Anna Megli is living for Christ no matter the cost By Jolene Evans
In one Oklahoma town, there’s a teen who’s taking a firm stand for Christ—setting an example even adults should follow.
Sixteen-year-old Anna Megli of Nash, Oklahoma, is an amazing young lady. Known already for being a state champion swimmer, the thing for which she’s become best known is as a Christ follower, leading more than 50 of her classmates to a relationship with Jesus Christ.
A few years ago at a revival at her church Anna began feeling God move in her life. During the invitation, she sensed God saying, “Get out of your seat and get up there.” She began to question God about this instruction. Why, God? Why in the world do I need to go up there? I already know I’m saved. I’ve already accepted Christ. There’s no reason why I should go up there. She got up and walked down the aisle. The counselor who met with her asked why she came forward. She replayed the discussion she’d had with God and her wise counselor simply said, “Maybe you just came down to be obedient.” That’s it! thought Anna. He just needed to see if I would be obedient.
“Since then He’s allowed me to talk to people for Him,” she says.
Anna’s wisdom reaches beyond her youth. Although she accepted Christ as her Savior when she was six years old, she has only in the past few years come to understand what it means to dedicate her whole life, everything she does, to Him.
“Each day, as I look around my school, I see all of these kids. Kids who bug me, kids who don’t dress like me or don’t act like me,” Anna says. “Even if I don’t like some of the things they do, I have to remember that Christ created them, loved them and died for them.
“I just look around and realize there are lots of people who aren’t going to heaven, because they don’t know the truth. Who’s going to tell them? I realized it has to be me.”
Anna’s pledge of faith has become “If you know the way, you have to tell them.”
Says Anna: “Whether it’s at the pool, on the bus, in the classroom or at lunch, you have to take the opportunity given to you.”
Because of her willingness to live unhindered for Christ, God has given Anna divine opportunities to share her faith.
Look around you
Anna recalls a day she had some free time at school. As she walked down the hall, she prayed, “God, please just let me talk to someone about you today.” Passing the gymnasium door she caught a glimpse of a student named Joe who’d been on her heart for some time. Anna thought to herself: I can’t talk to him. He’s popular. We run in different circles.
“As I was acting like Moses and filling my mouth with excuses of why I couldn’t share with Joe, God moved my feet,” says Anna. “The next thing I knew I was standing in front of him. I said, ‘Joe, I have a different kind of question to ask you – if you were to die right now, would you go to Heaven?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ I asked if I could show him something. He said, ‘Sure.’ I got out my tract and went through it with him. When I got to the end, he said that he felt he needed to accept Christ into his heart – he felt like someone was pulling at his heart. So he prayed to accept Christ and became my brother for eternity. That was an amazing day!”
Anna still grins from ear to ear with delight over the way God worked in her life and especially in Joe’s life that afternoon.
Anna has had kids walk right up to her and ask her about what she’s doing. She uses THE ANSWER tract and has a shirt that reads, Ask me. . . I have the answer.
“When you start sharing Christ’s word, you start attracting people,” says Anna. “In the Gospels, when Jesus was sharing, large crowds were drawn to Him. When you’re sharing, people are going to want to know, and God is going to open up the doors for you to share.”
Anna says she carries her Bible or a tract on top of her books where people can see it in order to open up opportunities for them to start talking.
“They’ll usually ask questions like, ‘What’s that?’ Sometimes they’ll even say, ‘Let’s look at that.’”
Anna shares the story of Kayla, a girl in her math class with whom she shared Christ one day.
“She didn’t accept Christ right then, but that night she went to church and told her youth group she’d accepted Christ,” says Anna.
“The next day she said, ‘Anna, if you hadn’t shared that with me yesterday, I wouldn’t have known the truth.’ She was so excited,” recalls Anna. “She’s now been baptized and wants her brother to accept the Lord. She was so excited about what had happened; there was no doubt that Christ had come into her life.”
Anna has taken advantage of many opportunities the Lord has laid out for her to share Christ. She has shared openly with students in her classes, her roommates at swim meets, kids God placed on the same bus with her, and those who’ve just walked past her in the halls. When God says, “Get up and share,” she obeys!
Anna would be the first to say there’s no perfect way to witness to someone. There’s not a perfect pattern.
“You just have to pay attention and be aware of what’s going on around you,” says Anna. “You have to take those opportunities to share with people. I talked to one girl for 10 minutes, and that was the last time I saw her.
“Sometimes you only have 10 minutes, and you have to take that 10 minutes to make it worthwhile for Christ. God isn’t going to allow you to have a great relationship with everyone all the time, so take the opportunity.”
Keep on sharing
Anna has been ridiculed, talked about behind her back, yelled at, even openly made fun of in class, but she hasn’t given up.
“It’s not always going to be a happy experience, but you have to keep on sharing Christ,” says Anna. “You should always be excited that you get to share Christ with them, because you have the chance to plant a seed in their life.”
Anna knows that not all encounters end with someone accepting Christ. And she’s okay with that. The important thing is that she was obedient and shared. God is the one working on the souls; she’s merely bringing His message and being obedient to His call.
Anna is not only sharing Christ, but is also leading a Bible study to disciple these new Christian brothers and sisters. After much prayer, she recruited nine others from her church youth group to help her plan and prepare for a discipleship class studying the lives of Paul and Timothy. Anna and her mom visited 40 homes in a week. These were all students Anna had led to the Lord. Of the 40 teens, only seven attended the first Bible study, but Anna was not discouraged.
“You can’t focus on the 33 who didn’t come,” says Anna. “God allowed for the seven to show up.”
A desire of Anna’s heart is for the Lord to provide her with accountability partners or encouragers from her peer group who would be as excited about sharing Christ with others as she is. Pray for Anna and other students like her who continue to get out of their chairs and share. OM
Jolene Evans is a writer living in Nash, Oklahoma.