Student Ministry Intern – assistant to the Junior High Pastor.
That was the first “ministry job” I ever had.
I had a small group of seventh and eighth grade guys.
We met weekly for discipleship.
One of my guys was a new believer.
He invited a girl from school to our youth group.
She came and received Christ also.
She soon joined Amy’s discipleship group.
Her name was Nichole.
She has been a precious friend of ours ever since.
Some of you at RBC might have met her as she and her husband Norm visited once.
She came again as she was nearby (Zion, Ill.) for cancer treatments but I don’t think she was healthy enough to attend services.
She went to be with her Savior last week.
Amy wrote about it…
My friend, Nichole Greene, died today. But really she lives like never before. I met her when she was Nichole Genitempo and a young high school student. She got saved because a guy from Spencer’s discipleship group invited her to church. But really because God’s electing love said it was time. She was homeless at that time.
When her Savior came to give her a home on earth and a place in His body of believers, he also began to meet every one of her physical needs. Her grandmother took her in. She was bought new clothes and taken to the dentist and the doctor. She belonged to a heavenly Father now.
She was the kind of girl that could laugh with all of us, but when it was her turn to talk it all pointed to Jesus. He was her single focus. She shared the gospel with people she met everywhere. It was her purpose for living. The sincerity of love she had for people flowed from a heart that was full of a new kind of love she had never known until the day she was saved.
She never lost that genuine passion for Christ and His kingdom. She only grew in it. To know her was to see Jesus lived out, talked about, praised, rejoiced in, listened to and obeyed, honored and exalted. I know that when people die there is a tendency to make something out of them that wasn’t really there. I’m not doing that. I truly cannot remember thinking she needed to give up a fleshly habit or a worldly action or an unkind way of speaking. I admired her.
When she came and stayed with us this year, I had the privilege of holding her arm and walking around our backyard (that was all the strength she could muster). She laid on our couch and told us story after story of people she has shared her faith with and she asked us to pray for them. She talked about Jesus as if He regularly came and sat with her in person, so freely, so deeply, so lovingly.
Nichole never once confronted me on sin, but her life convicted me regularly. After having been with her briefly, resolutions were made in my heart to seek the face of Jesus more. And she never, never took credit for that. Now that she is gone, I’m crying for her family, for her children, for her friends and for me. But mostly I’m just broken over how I want to be like Jesus in her.
Death, here’s a stinging blow dealt to you: It only makes us want Jesus more!
