Evangelism Man
In my last blog, “Preacher Man” I talked about how the Lord called me to step out of my comfort zone in the area of preaching. He did it again in the area of evangelism. Early on, we became aware that one of the biggest outreaches in which the church is involved is door-to-door evangelism. As you know from reading preceding blogs, I hate talking to strangers and after a month of doing so in Turkey, the prospect of doing it again was not necessarily an appealing one. Still, I felt the Lord prompt me to do it, so I volunteered. After a few days, we began to realize that, like a great many things in Africa, the door-to-door evangelism might not happen. I was definitely relieved, but my conscience kept nagging, so finally, I stepped out even more and grabbed Hope (without whom, I never would have done any of this) and walked to a random village near the church. We were instantly swarmed by kids yelling, “Mono! Mono! Mzungu!” (white person, white person!). Then, after playing with the kids for a while (none of whom spoke English) a woman came out and met us named Grace. Incredibly, she spoke great English and was a born again Christian! We agreed to come back the following day.
After going to Grace’s house every day for about a week, we decided to go to some of the other houses in the village and share about Jesus. Obviously, having never done formal evangelism in my life, I was a bit nervous. Suddenly images of me standing in front of thousands of people giving an altar call to which hundreds responded flashed through my brain. Anything less than this would obviously be a failure. “But I don’t have it in me!”, I thought. Then I remembered what had just transpired with my preaching and I decided to give it a go.
Grace translated and I told the story of Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, and then the story of Daniel. The whole time I was sharing, I was thinking, “this is pathetic”. Then at the end, we prayed for healing for a few people, and then it happened. A little girl, slowly stepped forward and Grace said “she wants to accept Jesus”. I didn’t even give an altar call! I told some stories and said a couple of prayers. How could this be happening?! All I know is that the Holy Spirit was there. I felt the presence of the Lord so clearly as I prayed with that little girl to accept Jesus and I knew in that moment the same truth that I learned about preaching. God doesn’t need a seminary grad with a fiery personality and booming voice. He just needs someone willing. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my entire life and I came to the realization that if the entire reason for my coming on the World Race, abandoning stuff, leaving my family, traveling, etc. were all for this one little girl’s soul, then IT WAS WORTH IT. My tendency, of course is to think, “why haven’t hundreds of people come to Christ through my ministry? Why aren’t hundreds crowding the altar?” The answer is of course, that it doesn’t matter. The shepherd will leave the 99 to find the one lost sheep. I am so glad the shepherd sent me to the village that day.
Thanks for your prayers!
