her lifestyle.

This has been the cause of great stress and deep hurt in Ruth's life. She has forgiven the person concerned, but the pain still remains. She has remained strong in her faith throughout it all and yet she is currently going through something of a desert experience. The last time I saw her, she told me, "I used to really want to be a missionary, but with this situation ... that dream has been snuffed out. I'm in the desert, but I know I'll come out of it some day. I have seen the hand of God in different situations, encouraging me that he really is still with me and I'm not going to go back. I know that God's there and I've just got to keep searching for him."

Ruth’s story may not end on a happy, victorious note, but that does not negate the amazing work God has been doing in her life. I, for one, am inspired by the steadfastness of her faith and her refusal to compromise her relationship with God in the face of this onslaught by the Enemy. Although she feels distant from him, we can be sure that the Lord is working out his purposes in her life even now.