Julia, 55, wants to share the Gospel. But she doesn’t know how to read or write. The Lord graciously gave her a beautiful testimony that she shares openly. That story is changing lives.

The wife and mother of four lives in a community of longhouses in Bintulu, Malaysia. Longhouses are a tight group of homes built in a long straight structure. The longhouse community keeps getting longer as families move in. Life is simple in the Longhouse community. The primary living is farming; people here catch fish at the nearby river whenever they need food. They collect rainwater for their daily use and get fresh water from deep wells for drinking. They use solar power cells for electricity. For years, many in this community practiced witchcraft and pagan worship.

Julia suffered debilitating headaches. “The awful pain in my head made me suffer for a long time; I hardly got any sleep,” she remembers. She tried using herbal oils to help, but it never did. There was a Shamman, a healer, in her community, but Julia never approached him. Thankfully, in 2015, she experienced the true healer.

That year, some Christian evangelists came to the longhouse community to visit a small house where they used to live. During their trip, they shared the Gospel with Julia and her husband and prayed for them; the couple accepted Jesus and felt she was a new person. Jesus changed her life and gave her complete joy. He also brought her relief from the pain.

“When the church leaders came and prayed for me, Jesus immediately healed me,” she says. “I thought to myself, ‘If I have not known Jesus, I think I would be dead by now.’”

After becoming a believer, Julia wanted to share the Gospel with her community, but she didn’t know how. She couldn’t even read the Bible because she did not know how to read or write. But she uses her experience to tell the people who Jesus is and what He can do.

“God used my situation as a personal testimony to share among the people in the longhouse. When I told them my story, they were amazed and wanted to have the same experience too, so I introduced Jesus to them. They, too, were blessed and got healed through prayer,” she says. “I don’t know how to share the Bible, but If I share my story with the people, I can never go wrong.”

Julia and her husband were the first Christians in their community; now many people in the longhouse know Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Healer. “All my relatives believe in Jesus now, and only three are yet to be baptized, but soon they will be,” she says. “I want my people to experience Jesus the way I experience Him, so I keep sharing my personal experience with them.”

Julia is eager to know more about Jesus and to learn to share the Gospel more effectively. “I want to study the Bible because I am thirsty for the Word of God, but I don’t know how to read or write; that’s why I’m always eager to listen to the teachings of our Christian leaders,” she says.

Many here are in the same boat. They want to study God’s Word and become Bible study leaders, but most church elders do not know how to read and write. God has given them a thirst for His Word; let’s pray He will continue to make a way for them to share the Gospel.