MiMi Santos presents her salvation testimony on this week’s episode. She also provides encouragement for those who seek to continue their ministry in grief.
Download the MiMi Santos Harvest Time
Transcript
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We have two services at Harvest every week. The first at 08:45AM, the second at 10:45AM on Sunday.
We have Japanese and Korean translation during that 10:45AM service. That’s also the service we livestream at hbcguam.org. Hbcguam.org. This week is the second week in our seven Habits of Highly Effective Churches series, Revelation two eight through 11, the church at Smyrna, faithfulness under pressure. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton.
Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey, hafa adai, Chris. Yeah. Last Sunday, we started this new series, just walking through the teaching of Revelation Revelation two and three in Jesus’ instructions to his church. One of the things that we said last week was this, Revelation two and three give us a picture of the church, not from the vantage point of humans, my perspective or somebody else’s perspective. That’s what we normally have.
This is from how Jesus sees the church. And, when we say highly effective churches, we’re really talking about people. The church is made up of people. So it’s not just how does some organization, you know, fulfill Jesus’ calling, but how do the people of God within a local church, how do they live out what God’s called us to do? And we’re just gonna walk down each of these instructions that, God gave through the Holy Spirit on the voice of Jesus to John as a writer to us, helping us to learn.
One of the things that I encouraged, everybody last week is that we’re gonna start, we’d like to ask you to read the passage beforehand, and then we’re asking I called it a diagnostic question, if you could do some evaluation of it. The question for this week is, am I faithful to Christ when obedience is costly? And, that’s what we’re gonna discover from the teaching in regard to the church of Smyrna here in this text. And, looking forward to the time and hope that you’ll come and join us. We’d love to have you part of our our gathering here this Sunday.
I’m really thankful to be able to have Mimi Santos, here in the studio with us today. Welcome to Harvest Time, Mimi.
Mimi Santos: Thank you.
Gary Walton: Mimi, you’ve been a part of Harvest for a few years now. Started coming when? Do you remember on the year?
Mimi Santos: Yes, I do. It was 2020.
Gary Walton: Okay. Yeah. So going on six years, and, we’ve been so thankful for God leading you and your husband to Harvest, and we’ll talk about that a little bit. And you have been such a light and influence in the church, and we’ve had we’re just privileged to be able to walk together in our faith. So thank you for being willing to come and join us and talk a little bit about your testimony, what God’s done in and through your life.
And maybe we could back up to the beginning and talk about, you know, your life where you grew up. I know you moved to Guam a long time ago. Tell us a little bit about that and and then your testimony.
Mimi Santos: Okay. Well, I always like to start out with scripture, and it’s 1 Peter 3:15. But sanctify the Lord God in your heart and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is within you, with meekness and fear.
Gary Walton: What a great verse. I love that.
Mimi Santos: I always start my testimony out with that. This is the testimony of my faith in Jesus Christ. I was born in Oregon twice. The first birth was 06/16/1951. I lived at Mt.
Hood Government Camp. My parents never spoke of faith in Jesus or church. In 1956, an American Sunday School Union team came up to the mountain from Portland to have church for adults and children in a warming hut, a class for kids and for adults. My mom wanted me to know a little bit about church or Jesus or whatever she knew from her childhood, her being a middle child. She didn’t catch much.
That’s where I heard the Gospel and the Bible stories. It came alive on a flannel board like IMAX. Sunday by Sunday, Bible stories were told that lodged in my heart. I learned I was a sinner, and I agreed. All who sin and come short of the glory of God.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and you’re justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved.
Amen. I remember the day that we made a decision to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. In the Bible it says, You must be born again. John 3:3. I was quite serious about my decision and I prayed along with them, my second birth.
When asked to me if anyone had accepted Christ into their heart, I raised my hand straight up. I was five. And I’m still here today at 74. For those of you who are still doing the math, Jesus is my Savior. He is my Lord.
So like Jesus, I grew up in spirit and grace. I received my first Bible here I have with me, given to me in 1958. In first and second grade at public school, teachers prayed before class and at lunch. I shared about Jesus to my two friends, but I soon learned that hard times were ahead. My mom asked me if I wanted to go visit grandma.
