This month we have been doing a lot of evangelism. I’m not going to lie; I wasn’t excited at first. We did house visits/evangelism in Cambodia and it was SO awkward. Seven of us would talk through a translator to about 2 people, and one time we broke the bed thing we were sitting on. It was just awkward. Also, it feel like kind of a lot of pressure to share the Gospel with someone for the first time. It felt like a lot to explain.
Fortunately, when we arrived in Lira, we were taught this really great tool for sharing the Gospel. It’s called the Creation to Christ story. It works really well-especially with the Ugandan culture- because it talks about the Gospel in the context of the Bible- with everything leading up to Christ. The story is in 12 parts- one part for each of your finger joints on your index through pinkie fingers so that it’s easier to remember. It’s pretty long, but this is such a relational culture, people are willing to sit down and talk to a stranger for three hours, so the 15 minutes it takes to share the story is nothing.
I went to the hospital to pray for people and tell them about Jesus several days. It was a really cool opportunity, because the people who could understand English were really interested in hearing the story. Honestly, I think that they were just excited to have someone who was interested in talking to them. I went to the pediatric ward one day and shared Creation to Christ with a woman named Desire whose son had malaria. She ended up accepting Christ, so I challenged her to share with two people before I came back to see her.
The next day, I went back. It turns out that her English was not as good as I had thought, and she hadn’t understood what I had asked her to do. She thought I had meant that she should wait until I came back and then share. But it was only after a long line of miscommunications that we got to this point. I was starting to doubt that she had even understood most of the story that I had told her. She started sharing with some moms outside of the ward, and none of them were really listening. Also, she was sharing in the local language, so I had no idea what she was actually saying.
Finally, she zoned in on one woman: Rosemary. She said something to her that was definitely not the Creation to Christ story, because it was about two minutes long. But after, Rosemary said that she wanted a relationship with Jesus. I asked if she knew what that meant. Then she repeated what Desire had said in English, and it was the Gospel. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly how we were told to share it by our contact, but it was the Gospel. We prayed and Rosemary accepted the Lord.
That’s the thing about the Gospel. God is big enough that we can be dull as dirt or the most eloquent speaker, and it doesn’t really matter. If the person’s heart is hungry for and open to the Gospel, they are going to receive it. If it’s not, they aren’t. It really doesn’t have that much to do with us. How cool is it, then, that God wants to use us. He does all of the hard work. He prepares the soil, he shows us the way, he gives us the words. All we have to do is open our mouths. He doesn’t need to use us, but he chooses to because he wants us to play a part in the story he is writing. I love that. It means that it’s not up to me. All I have to do is obey. The prophet Jeremiah faced insecurities when the Lord asked him to tell people about him.
In Jeremiah 1:6-10 says, “ ‘Ah, Sovereign Lord,’ I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.’ But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am only a child.” You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,’ declares the Lord. Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and plant.’” The Lord gives us the same mandates and promises: to help build his kingdom, and that he is not asking us to do this on our own. He wants to do it through us, because, quite frankly, there is very little we can do on our own strength. But when we let go and allow him to use us, that’s when miracles happen.
Rosemary and her baby (who has a confusing Ugandan name that I can't remember) on our last day of ministry.
