When Yona and Dion (pictured) married, they didn’t fully comprehend how a healthy family should look, and Yona still bore the wounds of an incredibly traumatic childhood.
At only 20 years old, Yona was plunging into one of life’s biggest decisions: She and Dion had fallen in love and now planned to elope. However, the young couple was starting life together with little knowledge of a healthy family life. Would their marriage endure, or would it end in tragedy, like the one that had scarred Yona’s childhood?
Haunted by Trauma
Yona had grown up in a strife-torn family. She and her younger brother had witnessed frequent fights between their parents. They lacked a stable home. They lacked any peace.
One day when Yona was only 8, the instability exploded into horrific trauma: She saw her father douse her mother in kerosene and set her on fire. Yona’s mother perished in a bath of flames, an image that haunted Yona throughout childhood. For the rest of her days, she would never forget the horror of watching her father murder her mother.
Inexplicably, Yona’s father was never arrested or prosecuted. He went on with life as though nothing had happened. He even remarried. This scarred Yona even more. If there was no justice for such atrocity, what safety could she expect? Unwilling to live with their father, Yona and her brother moved out to live with their grandmother and uncle.
Years later, Yona met Dion, and the two fell in love. Although Dion occasionally attended church with his Christian mother, he didn’t truly follow Jesus, and Yona wanted nothing to do with Christianity. Meanwhile, Yona’s grandmother and uncle disapproved of the relationship, perhaps because of her young age and perhaps because they followed a different religion than Dion’s mother.
Yona and Dion got married anyway. A mountain of challenges loomed over the newlyweds. In addition to lacking support from the bride’s family, they didn’t know what a healthy marriage should look like. Yona still lived with the trauma of her childhood—of growing up with a monstrous example of what a husband could be. She and Dion also faced practical difficulties as they didn’t even have a home to live in. Would the couple be able to navigate the stress of starting a life together?
Concerned for their future, Dion’s mother encouraged them to visit her church and told her pastor, GFA pastor Marin, and his wife, Jia, about the young couple’s predicament.
New Friends, New Life
Pastor Marin and Jia (pictured) reached out to the young couple, showing the love and support a family would.
Pastor Marin and Jia have committed their lives to sharing Christ’s love with people in need. They don’t simply speak about this love, but they embody it, living out Christ’s love for their community. So, when Pastor Marin and Jia learned about the young couple’s situation, they stepped in with acts of kindness, making themselves available to Yona and Dion as family would. They helped Yona and Dion find a temporary home and supplied them with needed items, including pots and pans, kitchen utensils and cleaning tools.
Their compassion astounded Yona.
“How can two people that I have never met before help me when I am in so much need?” she wondered.
Intrigued, Yona began attending their church. There, she learned about the God whose love had motivated Pastor Marin and Jia to show kindness even to a stranger like her. Yona became friends with Jia and eventually opened up to her about the trauma that had marred her childhood and locked her heart in chains of bitterness.
Jia told Yona about the biblical concept of forgiveness, encouraging her young friend to let go of her hatred toward her father and pray for him.
Over time, Yona began to trust in Jesus, who offered forgiveness to all as He died on the cross. She chose to follow Him and laid her childhood trauma at His feet. Christ’s love led her out of the prison of bitterness and into the light of hope.
As she grew in her faith, Yona’s life began to change, and Jia, who was now a spiritual mother to the young woman, supported her along the way. Yona experienced newfound freedom and joy—even though her husband still didn’t share her faith. Would he find the same love that Yona had found? Would they become a family united by love and faith, the kind of family Yona had never known as a child?
A Family Transformed
National missionaries visit and befriend families, offering support and prayer to those who have never known the love of God.
Yona laid another burden—Dion’s spiritual condition—before the Lord. She became a woman of prayer, asking God daily to touch her husband’s life. And gradually, Dion’s heart did change. He hadn’t been able to forget the love Pastor Marin and Jia had shown him and his wife in their time of need. Then, in 2020, another gift of grace drew him to Christ’s love: Dion and Yona welcomed a baby boy into their family. Dion decided that he would follow the Lord, who had blessed his family so abundantly.
Now Yona and her husband lead their family in united faith. Through Yona’s friendship with Jia, the young wife is deepening her relationship with Christ and learning how to honour God as a wife and mother. The pastor’s wife frequently reaches out to counsel and encourage Yona—offering wisdom about growing in Christ, fulfilling family duties and running a household. Instead of being bound by the chains of past trauma, Yona has chosen to forgive her father, and she walks in freedom. She now knows the joy of being a child of God.
As they are able, national missionaries often step in to provide practical help to people in their communities, whether it’s providing food to a family in need or distributing necessities such as warm clothing or blankets.
“I believe that holding onto God is my greatest achievement,” Yona says. “And I am thankful to God for everything that He has done for me and my family.”
Yona and her family walk in new life and hope today because a GFA pastor and his wife introduced them to Christ and His unconditional love. Thank you for enabling GFA missionaries to show more people the freedom found in Christ and welcome them into the family of God.
