UTA BSM sees 17 salvations, including one BSM student, serving refugees

Growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, Laila Arzabala, a junior business student at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), had “always been okay with being wrong with what I believe, but I want[ed] to know what's right.” 

After meeting Baptist Student Ministry coordinator Timbrel Cheevers for coffee, Arzabala was invited to a volleyball game “right when school was about to begin” and decided to go because she “just wanted friends.” 

Arzabala said that over the course of the fall semester, she would pray for God to reveal himself to her and found herself returning to the BSM often. 

“I've always believed that [God] was real, but I would pray to God and [ask], ‘Who are you?’ [and] I would always end up here in this building,” said Arzabala. “I didn't understand why because there was a point where I wasn't even supposed to be [at the BSM] that day, and I would pray that prayer, and that same day, I would end up in this building.” 

As Arzabala spent more time at the BSM asking questions and talking with BSM students and staff about Jesus, she began to “question my own beliefs and why I believe what I believed” and started to “dig deeper into this relationship with God” that they were explaining to her.  

“I don't know what it was that shifted [in my] thinking, but I was like, ‘Why does that make sense?’” said Arzabala. “Things just started clicking and… the more I read about it, it just made sense.” 

A few weeks before UTA BSM headed out on their annual spring break mission trip to San Antonio, Arzabala was “going back and forth” on “whether I wanted to keep doing what I wanted or follow what God wanted.” 

“There was just a point where I was like, ‘You can't serve two masters,’ and I made a choice, and I [told God] ‘I'm going to serve you.’” 

Little did she know that God would use her “yes” to serve in San Antonio to transform her life. 

Saying yes to Jesus despite fear and doubt 

March 8-12, UTA BSM took 65 students on a trip to San Antonio, where they were split into five different teams to do “various kinds of ministry” around the city. The first team served their host church by doing projects and repairing the campus. The second team focused on evangelism, “going throughout the city in various ways to share the gospel.” Two other teams did VBS-style kids camps at apartment complexes, and the final team, coined the “servangelism team,” delivered food with Meals on Wheels and helped a group of refugees at an apartment complex. 

Ben Muir, director of UTA BSM, said that going into the trip, he was praying that the students would gain experience serving others outside of their normal contexts and learn how to endure fatigue and other pressures to serve where God calls them to serve.  

On the second day, the group worshipped on Sunday morning with their host church, with whom they had served the past seven spring breaks. 

Waiting for service to begin, Arzabala told Cheevers that she “felt really far from God” and was comforted when Cheevers told her it was most likely spiritual warfare due to her obedience to serve on the trip. But, during the service, she noticed a difference from the church as she knew it. 

“[In Jehovah’s Witness services] we didn't grow up really singing much, it was like, you sing one song, you sit down and listen to the Word, and that was really it. But being there, we just kept singing and… it was beautiful because you could feel it, you could feel God's presence there,” explained Arzabala. 

Then, the pastor “asked if anybody wanted to be saved.” 

"I knew what he meant… [and] I understood that [it was an opportunity for] public declaration of love to God and I had never done that before,” said Arzabala. “But the first time he said it, my heart started racing immediately, and I got super scared, and I just heard, ‘Go.’” 

Afraid, Arzabala didn’t answer the pastor’s invitation at the beginning of the service, but God was on the move. 

“The rest of the service… he kept coming to the front and telling people to come. He was like, ‘There's one more that needs to come,’ and I felt like he was talking about me, but I was just like, ‘I can't do it,’” explained Arzabala. “[Then], there was a point where I was praying, and I saw something. I had my eyes closed and everything turned blue, and there was green grass and Timbrel was on my right, but there was a man next to me and he was wearing all white, and he had like a brown tassel, I couldn't see his face, and he was holding his hand out. I opened my eyes and… it was like half of a second; it was the quickest thing.”

The end of service was approaching, and though Arzabala “still didn’t move,” she could not ignore the feeling that God was calling her. 

“I saw the pastor walking to the back, and… I started walking to him. I had no idea what was going to say to him, but I told him that I wanted to talk to him. He took me back to the front, and we sat down, and I was telling him that I felt really bad for not moving, and he looked at me in my eyes. He said, ‘Do you want to be saved?’ and I was like, ‘Right now?’ He just repeated himself, ‘Do you want to be saved?’ And I [said] ‘Yes,’” explained Arzabala. “At that point I was like, ‘[Laila], don't fail the test again. You failed it like three times already, you’ve got to do this now.’” 

Arzabala prayed to receive Christ surrounded by Muir and other UTA BSM students. 

“Ben asked me right after if I wanted to be baptized, but since I grew up Jehovah’s Witness, what I knew was that you had to take a test… [because] they want you to know what being baptized means,” said Arzabala. “But somebody brought up, Acts 8[:36], how [the eunuch with Phillip was] saying ‘There's water there. If you believe, we can do it right now.’”

Going upstairs to get changed for baptism, she began to think about how her family would respond to her decision, and doubt crept in: “Am I doing the wrong thing?” and “Why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I felt pressure to do this? Am I doing this because I want to do this? Am I doing this because I love God? What is my reason for being here, doing this right now?”

