SONIA MCQUEEN
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Sonia is American, born to Puerto Rican parents. She is fluent in English, Spanish and is currently pursuing learning the French language. She was born in Elmhurst, Queens, NY and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Sonia is the eighth and youngest child in her family. She was raised Roman Catholic for the first 45 years of her life, believing in God, believing in Jesus, but having no clue of the wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit. All she had was religion and spent most of her adult life running from God.
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While at a church retreat, Sonia was healed at age 13 from a severe stomach virus that spread throughout the camp they were in. While she was in bed, Sonia prayed for the Lord to take away the stomach virus and the power of God fell upon her to the point where she could not move her body and she felt a heat sensation from head to toe. Everyone knew she was healed by God that night because she was the only girl in the quarantine cabin that was no longer sick the following morning.
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At the tender age of 16, she became pregnant with her first son David. She was still in High School during her pregnancy and thankfully, her mother who was a devout Catholic and who did not believe in abortions, helped her raise her son and she was able to finish High School. She married the father of her son, but that marriage came to an end within one year.
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Throughout her adult life, Sonia always felt an empty void in her heart. She knew there was something she was suppose to be doing, but did not know what it was. Enjoying to cook and pursuing what she thought was her destiny, she tried out for the cooking show, Master Chef. She made it all the way through to finals and was told by the Master Chef Team, that all the final contestants would be advised via email if they would be on the show. On Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at about 9:00 a.m., Sonia received that email notifying her that she was not selected to be on the show.
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Filled with emotions of disappointment, anger and crying, she flung her cell phone across the room, stood up from the couch in her living room, looked up into the ceiling and yelled at the top of her lungs, "What do you want from me!!??!!" Immediately, she heard an audible voice say, "You will preach and teach My Word to the nations of the world," and she was frightened stiff. Sonia knew, that she knew, something touched her at that very moment supernaturally. Not knowing or fully understanding what had happened to her, shortly thereafter, she knew that she had become born-again. Sonia felt as if she had been pulled out of darkness and brought into a glorious light. Her life has never been the same.
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The next morning after her encounter with the Lord, she woke up with an unexplainable, strong desire to read the Bible. Sonia tried reading the Bible as a Roman Catholic once, but did not understand it and immediately disregarded it for years. She went to Barnes and Noble Bookstore with her husband Bob and thankfully, the store attendant who helped her purchase the Bible handed her a New King James version. Sonia had no clue about versions of the Bible at that time and her husband had no clue why she was even buying a Bible!
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That evening, Sonia went to bed and opened the neatly wrapped Bible to the Book of John. She was so overwhelmed and weeped profusely because of what she had read. Sonia felt as if she had been reading the Bible for 10 years. She UNDERSTOOD WHAT SHE WAS READING! It was as if a veil had lifted off her eyes and scales had fallen off.
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For almost a year, Sonia did not tell her husband Bob, nor her sons, nor anyone, what she had experienced with the Lord. Her heart meditated on the experience and what God had said to her and she felt as if the Lord was keeping her in a cocoon for an appointed time. Her family watched her transformation from afar and knew that something happened because she was different and read the Word of God daily.
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Step by step, the Holy Spirit led Sonia and her husband Bob to move back to Florida. It was during this time, she felt a release to tell her family of her encounter with the Lord. It did not surprise them, because they knew she was different. Shortly thereafter, Sonia and her husband Bob attended Bible School and during their fourth year at Bible School, the Lord revealed His plan for their lives to move to France.
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During Sonia's time in Bible School, she was ministering and preaching the Word of God. One day while studying and in prayer with the Lord, she asked Him, "Lord, what would you have me say to your people?" What she clearly heard on the inside of her, not only shook her to the core, but gave her the "message" to the sermon she was to preach to a group of women. The Lord said to her, "My people are going from mercy to mercy and not from glory to glory." The sermon the Lord Jesus had her preach was in His prayer to the Father in the Book of John. Below is a short version of that sermon Sonia preached:
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Jesus said in John 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they (meaning the born-again believer), may KNOW You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
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Jesus immediately continues His prayer by speaking of the GLORY.
John 17:4-5 "I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work which You have given me to do. And now O' Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory I had with You before the world was."
The Father's heart and the Son's heart is to reside in the GLORY and that is their heart for His people as well! This absolute fullness of life eternal, which belongs to God and through Him, both to the "Logos" who put on human nature and the born-again believer. This life eternal, real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God and blessed in the BELOVED of those who put their LOVE, FAITH, TRUST, HOPE and OBEDIENCE in Him as their dwelling place.
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Every born-again believer is called to know the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is in that knowing that you will experience eternal life, now, here on the earth, not just when we get to heaven. We serve a GREAT and MERCIFUL God, but His mercy was never meant to be a place or a condition to reside in. We are called to go from GLORY to GLORY and from VICTORY to VICTORY. The glory is buried treasure that can be found. We must dig for it, we must seek Him and love Him with all our hearts, with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our minds.
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Bob and Sonia now call France their home and are Founders of Talmidim Christian Center in Reynes, France. They continue to learn French and their heart is to KNOW, OBEY and DEEPLY LOVE Jesus and the people God has sent them to.
"And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and My Father are One."
John 10:28-30
