This month, in a small village right outside of Kigali, Rwanda, my team has been focusing on door to door evangelism. We spend a couple mornings each week going around to different houses in the village, sharing the gospel with people. Then, they are invited to fellowship at our pastor’s church where we are preaching at different times in the week. This has been an extremely rewarding and yet difficult month of ministry for our team.
One of the most rewarding things this month has been seeing the sense of hospitality and just genuine kindness in the hearts of the people we are meeting with. We literally go door to door, knocking on gates or even just walking in, and not once have we been turned away! I have a feeling if we were to do this type of ministry in America, unfortunately many doors would go unopened. I know that I myself would probably have been too busy or uninterested in what strangers at my door had to share. Even if people here are just excited to say that they had muzungus sitting in their living room, they have all been willing to invite us into their homes and businesses, share their faith with us, listen to us share our stories or Bible passages, and let us pray for them.
You see, many of the people that we meet are already Christians. They have all heard of Jesus, and some of them already have a personal relationship with Him. However, they still want to hear what we have to share and sometimes they share parts of their stories with us. I believe as we are doing this, we are living out the calling that Jesus gives us to encourage one another and reach out to others.
Some of the people we meet are Christians by name. Rwanda has strong Christian ties, especially to the Catholic Church, and many people grow up calling themselves Christians but not fully understanding what faith is or how to live it out in their lives (obviously this isn’t an issue specific to Rwanda). When we have met some of these people, our translator focuses on whether they are “born again” Christians. This brought up an interesting discussion among my teammates and I, as we all come from different faith backgrounds. After discussing what we had encountered with our translator, we mostly agreed that to us, a born again Christian is anyone who has made it their personal decision to follow Christ.
While the discussion was fruitful, we still had difficulties going door to door when encountering some passionate Christians (mainly Catholics) whom our translator did not consider to be “born again.” I had the opportunity to share my beliefs on this topic with an older lady we met who was Catholic and very passionate about her faith. I shared with her that I had lived in Morocco, a Muslim country, and that one of my favorite parts of living in Morocco was the vibrant community of Christians who I did church and Bible study with there (shoutout to CIPC)! I told her that we all came from different faith backgrounds, but that we all had the most important thing in common- our belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior. Also, I shared that one of my favorite things of fellowshipping with Christians from different backgrounds is that we can all learn from one another.
The woman agreed wholeheartedly with what I had shared and I was then able to read John 17: 20-23 with her, talking about Jesus’s prayer for his followers. My team and I prayed for her and went on our way.
We have many other stories I could share. People have gotten saved! My whole team has had the opportunity to preach! But this is the story that I feel God has used to help grow my teammates and I together this month. It was difficult at times and definitely stretching. But we trust that the Lord is using us to speak what He would say to the villagers we meet, and that He will use these experiences to teach us and guide us through our next 9 countries! 🙂
