As we walked the streets looking for people to evangelize to, we approached a group of men at a dice table gambling. As we drew closer, I said to myself “this is going to be interesting” with anticipation of what was to come. I made small talk with them, intrigued about this Ugandan dice game that is very popular amongst the streets. About 2 minutes in, one of the church members with us told me that they are gamblers and therefore are not interested, so we should move on. BUT, I felt like the spirit was telling me to stay and continue to talk with them. So, one of the translators stayed with Courtney and I while the other one left to go preach on the street corner.
Even though they were gamblers and gambling right in front of me, I didn’t care…these were the people I wanted to talk to and the people that needed to here and experience God’s unconditional love. So, I sat down next to them.
At first we joked around and they said if you touch the white man you might get luck to roll the dice in their favor. I told them that they can try and try to roll the dice so it lands in their favor, doing whatever charm or superstitious act (like touching a white man) but it isn’t a sure thing and never will be. I told them the only sure thing that I do know is Jesus Christ and the love that he has for us. I also said you will never know 100% how the dice will land, but you can know 100% that you’re going to heaven. A couple people gave me a strange look and one guy tried to convince me that he can control the outcome of the game because of how confident he was. A minute later, ironically he got knocked out and lost.
As we continued to talk to everyone, one man named John was intrigued with what we were saying and turned away from the table to talk to us. He began to ask questions about what we were saying. But, if trying to have a spiritual conversation amongst a table of gamblers rolling dice wasn’t hard enough, a Muslim man sitting next to us began to interject spitting lies into John and our heads. The enemy wasn’t trying to just say lies inside of my head this time but now was actually audible and using this Muslim man to try and stray us away from sharing God’s love. It didn’t work! The spirit was moving and it was moving fast.
We would answer some of the Muslims questions as well as Johns but soon enough John didn’t want to hear what the Muslim had to say and just wanted to hear more about this ‘everlasting life’ I talked about. It was so apparent that God’s Spirit was there moving and John recognized it, as though it was a magnet pulling at him. We continued to talk with John for a while and he wanted to give his life over to Christ. So, right there at the dice table, a gambler surrendered his life to God.
As we concluded, John told us that before we came he had been wanting more for his life and was thinking about giving up gambling. So, when we arrived, it was a blessing in disguise. I said goodbye to everyone at the table and had a couple more laughs before we headed back to the church where John said he would attend this upcoming Sunday.
Once we left our translator Ronnie, the assistant pastor, was shocked and bewildered at what just happened. He kept on saying, “I cannot believe he just accepted Christ at the dice table” over and over again. I also was a little shocked at what God just did and kept on thinking what if I didn’t listen to the spirit and left right away when the other translator said to leave because they were gamblers. John would have never heard the Good News and I wouldn’t have one more brother in Christ right now.
“Healthy people don’t need a doctor-sick people do.” (Matthew 9:12)
Just as Christ did, we are called to sit amongst even the most notorious of sinners and speak truth and life into them. Despite, the enemy yelling lies…go boldly, speak boldly, and truly believe that God can even move the hardened hearts.
