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Delivery driver Nikita Lopez trusts God to use ordinary encounters to open hearts.
One day, a woman contacted The Salvation Army Yuma (Arizona) Corps with a simple request: she needed a ride to church and had heard The Salvation Army offered that service.
Her request didn’t come because of a flyer or a program. It came because someone had invited her—someone who first met her with a knock on her door.
That someone was Nikita Lopez, a busy mother of four who hadn’t even known the woman—Shirley Collins—until she delivered her groceries.
Lopez met Collins in the middle of an ordinary workday as a Spark driver, delivering online orders from Sam’s Club and Walmart to homes around Yuma.
That day, Collins’ order brought Lopez to her door. What could have been a quick handoff became something more.
Lopez didn’t hurry back to her car. Instead, she slowed down and really listened, letting the small talk grow deeper.
Collins recalled Lopez asking if there was any other way she could help.
“We just started talking,” Collins said. “She was so kind and caring. It was sincere.”
Collins shared that her husband died seven years earlier, she had moved back to Yuma and that her house—and life—felt overwhelming. She didn’t have many friends nearby. She didn’t have a church.
Lopez kept listening, waiting for the right moment to offer a suggestion—she doesn’t force spiritual conversations, she said.
“If you’re intently listening—listening on purpose, for a purpose—then you know the Holy Spirit will do the rest,” she said. “I don’t really know how to explain when the moment is the right moment. It just happens.”
When Collins said she no longer drove and couldn’t get to church services, Lopez told her about the Yuma Corps—about rides to church, women’s Bible study and a place where she wouldn’t have to be alone.
Collins said she would like that.
“We’re just vessels—it’s really God who does the work through us and allows us to be the light for him…Sometimes it’s good to slow down from the daily rush of life and just have a conversation with somebody and see if the Lord has something to say to them.”
Nikita Lopez
Later, after considering the invitation, Collins reached out to the corps to request the ride. Corps Officers Lts. Amber and Johnathan Herzog were happy to help, and delighted when they heard about the invitation, and curious—what had precipitated the request?
When Jonathan Herzog asked, Collins told him about her conversation.
“Shirley talked about how Nikita had a noticeable warmth and joy about her, openly shared her faith and invited her to the corps,” Herzog said. “She said she had been searching for the right church home, and if the rest of the congregation was as caring as Nikita, it was a place she truly wanted to explore.”
The following Sunday, when the regular corps driver was unavailable, Lopez picked up Collins for worship.
At that first service, Collins remembers people welcoming her, and Lopez praying over her.
“It was…magical,” she said.
Since then, Collins has woven herself into life at The Salvation Army. Herzog said she fit in from the beginning.
“She made friends quickly,” he said. “She was invited to the ‘Women of the Word’ Friday Bible Studies and a member of that study is now transporting her regularly to church and Bible studies,” he said. “We have seen that she feels welcomed and loved.”
For Collins, the impact has been profound.
“It just put me up in the world again,” Collins said. “I’ve made wonderful friends—thank The Salvation Army so much for being there for me.”
For Lopez, that day on Collins’ doorstep wasn’t about doing something extraordinary. It was about being available—and letting God use an ordinary moment on a porch, something the Herzogs say is typical of her.
“Nikita’s heart for people has been expressed through serving the whosoever,” Herzog said. “She sits with people, listens to people and prays with people just like Jesus did…She not only knows the Word, she lives it out in all spheres of life.”
Lopez said her everyday evangelism isn’t about her.
“We’re just vessels—it’s really God who does the work through us and allows us to be the light for him,” she said. “Sometimes it’s good to slow down from the daily rush of life and just have a conversation with somebody and see if the Lord has something to say to them.”
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