“I went in the bathroom and I sat on the floor and I started praying… to find my center,” said Arzabala. “I knew I wanted to be baptized, but I always thought I had more time… to have fun and do what I was doing. But I [told myself], ‘It's time now. God is telling you you're ready, so you're okay.’ And I realized that it doesn't matter who gets upset with me, this is my relationship with God… alone and I want to serve [him].” 

As she made her way back downstairs, Arzabala said, “every ounce of fear left my body” and “I felt so peaceful with the decision I made.” Confident in moving forward, a high school friend, whom she reconnected with at the BSM in the fall, was able to baptize her. 

“I wasn't a good friend to her and she’s always been so good to me. That's love. [So], for her to be the one that [baptized me] and for her to have seen me change so much, it was perfect,” said Arzabala. 

Arzabala said that she became even more eager to serve God as she was placed on the “servangelism team” for the rest of the week. 

Muir said it is “not as unprecedented as it may seem” for a BSM student to accept Christ on a mission trip. He said each year, UTA BSM has had “someone who has not put their full faith in Jesus come on the trip.” In fact, he said it is encouraged because they get to witness believers “live [among] each other and interact with each other.” 

“You really get to experience the body of Christ in a very real way because you're together for 24 hours a day for a few days,” said Muir. “Just hearing Laila’s story, you can tell… it wasn't just one thing that led [her] to put her faith in Jesus. There was a verbal witness of many people, but also the action witness of many people as well.”

Recognizing God’s wisdom as we serve  

Joshua Oyewole, a senior pre-med student at UTA, was placed on the “servangelism team” alongside Arzabala and said he was encouraged by “how faithful she was” as they helped Afghan refugees build their résumés and search for online jobs through New Hope Connection, a local ministry that is helping refugees get “back on their feet.”

Oyewole said his experience in San Antonio “really made me marvel at God's wisdom” and sovereignty, as he “was supposed to go on a different mission trip.” 

“I was scheduled to go on a medical mission trip to Mexico with an organization that me and a couple of pre-health students are starting at UTA… That's what I've prepared my heart for. Then, the night before… I gave one of our regional coordinators a call… [and] he [said], ‘There's some mix up between our spring break and the other neighboring university’s spring break.’ That basically meant that I couldn't go,” explained Oyewole.

The morning the BSM was preparing to head to San Antonio, Oyewole shared the news with his discipler, Jack Inman, associate director of UTA BSM, and he asked Oyewole, “Are you available to go on the [San Antonio] trip?” 

“Whether it was Mexico or down the street, I just want to serve the Lord. [I] want to get a chance to use all the opportunities I can at the university and beyond,” said Oyewole. “I had told people that if I wasn't going on [the Mexico] mission trip, I would have for sure went on the spring break trip.. and he told me they still had a spot.”

Oyewole came on the trip and spent time serving with New Hope Connection. As he was serving, he started to recognize why God might have made this trip available to him. 

“I am in a class this semester that is primarily focused on me creating résumés. The whole class was for me just to build resumes, and I get plugged in and… the whole time I spent doing was making résumés for Afghan refugees,” said Oyewole. “I was blown away because I had prepared my heart for an entirely different mission opportunity. But then, [God created] a different opportunity. To me, [that] showcases God's wisdom.” 

One of the refugees he served even ended up getting a job interview soon after receiving his help. 

Oyewole said it “really broke my heart for just how sincere the [Muslim] culture is” and reminded him that the Lord “cares so deeply about people and he desires for all people to know him.” 

‘It was an urgent reminder for me to really be intentional about those that don't know the Lord back here at UTA, and [God] showed me that he knows what he's doing. I wondered why he had not allowed me to go on the trip, and then by the end of it, I was like, ‘Wow, you’re so amazing,’” said Oyewole. 

Celebrating 17 salvations 

By the end of the week, UTA BSM was celebrating 17 new brothers and sisters in Christ, including Arzabala. 

Referencing God’s call from 2 Corinthians 5, to “participate in this ministry of reconciliation,” Muir said seeing 17 people come to know the Lord was a good reminder that “there are people who are open to the gospel” and ‘we need to be bold enough… [and] willing to pay the awkward tax of starting a conversation with someone.” 

Oyewole said that he would encourage students who are hesitant to say “yes” to serving on mission or to sharing the gospel to not focus on their own abilities but to “take [God] at his word and let him lead.” 

“That small step could lead to the salvation of somebody’s soul,” said Oyewole. 

Arzabala said she was impacted by the testimonies her co-laborers shared during their debrief time at the end of each day. 

“We would just hear all these stories of all our teams that were able to share the gospel and able to touch people. It was really cool to see [that] we're just so broken, and he uses us anyways,” said Arzabala. “To meet people and know that God knows them… It just shows how grand and great he is, and I just thought, ‘How could you not be so incredibly real? You were just touching so many people.’” 

For more information or to get connected to a BSM on your campus, visit txbsm.org.