Sure. No clue. Just don’t tell daddy. She packed our bags, and we walked up to the bus station and riding a bus to our destination far, far away. Grandma and grandpa lived in Utah.
Gary Walton: Oh, wow.
Mimi Santos: At first, it was all new to me, cousins galore. I was left with an aunt who had two girl cousins, so life was fun till I started missing my daddy. I was put into school there at third grade, and I followed my cousins and family to their church. Yet, like an iron dome over me, nothing penetrated. I rejected what I was taught.
So much time went by. I missed my dad. God was working in his heart. Somehow my aunt was okay with him coming to get me, and I was totally surprised when I answered the door. I leaped up into his arms, and the deck next day, we drove back to Oregon.
Since my mom lived in a dormitory for her work, she never got word of the departure for a few weeks. Home again, a great surprise. Daddy had, in his despair, returned to his faith as a teenager before the Navy and World War II. He was on fire for the Lord, and we attended Little Chapel of the Hills, a log cabin church. Having children’s church modeled after a church on a tinier scale with pews, tiny pews and a teacher, we memorized scripture, sang songs, and read the Bible stories.
I remember in the main church standing beside my dad looking at the picture of Jesus holding a little lamb. I saw that lamb as me. It wasn’t long before my mom got wind of an absent daughter stolen by her dad, and she flew home to Oregon like a mad wet hen. So funny. Not.
But mom filed for divorce, never figured out why. But she took me to Portland 50 miles away and put me in school. She got a job at Rose’s restaurant, and the owner was a Jewish lady. After school, I come into the restaurant and I’d sit on a stool waiting for my mom in the kitchen. I watched Rose.
She’d smile at me, and she fed me matzo ball soup, and the matzo balls were as big as my head. And a seven layer cake she made. It was my favorite. She wanted to put me in Jewish aftercare school. And though I was a shy kid, I loved it.
Since I had learned prior the Old Testament stories, and Jesus was born in Bethlehem, fled to Egypt, returned to Nazareth, raised there, I didn’t see the difference. I hadn’t made the distinction that we weren’t all on the same page, chapter, or testament. At public school, it was required to go to a religious service, and there were only three choices. There was Catholic, which my father had drilled into me that we weren’t, Protestant, and Jewish. I never heard of the word Protestant before.
So for two years, I attended synagogue. I listened to the stories in the Old Testament Tanakh, and I knew them, learned more, didn’t notice the missing Messiah. Mom remarried, and we moved to south Southeast side of town, built a home as others did in the neighborhood, and mostly all were Jewish. All my friends were Jewish. In sixth grade, the girls, we wanted to go to B’nai Brith Camp.
We all applied. All except me. God accepted. Why? I was brokenhearted, and they asked me what I put on my application, and I had marked the box Christian.
I was told in the rejection letter that I would be better off at a YMCA camp. God was still working in my life, not easy to see, but it unfolds. I graduated from high school in 1969, and I decided to go to community college. Whew. Big eye opener.
General study classes, teachers mocked Christians, and we had to defend our faith. A few of us were there. The second year, two guys started sharing Jesus with me and asked if I ever heard of the four spiritual laws. I hadn’t. They were from Campus Crusade for Christ.
Johan read to me the four spiritual laws booklet, God Loves You and Has a Plan for Your Life. We sinned. Jesus made a way. Accept Jesus. I said, did that when I was five.
Then he asked me if I’d ever heard of the Blue Book. It’s a follow-up to this four spiritual laws. And he read it to me. When it showed a circle with a throne in the middle with an e on it for ego and a cross in the circle, but all the dots were scrambled around. I knew that was my life.
It should have been Christ on the throne in the center of my life, and all the dots would be neatly aligned in order around Him. I prayed that Jesus would bring me back into right relationship with Him. In 1970, Hal Lindsey wrote a book, The Late Great Planet Earth, and I was stunned. New revelation to me. A rapture?
I hadn’t heard about this before. Caught up. First Thessalonians four thirteen through 18. You can read that. Johan also told me about a Bible school, Multnomah School of the Bible.
