Street Ministry in Vilankulos

6 of us were dropped off in the middle of the city to begin
our mission of inviting people to see the film.  We decided that we could cover more ground if we split up
into groups.  We only had one
translator so two of the groups ventured off without one.  Somehow, I got the honor of splitting
off with Tiffany.

We decided on a direction to start walking and shortly
thereafter came across some people sitting on a bench.  They spoke a little English and we
tried to invite them to see the movie. 
I was stretching my brain to find alternate words to describe movie because they didn’t know that word.  I ended up drawing a 7 in the air in an
attempt to communicate that it started at 7pm.  In the end, they said they would go.  I don’t know if they knew what they
were saying or not. 

We decided that our mission would be to go to this pizza
place we frequented.  It was a
pizza restaurant right on the beach. 
We had been there so often; we thought it would be a great idea to go
invite the workers.  It was pretty
far away so we started in that direction. 

As we continued, I heard whistling from off to my
right.  Usually, I ignore that sort
of thing, but I turned my head. 
There were about 4 teenage boys sitting on a wall waving at us.  We both decided to go over to talk with
them.  They knew more English than
the people in our previous encounter. 
Finally, I figured out that they use the word film
instead of movie.  The conversation turned to God.  Tiffany was asking
them about what they believed.  One guy, named Malacish (just spelled
that phonetically) who had been really quiet, said that he didn’t
really have a
deep understanding of Jesus and he wanted one.  Tiffany didn’t miss a
beat and spilled out the Gospel
message to him – really short and to the point.  She didn’t use fancy
words � she just let the Gospel speak
for itself.  She asked him if he
wanted to pray to receive Jesus and he said yes.  She prayed for him
right there and then told him that the
angels in heaven were celebrating. 
He had a huge smile on his face. 
Until then, I had this idea that I had to have some sort of prepared
message in order to share the Gospel with people.  I learned that day that I really just need to talk about
what Jesus did for us and that message in itself is powerful. 

So we continue down the road toward the pizza place and we
continued stopping to chat with random people.  We were doing our best to invite people.  We stopped at some little roadside
shops and I ended up talking to a guy who was selling airtime.  Our conversation got interrupted at one
point because he had a customer.  Tiffany
was talking with a woman in another shop. 
Right about then, I turned around and saw Benny.  He had on a big straw hat and a HUGE
smile.  He shook my hand and spoke
really good English.  I told him
about the film and asked him if he wanted to come.  He said yes.  I
was so excited.  We made some small
talk for a minute and then Tiffany came and joined the conversation. He was
just going to drop something off somewhere, so we invited him to join us and he
offered to help us translate. 
Pretty soon he was stopping people himself to invite them to the
film. 

So the three of us ended up at the pizza place about 20
minutes later.  We found the owner
sitting inside reading a book.  We
asked him if he wanted to come to the movie, but he had to oversee some
construction that night so he couldn’t go.  I noticed that the book he was reading had Arabic writing on
it.  I thought it might be a
Qur’an, so I asked him what he was reading.  Turns out that he was trying to read the whole Qur’an in 27
days. 

We sat down at the table with him and he asked us if we were
Christians.  We said that we
were.  Then we proceeded to just
discuss our religions.  He
explained what Islam teaches about Jesus (Isa) and Tiffany explained how
Christians view Jesus.  He talked
to us about how he doesn’t believe that God (Allah) speaks to him, and so
Tiffany talked about how we believe that we have a personal relationship with
God and that we can talk to him and that he speaks to us as well.  He talked about how he believes he goes
to Paradise and we talked about how we get to heaven.  It was not a debate, but a discussion presenting the
differing views.  Several times, he
was visibly rocked.  He would say,
“Wow, that’s really different”.  I
really feel like he was getting his first clear view of the Gospel.  The conversation ended with him
agreeing to pray for one week to ask God what the truth was and he also said
that he was going to try to find a Bible. 

We were running late, so the three of us said goodbye, and
headed back towards the center of town to get ready for the film.  On the way back, I saw Antonio, a
little boy that I had met a few days prior.  He had a huge smile on his face and he came running to
me.  Benny asked him if he wanted
to come to the movie, and he said that he wanted to, so he started walking with
us.  A few minutes later, I found a
teenage boy trying to sell some movies by the side of the road.  He said he wanted to come see the
movie, so he also began walking with us. 
He was about the age of my students at home, so I really had a good time
walking and talking with him.  He
asked if Antonio was my son.  Ha
ha.  He told me that we looked like
we were the same color.  (this was
a very very FALSE statement)  He
was just trying to make conversation. 
His English was good enough that I could talk to him and so we chatted
the whole way back to town.  He
told me about school and about his church.  I asked him what he knew about Jesus.  He told me that you have to sing and
dance for Jesus.  He also told me
that you have to give money to Jesus. 
I asked him if that was all he knew.  He assured me that this was all he had learned about
Jesus.  I asked him again if he was
coming to the film, and he told me he would be there.  I challenged him to watch it to maybe learn something new
about Jesus.  He said he would come
find me after the movie to tell me what he had learned.  I never did see him again, but I
certainly hope that challenge rings in his ears. 

Once we finally got everything set up for the film, we were
supposed to find a place to sit around the people watching the film and
pray.  We have all seen the film,
and we don’t need to see it again. 
We all broke off into pairs. 
Benny had essentially joined us in ministry that day, so he became a
Racer for that night.  He was my
prayer partner.  We sat and prayed
before the film started.  I kept
thinking about how amazing it was that we ran into him that day.  When we pray for divine appointments,
God really sets them up.  Some
things will always amaze me.  A few
minutes into the movie, Benny tells me that he has never seen this
version.  He was watching the
Passion of the Christ for the first time. 
There were several times in the movie where he grabbed my hand and asked
me to pray strength for him.  He
was visibly shaken by the movie. 

Later in the evening, I asked him how he liked the
film and
he said he said that it made him feel bad inside.  He had never seen
anything like it.  We talked about it for a while.  I told him that
whenever I see that
movie, it gives me such a fresh perspective on what Jesus did for me. 
He said it was
the best and worst movie
he’d ever seen.  I think I felt
that way the first time I saw it as well.

There were a lot of people that accepted Jesus
that
night.  We also prayed healing for
people who needed it after the film ended.  One guy was healed of chest
pain.  I wasn’t sure what would happen that day.  I know that the city
of Vilankulos is
HUNGRY for the Gospel.  There are
so many stories that we have from that city of people coming to
Christ.  This was one of the greatest days of
the Race for me.  It is always
amazing to see what God does with our faithfulness, availability, and
obedience.