By Bella Agnello
Over the summer, junior Computer Science major Grace Parish went on a mission trip through Cedarville University to a predominantly Muslim country in Southeast Asia. Through an unexpected change in the schedule, she encountered a young woman isolated from her community because of her religiously and racially mixed background. Parish listened intently as the young woman unraveled her story – perhaps for the first time.
“It was an hour of her sharing with me hard things that had happened in her life,” Parish said. “And bit by bit I got to share pieces of the gospel until, by the end of the conversation, I had gotten to share the whole gospel.”
Parish’s spark for evangelism did not ignite overnight. Through countless moments in her life, she can trace God’s faithfulness directing her to a life of ministry, relationships and evangelism.
With a father in the Air Force, Parish grew up on military bases and attended military church with her parents and brother. Though moving from base to base made having a church community impossible, Parish was able to attend AWANA — a non-profit program that cultivates children’s relationships with God — through the military churches. She learned about Jesus and memorized Bible verses about him, but she could not yet see the full picture of who he was.
When she was seven years old, Parish’s teacher in children’s church connected all the dots about God.
“[She] presented the gospel in a way that a child could understand,” Parish said. “Now, I understand there’s an issue with my sin. Sin separates me from God, and that was why Jesus died for me on the cross.”
At summer camp, Parish memorized Bible verses for the camp’s annual Scripture memory competitions. Memorization was a self-seeking accomplishment for her, but God convicted her to dive deeper into the Bible through memorization rather than simply viewing it as a skill.
“God is faithful to use [Scripture] to sanctify us and change us,” Parish said. “Memorizing God’s Word has single handedly been the habit that has changed me the most and has given me perspective of who God is and who I am.”
The truths she memorized sustained her when, in high school, her family moved to the heart of a Mormon community in Utah. Being Christian in the community was ostracizing. She managed to make some friends, but Parish’s heart grew bitter towards Mormons for the way they looked down upon her, her family and their faith.
Yet, curiosity pressed her to wonder if her friends were saved. She conducted her own research about the ties between Mormonism and Christianity by talking to Mormons, Christians and Mormons who converted to Christianity. She read books and attended seminars on how to share the gospel with them. These seminars taught that their gospel is not the true gospel, and this newfound realization opened her heart towards Mormons.
Parish began sharing the gospel with her friends during the COVID-19 pandemic. Every week, she led a Zoom meeting with some of her Mormon friends to read and discuss a passage from the Bible.
“Mormons’ perspective of Christianity is that we believe the same thing, we’re just missing a little revelation,” Parish said. “Going to God’s Word with people who viewed me that way was very hard and that was the first encounter that they had with the gospel.”
Though there were no evidential results that their conversations convinced her friends to believe in Jesus, Parish learned how to communicate the gospel to them. Rather than focusing on the contradictory aspects of Mormonism that bothered her, she learned to focus on the legalistic aspects of Mormonism that bothered and exhausted her Mormons friends in order to point them to the living hope found in Christ.
Parish and her friends parted ways once they graduated, but her passion for the gospel only flourished. The summer before going to college, she became a camp counselor at the same camp she used to attend. That summer, she had the opportunity to invest in several young girls, and she continued to pray over them well after the summer ended.
In the fall, Parish attended a state school in Utah and became dissatisfied, believing she was wasting her time attending a public university. She went to God in prayer, knowing that he had a purpose for the circumstances he placed her in. God laid on her heart the names of the campers who lived around the area. He reminded her how difficult it was to be a Christian girl in a Mormon culture and compelled her to begin a discipleship group with them.
Parish created a curriculum for them and was able to meet with the girls on a weekly basis. She read the Bible with them and watched their hunger for God, discipleship and fellowship grow over the course of the school year.
At the same time, Parish felt led to start searching for Christian colleges. Cedarville stood out to her as a Christian school grounded in Scripture with a desire to see students be faithful to God and to their ministry.
At Cedarville, Parish started Psalm 1 Breakfast, where students meet to memorize passages of the Bible. And she has also discovered a heart for missions, which she hopes computer science can open doors for in foreign countries.
“There was no incentive to do missions or ministry – it just wasn’t something my family was familiar with,” Parish said. “It’s still something that’s not a comfortable thought with my family as I talk about it more. But I’m watching God’s faithfulness in that.”
God continues to prove his faithfulness as he weaves everything in Parish’s life into the ministry he has for her. He utilized the skills she learned from sharing the gospel with Mormons to help her share the gospel with Muslims, who believe in similarly legalistic teachings. He continues to convict her to memorize Scripture, both for her benefit and for her evangelistic efforts. And God continues to draw her into intentional relationships with other women to share the gospel with them and minister to them.
Parish still disciples her former campers and meets with some of them individually to read the Bible. She is also still in contact with the woman she met on her mission trip, who recently agreed to go through the Bible with her. As her heart grows for women, evangelism and discipleship, God continues to faithfully lead her towards more friendships such as these.
“I think evangelism is relational – everyone that I have known that has wanted to hear the gospel has been someone I’ve worked at having a relationship with,” Parish said. “Very rarely does Jesus ever go to someone, abruptly give them information and leave. He cares for them, spends time with them, offers them the hope of salvation and they go away rejoicing.”
Photos provided by Parish
Bella Agnello is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Journalism. She enjoys thrifting, listening to records and reading classic Russian literature in her spare time.
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