I had wanted to go to the airline work, and I had applied. I applied to Bible school anyway. I got letters of acceptance both to the airlines and to the Bible school. I chose a Bible school. One day I’ll fly away.
I lived on campus for two years and I took the required classes. I learned how to give a three minute, five minute, and a twenty minute testimony. I memorized large portions of Scripture each month. Something I can’t quite do now. In the summer, some classmates and I drove to Texas for EXPO ’72, a huge gathering of Christians.
I heard Billy Graham, Johnny Cash and Hal Lindsey. Everyone chooses a ministry at school to serve, and few chose my choice: Jews for Jesus. People we prayed for and brought names if we knew anyone, and to call or share with them the Jewish Messiah with them. Door to door sharing. In 1978, I heard about an island Of Guam from friends, that it was sunny and warm and friendly, great food, and the ocean was warm.
Adios, Oregon. I bloomed where I was planted. I took a Chamorro class at UOG, and a classmate, a pastor’s wife, asked me where I went to church. I told her I was new on island. She invited me to Agat Baptist Church for two years.
And then I was there, but it was pretty far for me to go, and she suggested Bayview. I built a house in Toto and adopted a newborn island style in 1980. At three years old, I enrolled her in Harvest three ks, four ks, five ks, and first grade until I couldn’t afford it anymore. I taught at Evangelical Christian Academy and she could go for free. I monitored there for years till I decided to homeschool.
In the teen years, there were a lot of struggles. 1996, from my house, I could see the mayor’s office, and a guy, scary guy, was sitting on a bench. I grabbed my Bible and I headed up there, sat on the bench, and I asked scary guy, have you ever read this before? I loaded my Bible with Romans Road and John three sixteen, and I made him read each verse. At Ephesians two:eight, For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone would boast.
He said, I didn’t know that. Mhmm. They didn’t tell me that. I invited him to our flock group. It’s like a community group at Pete and Libby Borja’s.
He came. After many times, Scary Guy asked to go to church with me. That was at Bayview. An evangelist spoke, and he went forward. A short time passed, and Scary Guy wanted to get baptized.
He gave his testimony and went down to the ocean on Resurrection Day. In 1997, it was Tom Santos who asked me to marry him. That was This Scary Guy. On September 20, we were married at the Little Chapel by the Sea Hilton Hotel. By way of Aganya Heights Baptist with older Chamorros Christians and pastor Angelo Sablan, Tom joined the praise and worship team and sang in the choir.
And we were both in Awana’s teaching and serving in HELPS and VBS. We moved to CBF and Tom was called to be a deacon. We were active in Awana as a teaching in Pioneer. I was going to mission trips in The Philippines working with First Love International Shores of Hope, Masa’ati School on Panay, and Jubilee in Barakkai, and VBS in Baliwag. VBS was always the highlight of our summers at church.
2020 arrived and shut the doors on churches. Tom and I made our own church, the Santos Church of the Lockdown. We sang songs and hymns, and Tom read scripture, and we took an offering and had communion every week. And we listened to Gary Walton preach online in an empty church until the archbishop told the governor that he was going to open the churches, the Catholic churches. Pastor Gary jumped on the bandwagon, and we opened the same Sunday.
Our first song was, We’re Together Again. That’s very emotional to me. And we were all living happily ever after till one of us died. Hebrews nine twenty seven says, It’s appointed for people to die once and then come the judgment. Tom kept his appointment and went home to be with the Lord.
He was finished with his race. Second Timothy four seven says, I’ve fought the good fight. I have finished the race, and I’ve kept the faith. I know where he is because of his faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But still, I could do a sermon on Ecclesiastes 4:9, two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their effort.
It goes on. I won’t. Jesus still has worked for me in telling others the narrow way to heaven.
Gary Walton: Amen. Amen. Amen. MImi, that was beautiful. Thank you.
Mimi Santos: Thank you.
Gary Walton: Thank you for sharing your
Mimi Santos: Thank you, Jesus.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Sharing your life, sharing God’s work in your life just step by step through all of that. I was honored to be able to do the memorial service for your husband, Tom. He’s a godly man and honored to walk beside you. You had such a strong faith, you know, through all that.
