GERMANY — On a warm, spring day of Pentecost, a small house church of Central Asian immigrants gathered to pray and worship.

“Welcome!” Crossworld worker Dominic said to a couple of new people who walked through the door.

The believers greeted each other joyously and sat down. Every seat in the house was occupied.

“Let’s pray and ask the Holy Spirit to be present and speak to us during our time together,” Dominic said to the group.

They sang a few songs in a mixture of German and their heart language, and then they took turns sharing something from Scripture or a way they’d seen God working in their lives.

Not too long into the sharing time, Rashid, one of the new young men, interrupted.

“I feel that the Holy Spirit is calling me to follow Jesus,” Rashid said to the group. “What do I do next?”

The group sat shocked at his confession, but, before anyone could answer him, another man spoke up: “Me, too!” he said.

Believers around the circle began to jump into the conversation, one by one telling their own stories of Jesus calling them.

“Jesus will pursue you!” said Hassan. “He loves you so much. He will never let you go!”

Hassan continued to tell his story. “At first, I did not want to accept that Jesus is who he said he is. I was raised in Central Asia and trained in our cultural faith for decades. It was impossible to believe Jesus could be the Messiah. But then Jesus came. He pursued me and gripped my life. Eventually I found the Messiah was not impossible to believe, but impossible to deny.”

After Hassan finished telling his story, others in the group spoke about miracles they had witnessed and ways they had seen Jesus working among them.

When it was time to close, the believers prayed over Rashid and his friend — for the Spirit’s continued presence and for Jesus to continue drawing them.

A couple of months later, Rashid expressed his faith in Jesus and asked to be baptized. Dominic, Hassan, and the rest of the believers in the house church squeezed into the bathroom and baptized Rashid in the bathtub. Though he still struggles with the stress of being a refugee in Europe, the joy of the Holy Spirit now radiates from his soul.

The people in this story are real, but some names have been changed to protect their privacy.