Inside Story: A Dream in Dallas

Inside Story for Friday 13th of December 2024

By Andrew McChesney

Samuel declared that he had no interest in Bible studies. “But you marked that you were interested on a Bible-study interest card,” said the caller, a Bible worker from the Dallas First Seventh-day Adventist Church in the U.S. state of Texas. He and other Bible workers were following up on cards distributed by the church. “Well, I’m not interested,” Samuel said.

The caller placed the Bible-study interest card aside.

Image © Pacific Press

A week later, another Bible worker called Samuel.

“I’m not interested,” Samuel said.

The next week, the Bible worker called again.

“How much will the Bible studies cost?” Samuel asked.

“Nothing.”

At the first Bible study, Samuel said he and his wife had been looking for a church. Their son had invited them to his church, but they had been offended by a sermon about the pope and the seventh-day Sabbath. “I’ll never set foot inside a Seventh-day Adventist church again,” Samuel said.

The Bible worker prayed silently and continued the Bible study.

After several weeks, the Bible worker invited Samuel to evangelistic meetings at the Dallas First Seventh-day Adventist Church. He wondered what Samuel would say. Samuel agreed to go.

At the first meeting, Samuel looked around the church with great interest. The building had a unique architecture, with a rounded sanctuary, a rounded ceiling, and pews curved around the platform. Samuel sought out the Bible worker. “I need to talk to you,” he said. The Bible worker was helping to prepare for the meeting, and he asked Samuel if he could wait. Samuel agreed and sat down. He listened attentively to the evangelist’s sermon about Daniel 2:1-49. Afterward, he found the Bible worker and blurted out, “I want to be baptized!” The Bible worker was shocked and exclaimed, “What?”

Samuel said he had had a dream 18 years earlier. “In the dream, Jesus led me to a church and said, ‘This is My church,’ ” he said. “When I walked into the church this evening, I recognized it immediately. Finally, I’ve found the church from my dream. I want to be baptized.”

The Bible worker took Samuel to the evangelist, who was equally surprised to hear about the dream. What made the story even more remarkable was that the church had burned down and a new building had been constructed 13 years earlier. Samuel had seen the new church in his dream five years before it was constructed.

“Everything is possible when we cooperate with God in His mission,” said the evangelist, Slavik Ostapenko, now pastor of the Spokane Slavic Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington State.