Going into the Worldrace I knew that evangelism was not my strong gift. I knew that I was confident in hearing from the lord, but things like just going up to people or even knocking on their doors and asking if they knew Jesus was not an easy thing that I was gonna have to work on. And I have honestly avoided evangelism for the first 4 months on the race. And now we are in Botswana, Africa working with CRU. Which is Campus Crusades for Christ and it is all over the world and what they do is simple, go onto campus and tell people about Jesus. So when we found out our whole month would just be evangelism I started to freak out. I had no confidence that I could do this without being awkward around people or even worse just chicken out. But as it turns out God has other plans for my month.
So its our first day here working with CRU, all that we are really told is about a track that they commonly use to help share the truth about the Bible and Jesus and that a simple way to ask people about their faith is to ask them if they were to die today where would they go? Which was a huge question for a lot of people we have met but anyways it is our first day out on the college campus here in Botswana and Audrey and I get paired together and I knew what I wanted. I asked the Lord that He would simply show me that this month would be awesome and that I could openly talk about my faith with confidence that I never saw coming, and well He answered that prayer with just the second person we talked to that day.
His name as he told us was Goodhead, were not really sure why but his real name was hard to pronounce so that is what he goes by. But we were walking around campus after talking to this one girl who seemed a little frightened by us and I don’t blame her cause we were a tad overwhelming but that happens. And so we walk for awhile and then we sit down by a fountain and all of a sudden a guy sitting on a bench across from us waves at us to come over and at first we didn’t think it was for us then he moved his arm over where my tattoo was and well we took that as a sign that we should talk to him. So we move over to the bench where him and another women were sitting and we began to talk.
Within the first few minutes of talking he realized fast what we were doing there and told us that we were “church people” which got us ready to talk. We started talking about why we were in Botswana and then he tells us we have 5 minutes to convince him why he should believe in God…..I mean that is a hard one but we were ready without knowing it. I began to tell parts of my story and how the Lord redeemed me in every way possible and how God was my best friend and got me through so much, which that stuck with him. He actually stopped to ask me if God was really my best friend, which he then tells us he was sitting in a room and wanted to come meet some new friends since he was new at the school and then here I am telling him that the Lord is my best friend. Like how cool! But as we went on in out conversation he kept revealing things that were obvious that he was raised by family who believe in the Lord but he had been pushed away by the church and it really got us talking. At this time Audrey and I are just feeling the holy spirit and not taking time to think about our answers because we knew the Lord was with us. And after we realized that as the other was talking the one not talking was praying for words of wisdom and it was cool to see the changes he had just in our talking.
So he started the conversation with how he would never believe in Jesus again and then towards the end he said it must be his time to finally believe if the Lord keeps showing up in these strange ways. But we kept talking and he even asked things that people had critiqued him on such as exercising or dieting that could become more dominate that his faith and he struggled with not wanting to do the things he loved. Which we encouraged him in just doing things that the Lord has given you passions for but not letting it consume your life. But as we kept talking he became more encouraging to me than I had realized. He was asking some hard questions and I realized that I could answer with hard truths because he obviously knew about Jesus and our faith. He even told me I should be a pastor and just little comments that made me realize that evangelism just isn’t that bad. He truly was a great guy who was obviously so hungry for the Lord and I could feel the Holy Spirit moving through Audrey and me to share the truth of why we are doing this.
As our time was running out and not the 5 minute time he set because we made it an hour and half later before we ended the conversation, we asked him if we could talk again and if he would meet us at the CRU meeting on thursday and he said yes! Which made us so excited to leave him and know that we could talk more to him and show him some long term people here that could become great friends with him. But tonight should have been the weekly meeting and of course the campus was closed due to protests which is a long story but that meant that it didn’t happen. But we decided to go out for dinner tonight for some birthdays on the team and well he called us and was actually at the campus wondering where we were! Which made us so excited and sad that we weren’t able to have our meeting, but we got to talk a little on the phone and we are so excited to meet up with him next week. He even told me he got me something and that has me a little worried but I mean it should be interesting to see how that goes!
But what I am taking away from meeting this cool guy was that I can be a good evangelist and be willing to get out of my comfort zone for the Lord. And the Lord has been so faithful this past week of leading me to people who are willing to talk about the hard things. But I know that I am excited to see him again and hopefully he will have more hard questions to ask but I am ready and so excited to meet him and anyone else and talk about the man that changed my life, Jesus. Goodhead encouraged me more in my faith then anyone had in probably years. He told me and Audrey that it was obvious that God was real because of our passion for what we were doing which was so cool to hear, and to think that I was worried about this month!
I will hopefully be able to post another blog after meeting him about some more stuff that we talk about because no he didn’t leave fully ready to accept Christ but I could tell he was hungry for more! So please keep praying for good conversations that my team and I will be having with him and people this month on the campus everyday. And also that I would reach my final deadline by the end of this month so that I can continue doing what the Lord called me to do!! Thank you all!!
