She spoke no English. On Sunday, they baptised her.

Every so often a message arrives that makes the whole thing worth it. This one came by text a few weeks ago, from Miles Stepniewski, a pastor at New Light Anglican Church in Riverstone, on Sydney’s north-western edge. I asked if I could share it, and he said yes. Here it is, more or less in his words:

A few months ago a lady turned up at our church looking for someone to talk to. She spoke zero English, so she and I hung out and used our phones to translate. I invited her to church.

She has joined us every week since and used Sunflower to take part in the service. She did Alpha with us, along with the Chinese version, and has now given her life to Jesus. On Sunday we baptised her!

A big part of her being able to stay connected was using Sunflower to follow along with church.

What carried her from that first conversation to Sunday

Look at the shape of it. The first meeting was two strangers passing a phone back and forth — one sentence at a time, a translation app doing the work that a shared language otherwise would. That gets you a conversation. It doesn’t get you a Sunday service.

The hard part is everything after the invitation. A woman who understands none of what is said from the front could so easily come once, sit through an hour she can’t follow, and never come back. What held her through the weeks instead was being able to read the whole service in her own language as it happened — the readings, the prayers, the sermon — on her own phone, in step with everyone around her. Sunflower AI runs from the church’s existing audio and delivers live captions and audio in 83 languages, so she could simply pick hers and follow along.

Then Alpha, with its Chinese-language edition alongside, gave her room to ask the questions that matter at her own pace, in the language she thinks in. And then baptism.

Sunflower wasn’t the hero of this — Miles was, and the church around him, and ultimately God. All our software did was take the language barrier out of the way so she could keep turning up long enough for the rest to happen. But that turns out to be the thing that so often decides whether someone who walks in once ever walks in again.

Built for a church like this

New Light Anglican describes itself as drawing members from China, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and beyond — a congregation where Cantonese, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Urdu and more are spoken at home. A church that diverse is going to keep meeting people, at the door, who arrived in Australia faster than the language did. The whole point of Sunflower AI is that those people don’t have to wait until their English catches up to belong on a Sunday.

Thank you, Miles, for taking a moment to share this — and congratulations to everyone at New Light. If your church keeps meeting people who can’t yet follow the service in English, we’d love to hear from you.