Big Surprise for Young Adult Who Went to Church After 7 Years

Starlene Peters then asked God for three signs.

By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Starlene Peters, bruised and wearing crumpled clothes after a night of partying followed by a drunken car crash, walked into the Seventh-day Adventist church on Sabbath morning.

A former Adventist, she wasn’t sure how church members, long ignored, would respond to her unexpected presence. But a friend had died in the car accident hours earlier, and she needed to find God.

“I saw that accident as a wake-up call,” said Peters, a full-time missionary whose work has been commended by Adventist Church president Ted N.C. Wilson. “I realized how fragile life was.”

Peters was raised by an Adventist grandmother in Port of Spain, capital of the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. From a young age, she was required to attend church every Sabbath. As she grew older, she was baptized and held various church positions. But her service was not genuine, she said.

“For most of my childhood I didn’t feel any connection with God,” Peters, now 32, said in an interview at the headquarters of the Adventist Church’s Southern Caribbean Conference in Port of Spain.

At 18, she left home and the church to embark on a life of partying.

“I did everything that I thought church was keeping me back from doing,” she said.

Then the car accident occurred. Peters and two friends were driving home after a Friday night of partying, and the driver, who was intoxicated, wrecked the vehicle. Peters and the driver escaped with scratches, but their friend, a 26-year-old woman, was killed.

Peters was whisked away from the accident scene to the hospital for a checkup. Then police questioned her at the police station. After that, Peters headed straight for church.

“I felt that I needed to be in the presence of God,” she said.

Return to Church

Peters had nothing to wear but her partying attire: a short dress, earrings, and makeup. She didn’t know what to expect at the church. She hadn’t worshipped there in seven years.

The pastor was preparing to start the sermon when Peters gingerly walked in the door. All eyes turned on her. A brief moment passed. Then the church members abruptly broke into a song of praise. Then they sang a second hymn and a third hymn.

“They stopped the service and started a sing-a-thon because they were so happy that I was in church after so many years,” said Peters, beaming as she remembered the joyous music.

It was a welcome worthy of the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable from Luke 15:11-32.

“It was an emotional experience,” Peters said. “It was a surreal experience, really. It was the first time that I was having that kind of encounter with God.”

At that moment Peters decided to give her life to Jesus and start over.

“It was then that I truly became convicted as a Christian for the first time in my life,” she said. “I made a deal with God: All or nothing. I got rebaptized, and that is where my life began.”

Peters immediately approached local church conference to ask how she could contribute. She learned that a Generation of Youth for Christ conference, similar to a GYC convention in the United States, was about to open, and she volunteered to help.

The youth conference, however, confused her. As she listened to one of the speakers, a veteran U.S. missionary, she felt convicted to go on a two-week mission trip planned to the South American country of Guyana after the conference.

“To me, I was not missionary material,” Peters said. “So I decided to pray about it.”

She asked God for a sign: that random people at the youth conference would tell her to become a missionary. No one knew her, so she thought no one would approach her.

“But several people that same day came up to me and told me, ‘Have you ever thought about being a missionary?’ or ‘The mission field needs missionaries. Have you ever thought about that?’” she said.

Sign No. 2

Peters was surprised but rationalized that people were thinking about mission service after the U.S. missionary’s presentation. So she asked God for a second sign: that her father tell her to become a missionary.

“My father is not a church-going person, and I am his only daughter,” Peters said. “So to me the chances were slim to none. I thought I had gotten God into a corner.”

The next day, her father called to chat. After conversing several minutes, he told her, “Maybe you should go where God leads you.”

Startled, Peters replied, “Daddy, what did you say?”

“Maybe you should go where God leads you,” he said, adding that he was pleased with her changed life after rebaptism.

Peters prayed angrily that night. She had a good job and a promising future. She didn’t want to risk those things for a mission trip.

“I thought I was giving as much as there was to give, but He desired more,” she said.

Peters asked for a third sign: that God provide the U.S.$450 needed for the mission trip.

The next day, the last day of the conference, a man approached Peters and plied her with questions, leaving her annoyed and puzzled. Eventually he asked to meet him outside. There he handed her a white envelope and walked off.

“When I looked inside, it was a check for $450, the exact amount I needed for the trip,” she said.

Peters ended up staying in Guyana for 1 ½ years, teaching at a mission school. Since then, Peters has been going on short- and long-term mission trips nonstop, pausing only to raise funds for the next trip. In 2014, Adventist Church president Ted N.C. Wilson presented her with an award for her work with the church’s One Year in Mission program.

Peters said it is never too late — or too soon — to share Jesus.

“Before my first mission trip, I had just come back to church, so I didn’t feel Christian enough to go on a mission trip,” she said. “Now I do all trips all the time. God provides for all my needs.”

A portion of the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in first quarter 2018 will go toward building the first-ever church for Adventist-owned University of the South Caribbean in Trinidad and Tobago.