Cocoa Beach Bible Study Welcomes Unexpected Guest
COCOA BEACH — A weekly Bible study meeting inside a Cocoa Beach cafe welcomed an unexpected guest Monday after a woman stopped in for a bagel, noticed Bibles spread across the table and asked what the group was discussing.
Missionaries Elayna and Danie'l Lopez began the Monday Bible study at Juice 'N Java Cafe several months ago after discovering a shared desire with the cafe's owners to create an opportunity for discipleship in the community. The Lopezes saw the study as a way to continue ministering locally while preparing and raising support to return to their missionary assignment with Overland Missions. The owners of Juice 'N Java had felt a similar calling to use their business for ministry.
"Since we started this Bible study, I have prayed and believed that someone walking into JNJ for food or a drink would see our Bible study and feel led to join us right there on the spot," Elayna Lopez shared in a Facebook post Tuesday. "This Monday, that prayer was answered."
The woman, an expectant mother from Ecuador, had stopped at the cafe while on a break from work when she noticed the group's open Bibles and began talking with them. Members of the study invited her to sit down, initially assuming someone else in the group already knew her.
"None of us knew her, but Jesus knew her," Lopez wrote.
The woman told the group that she and her husband had been trying to follow Jesus again and wanted to hear what the Bible study was discussing.
The timing carried special significance for the group. The study is currently working through the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 and that day's lesson focused specifically on Matthew 5:6: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."
"How perfectly fitting was it that this young wife and expecting mother, hungry for food but also desiring to follow Jesus and be close to Him again, seeking righteousness, walked in and joined our Bible study on the very day we were talking about hungering and thirsting for righteousness?" Lopez wrote.
Before returning to work, the woman received prayer from the group and exchanged contact information with several participants in hopes of staying connected.
Lopez is asking local Christians to pray for the woman, her husband and their expected child, and that the family would find a Christian community and local church where they can continue growing in their faith.
The Lopezes host the Bible study Mondays from noon to about 1:30 p.m. at Juice 'N Java Cafe in Cocoa Beach while preparing to return to their missionary assignment in Zambia.
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