The Words of the Moyer Family |
'Casting Our Light' -- Visit To Hope Evangelist Church
Tasnah Moyer
September 23, 2007
On Sunday 23rd of September 6 STF teams visited Pastor Weston's Hope Evangelist Church in Chicago
Our visit to Pastor Weston's church was a liberating experience. From the onset, the whole congregation, though small, embraced us as though we were family coming home. The church reminded me of a home, no hard-backed pews or solemn columns. Instead the room was decorated with mirrors, lights, and bright chairs. The singing was what blew me away. I could have sung for hours, the sounds of Sybil Weston's voice sent shivers down my back. I couldn't stop smiling and I knew God was right in the midst of us, swaying to the hymns, clapping with head raised toward the heavens.
Listening to the handful of STF testimonies that were given I tried to think of what we must look like to them. Our experiences, though they seem so natural to us, just another step in the process of our growth, of reaching our potential, must be so inspiring to them. Its proof that the ideal, that true happiness, is possible and I couldn't help but wonder if they wanted the same thing we had.
Later a young woman walked up to me and Sancha Ogden and thanked us for coming, for being an inspiration and a proof that love, completion, and purpose was possible to find. She shared how she felt so much love; she could see it on our faces in our laughter, in our eyes; true happiness. And she wished we didn't have to go. That's what meant the most to me, the realization that I have the ability to change the world, one person at a time. That's how it has to happen.
Pastor Weston's son gave a sermon and he said, "on your brightest or your dimmest day you are a light unto the world." There are times when I question why I'm here, or whether I'm doing anything at all. The times when I'm standing on a busy street corner when I feel like a grain of sand in the Sahara, I remember that it takes one spark, one tiny light to obliterate total darkness. There cannot be complete darkness as long as that light never goes out, so regardless of how dim or bright we shine, we still have the power to cast away a tiny circle of darkness around us.
A Cherokee at the service stated that "each and every one of us is given a path. If you feel in your heart that it is the right path, do not stray from it." Standing there, surrounded by hymns of praise and love, I have no doubt that I have chosen the right path.