And what you said right now, I remember you saying multiple times, I know where he is. I know where he is. How many years ago was that?
Mimi Santos: It was five. Okay. Now going on six. I just wanna say we were honored to pray for you before you were ever here because we would pray on Tuesdays at 4AM, and we were told it was narrowing down to a pastor, to choose between.
Gary Walton: Wow.
Mimi Santos: And Tom and I prayed for you.
Gary Walton: Wow. I’m honored by that. And I’ve, I’ve been the recipient, all of us have been this recipient of people praying, but that is so powerful, you know, to be reminded of that. Yeah. Thank you.
4AM prayer. Those are the best kind. Right?
Mimi Santos: We didn’t know you at the time. We we were narrowing it down.
Gary Walton: Yeah. Yeah. Mimi, can you tell us a little bit about life in the last five years? Could you talk about I know you don’t wanna talk about you so much, but would you talk about God’s faithfulness even though I know your your love, your and Tom’s love was special. It was sweet.
And I’m sure there’s some lonely times or some hard times. Tell us about God being faithful to you during this.
Mimi Santos: God is so faithful. We were a very strong marriage, probably because we were older, and we had twenty four years before.
aND I’m still counting because I still love him. I’m still faithful to him. I look forward to the day when God calls us home, either by the Lord coming back and getting us, or just conking out. There are struggles, unknowns, but I rely on Jesus Christ and being by yourself. You can talk to the chickens, but you can talk to the dogs, and yet you have friends all over the world praying for you.
There are people praying for me right now through this testimony and I am thankful for them. Yeah, the unknown, which has always been our lives, we don’t know what’s ahead. We take it day by day, but if you’re staying faithful in the Word, following your Bible reading and looking forward to any opening to tell somebody about Christ, you know you’re doing your job as a born again Christian.
Gary Walton: That’s great. Yeah. Really, really good. Mimi, I think you have such a vibrant, full life. And when I think about, you know, your testimony, and that’s what we’re sharing here, I I see your testimony of faithfulness to God and to his church.
It’s such a blessing to me. You and Tom did that together. You know, you walked through that. I do think about your love for Tom because I it was strong. I it was evident to everybody.
I I think about, you know, some some things that you’re passionate about. You have this incredible yard and chickens and some animals there, and that’s just sort of part of you. And I also think of your friends. Bible says that a that a man that has friends must show himself friendly, and you are. You care about people.
You care sacrificially for people, and God’s blessed you then with people that really care about you too. And I think all of those things are, just sweet reflections of God’s work, in you and in your life, and I’m I’m thankful for all of that. For someone who’s, listening that that, may be walking through grief or, hard season right now, what encouragement would you offer to them, would you lovingly offer to them as they’re walking through it?
Mimi Santos: I would say keep your eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look into His word, go to church, find friends, and contact each other. Undergird each other. Lift one another up. Pray for each other.
Gary Walton: Fantastic. That’s great advice. Yeah. Well, you know, having this opportunity to kinda walk through your story, your testimony of God’s work in your life, it’s a picture of most of our lives of seasons of both joy and some heaviness, some challenges, and to hear God just being faithful to you through all of that. Anything that you could encourage somebody else who’s saying, that’s my life too.
I see some joy, but there’s some heaviness. How would you encourage them in the Word?
Mimi Santos: Well, I’d like to invite them over to my house.
Gary Walton: There you go.
Mimi Santos: You can give them my phone number, and they are more than welcome to spend time with me. I would serve them. I would enjoy their company.
Gary Walton: This is what the body of Christ does.
Mimi Santos: We have gifts. That’s one of mine.
Gary Walton: Amen. Amen. Mimi, thank you for being willing to share. Our time goes so fast. It’s amazing.
Praying that God would continue to use you, bless you, fulfill his will in your life, and really honored to be able to share your testimony today. Thank you. Yeah.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, at this point in the program, we always wanna personally invite you again to Harvest Baptist Church. Two services every Sunday, 08:45AM, 10:45AM. We have Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45AM service. We also broadcast that service live here on 88.1 FM at khmg.org.
We hope to see you this Sunday. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.