I tried Speed Dating a few years ago. It was a pretty fun little adventure. One of my friends and I had been out on first
date after first date, and we kept discovering the same thing over and
over. After the first five or ten
minutes of the first date, we realized that we never wanted to see the guy
again. Whether he inferred that I would
be the perfect mother for his children (as yet unborn), or he couldn’t wait to
take me to a hip-hop concert (because I would surely love it once I got there),
or he was simply rude to everyone around him.
I got frustrated spending an afternoon putting myself together, doing my
hair and having my friends put makeup on me, driving 45 minutes to a restaurant,
only to find I had wasted my time on yet another dud.
So, we tried Speed Dating.
We thought it was a great idea!
Get dressed up and looking good for ONE night, go on ten 5-7 minute long
‘dates’ and if you don’t hate each other in that amount of time, go out for a
longer date later. Genius. My friend and I went, and it was a
blast. I even went out with one of the
guys a few more times. It was a great
way to cull out a lot of the incompatibles in a very short amount of time.
But there are some things that should not be rushed. Good cheese, fine wine, building a house,
having children, and most of all, preaching salvation. Uganda has been one surprise after
another, including lots of door to door ministry. This is a concept, that in the US, fails
before you get the words out of your mouth.
No one wants the Jesus-Sellers knocking on their door. In fact, no one in the US wants ANYONE
knocking at their door, least of all, anyone preaching about Jesus. If the door were to get answered, it would be
quickly slammed. So, most of us in the US are
terrified of the notion of going door to door and telling people about
Jesus.
But door to door we have gone. Or rather, hut to hut. And surprisingly (to me anyway), we are
invited in to people’s homes, or they rush to get chairs for us to join them
outside. We start talking about Jesus,
and they stay tuned in. They don’t throw
things at us; they don’t start hurling insults.
We talk through our translators.
They listen. But in our first few
days of this adventure, our translators were trying to rush us. We (World Racers) would settle in, leaning
people’s names, their relationships with each other, who they were. And we would share the same with them. Going slowly.
Trying to build a relationship, or, as much of one as you can build with
a middle man doing all the talking.
After a few brief moments of introductions, our translators
were telling us to share. Share the
message of Christ. And if we started by
telling a parable, or an Old Testament story, or even just asking about the
work we were interrupting, they looked at us like we were crazy. After we shared for just a few moments, the
translators would babble to our hosts, and look at us and say, they are ready. They want to confess, to be saved. We were dumbfounded. We’ve barely told them anything. We’ve been sitting here for seven minutes;
this is the first time they’ve even heard the name Jesus. They are ready? So the translators would lead them through a
prayer of confession, we would pray for them quickly, and then we’d be on our
way. All in under ten minutes. Our translators and hosts seemed to be
putting more emphasis on homes visited and the number of people who
‘converted’. It was more than a little uncomfortable,
and more than a little frustrating.
