“La Fortuna? Where’s La Fortuna?” I asked? “It’s north of Planeta Rica, we’ll be going there to do evangelism.”
Evangelism…that sounded scary. I’d never done evangelism. Isn’t that where the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons go door to door and people pretend that they aren’t home?
“Evangelism?” “Yeah, we’re just gonna go door to door and share the gospel.”
Darn, it WAS what the Jehovah’s Witnesses do….and what exactly constitutes “gospel”? I mean, do you just read them the first four books of the New Testament or what? I’m pretty sure they don’t have time for that.
“Oh, and we will be spending the night so bring your hammocks.”
Oh good, that sweetens the deal a bit.
After breakfast, we hopped into the pastors truck. I hopped in the bed of the truck cause they allow that here….well, they don’t, but since we are gringos, they kinda expect us to be weird so I can get away with it. Anyway, we hopped in and headed North.
Standing up in the back, the view was glorious. The arid rolling Colombian hills, interspersed with herds of Cebu and burros.
We got to our host’s site, set up our hammocks under his palm-leaf hut, and started walking down the road. Each of us were pretending we knew exactly what we were doing when in reality none of us did.
We got to the first house/hut/abode/place-where-people-live-that-has-four-walls-sorta, and it was hands down the most awkward thing I had ever done. Flashing a toothy grin that is the international symbol for “I don’t want to be here just as much as you don’t want me to be here”, we prayed for the persons child whose legs were malformed and went on to our merry way to the next house.
That went a little better because everyone was so insistent that this not be as awkward as the last, that we forced ourselves to talk and briefly shared our testimonies and invited them to the church service that night.
After we left that farm, I felt led to provide the sermon that night. They told us to prepare an evangelistic message, and considering I barely knew what “evangelistic” meant, I was sure that Jesus had gotten the wrong person, so I ignored it. Five houses later, I walked up to my team leader and volunteered to preach.
Around a meal of Piranha and other stuff, (I honestly don’t remember anything except the piranha cause I was so excited. “Ah, the tables have turned” I believe were my exact words) I prepared my first sermon.
Evangelistic message. Ok, so, tell them about Jesus.
…….
What do you tell people about Jesus?
That sounds super corny but it was a legitimate question. What do you tell people about Jesus? You can tell people about His miracles, about how he died for us, about His birth…where do you start and what do you say?.
That’s when it hit me.
This sermon wasn’t for them, this sermon was for me. I was the one who didn’t know who Jesus was.
I can quote James, encourage a fellow believer through doctrine in Romans, debate the creation of the world via Genesis, and scare you with hellfire from Revelation, but I can’t tell you about Jesus.
I’ve often wondered how the early church survived without the Bible and how people who don’t have one currently fared spiritually. It’s because their focus isn’t on the Bible, their focus is on the person of Jesus Christ, which the Bible points to.
As a life-long believer, I’ve never read the story of Jesus. I’ve never read about His life. I’ve taken for granted the Sunday School stories as adequate and skipped to the “doctrine” cause that’s what mature Christians do. But despite all this, I couldn’t tell someone about WHO Jesus is.
That’s what I’ll be doing now, searching out and asking…. who is this man?
Also, if youve gotten this far, would you please consider supporting me financially? I’m $800 behind my February 28th deadline, and although I probably wont be sent home, I want to make sure that my missions trip is not a financial burden upon my organization.
You can either donate through my blog or message me on facebook for more info! God bless!
