Power Points: God at Work Through Women Leaders Yesterday and Today

Terrisa’s Story

BY LEECY BARNETT

“'Jesus, I don’t know anything about anything. I just have to trust you.’ That’s what the hurricanes of life can do to us. They can reduce us to TRUST.”

When Terrisa Coleman wrote that statement, she was reflecting on two hurricanes that had destroyed her old life and set her on a brand-new path. The metaphorical hurricane hit when, just three days after giving birth to her third daughter by Cesarean section, Terrisa and her husband, Stan, packed up their comfortable life in the midst of the Bible Belt and moved to Miami, Florida. Stan felt God was calling him to preach the gospel to the unreached in what was, at the time, the drug hub of America. Terrisa often described her experience in Miami as “90 miles from Cuba, 10 minutes from hell.” In spite of the difficulties, Stan’s ministry with the youth of the Miami church was growing.

One day while standing at the dishwasher praying, God spoke to Terrisa telling her He wanted to use her and Stan to plant a church in Florida. This calling both excited and terrified her. After she recorded this encounter in her journal, she decided not to say anything about it right away, but asked God to reveal this calling to her husband. Three months later while driving to church, Stan told her about the “vision” he had to start a church one day. They agreed to spend a year praying and learning about what planting a church would involve. By August 1992, they were ready to step out in faith and decided to put their house on the market.

On the very day that the real estate agency was scheduled to appraise their home, the second literal hurricane hit. When Terrisa heard that Hurricane Andrew was heading toward South Florida, she was not too worried as they lived 12 miles inland, were not in an evacuation zone, had hurricane supplies, and it had been more than 40 years since a major hurricane had directly hit the Miami area. Huddled in their living room on the night of August 23, 1992, the five Colemans felt they were prepared for the hurricane that was scheduled to hit the next day. Terrisa described that horrible night:

At 4:00 am a flash of bright blue light told us our transformer had blown and our power was gone. The house went black and silent. The wind began to howl…for a few moments we held our breath. Then suddenly, without warning, the window next to me exploded, sending shards of glass hurling in every direction at what seemed like the speed of light. “MOOOVE!!!” My husband was shouting for us to run to the small downstairs bath. We reached it just as the house began to fall apart.

The next morning when they emerged from what was left of their house, their neighborhood looked like a bombedout war zone. Everything they owned was gone, but in the midst of the rubble that had been their life, God’s overwhelming peace surrounded Terrisa as she praised God that her whole family had lived through a direct hit of a category 5 hurricane. They knew that they had to get out of the area and find a safe place to stay. The only people they knew in Florida outside of Andrew’s devastated path was a family from the Miami church who had recently moved 80 miles north to Boynton Beach. While staying with this family, they began a neighborhood Bible study, which became the nucleus of South Palm Community Church, officially launched on Easter 1993. Over the 23 years of the church, thousands of people heard the good news of God’s grace through Jesus Christ and began following Him.

When a hurricane, in whatever form, destroys your life as you have known it, be encouraged by Terrisa’s experience to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NLT)