Maria

A Story of Hope

On January 8 in worship services, Maria Nasralla was asked to describe how she shares her hope in Jesus Christ. Pastor David Hallgren asked her two questions: 1) Would your share a little bit about the hope you have in Jesus Christ, and 2) as you’ve received hope from Jesus, how have you been led to share that hope with others?

First of all, I’d like to say that I was exposed to Jesus in my family as I came from a Jesus-loving and church-going family. From there I needed to own Jesus as my own personal savior. To do that I had to move to Seattle. I realized in my preparation for today that it’s been 16 years since I started attending UPC. It was at a Christmas party back in 1995 that I was talking with my friend Greta who was in UMin, and I asked her, “I heard you go to this great church and you really like it and you’re involved.” And she said, “Yes, if you want to come with Chris and me sometime, we’d love to have you.” So then I asked, “I also hear you’re in this great Bible study.” And she invited me to go with her to that. So my husband and I came to UPC and we started in the bible study in the same week. Coming here and forming relationships here changed my life. I’ll never forget looking at the bulletin and seeing all these opportunities for service that I could do. It started with banners with Sue, and then the children’s program. It’s been a great honor and privilege to work with the kids.

I’ve been sharing hope through having relationships with my neighbors. I have an open-door policy at our home. We live in a neighborhood close to UPC, and we have a little shotgun bungalow with nine windowpanes, so whoever comes to the porch can see right through our living room to the kitchen. I spend most of my time in that kitchen—cooking is a passion of mine—so people can usually see me and then they just come in. We also have a trampoline in the backyard, and so kids come take a look and knock and ask if they can jump on our trampoline.

My neighborhood is a little Mayberry. We’re very accessible to one another and serve one another. It’s not just me serving my neighbors as they come to my door, but it’s been such a mutual relationship. They serve me too. We walk each other’s dogs and serve each other meals and have that open door: “Come on over. Have a cup of coffee or a class of water.” So that’s how I’ve been serving and sharing hope.