This month partnered with Agape missions. We’ve been visiting temples, worshiping outside them and praying for God to redeem his land inside.
We went played soccer, did bible stories, and fed the street kids in our area
And evangelism.
Since being here we’ve been doing a lot of prayer walks and street evangelism. Aside from those “crazy people” who love talking to people 24/7, I’ve found that when the word evangelism is mentioned most people shudder a little inside and throw out the, “I just really don’t think God has called me to be an evangelist, um, my giftings are in other [better, cough] areas” statement..
For the longest time I hated evangelism. I would do it just because everyone else was, not because I actually wanted to or really believed that God was good and faithful and loving. I became bitter and fearful and terrible intimidated by the idea. So when we learned that our first week of ministry would be centered around street evangelism my insides shuttered, my brain started to have a spaz attack, and yet, my heart started this little cheer in hope.
On Friday we were told that we were going to be sent out in groups of twos and threes to do treasure hunts arrived.
Treasure hunt. Verb. : asking the Lord who he wanted to encounter [ie what they look like, what they’re wearing, what they need, if they’re hurt… really any question or “clue”] and then going out and finding that person and just blessing them.
Before my group set out, we prayed and asked the Lord who he wanted us to find and how we could bless them. We set off with a water, cookies, and an apple in search of a beggar women who had hurt knee, wouldn’t really speak English, 10 minute bus ride, and in the north direction. We then set off walking north. And we walked, and walked, and prayed, and then walked some more until we came upon these two taxis. One of the men tried to get us to take a ride but we politely declined and kept walking until we all stopped, prayed, and decided to turn around and get in a taxi to take us 10 minutes north. [Side note: communicating that you want to be driven for 10 minutes north without a specific destination is a hoot in itself!]
We started conversation in broken English and we start to hear about his family, how he’s been driving a taxi for 27 years, and how he’s a Hindu. Suddenly, out of my self-professing, non-evangelist mouth, comes, “Hey, do you know who Jesus is? Because we asked to you drive for 10 minutes on this one road because Jesus told us to do it simply because he loves someone so much that he would send us three crazy Americans on this insane treasure hunt to find this one women with a hurt knee to bless her with a water, cookies, and an apple and pray for her. [And yes, I’m pretty sure it was one run-on sentence.]
By this time our 10 minutes were up and we ended in this huuuuuge roundabout and we sat and chatted for a couple more minutes. We got to share how Heather, a girl in our group, was healed from Celiac disease about a week ago and has been eating gluten every day since [crazy right?!] because our God loves us so much, not because of anything that we could ever do. We asked if we could pray for him and he just kept saying, “I don’t know,” so we eventually just blessed him and his family and left the taxi to find our woman. WHICH WE DID about 2 minutes later, so that’s even cooler!
In that moment it was completely normal for me to tell him that. I don’t think I even realized what had happened until later that night. It didn’t click until later that I had made evangelism this huge, scary, intimidating, freakish, intrusive, ugly, unhelpful, pushy, awkward, unfruitful, and just bad thing [I know, I had some issues haha…] when it really doesn’t need to be. I could go on with the logical side of it, the formulas, acronyms, the methods, but those didn’t work for me. I took me realizing that I love Jesus, and I love to talk about him.
I guess what I’m getting at is, evangelism doesn’t have to be this big scary thing. The taxi man wasn’t our person, but he was the person that taught me more about evangelism than all the other experiences I’ve had. So here’s to a month of being slightly uncomfortable at times because of how much I love, and am loved by Jesus. Because I want to grow, I want to be pushed, and I want this city to be reclaimed by the love of God-because that’s the God who I know in my heart to be.
PRAISE!! I’ve reached my April deadline of $11,000!!!! I’m so thankful to all of you who have supported, encouraged, and prayed for me. Stories like this and countless others this month would not have happened without your help! You all have had [and are going to have] such an impact in the kingdom, and in my heart.
My next deadline is the last one in June and I need around $5000 and then I’ll be fully funded!
