The first day I went was our first ‘official’ door to door evangelism experience here. And I hated it!!! Our interpretor only translated to the other team member so I had little to no idea what was being said or what they were wanting us to do and then he critiqued everything that was wrong in his eyes. (Side note: Door to door evangelism can be nerve wrecking and it doesn’t help when someone that is there to help you makes it more difficult by ‘judging your performance.’)
I don’t tend to get really upset about much on this trip. I figure God has a plan and we’ll grow from it one way or another, but on this day I was ticked! I couldn’t believe how badly things had gone and I worried about our impression on the amazing locals that we work with since they only know what we say through this same translator. And if he was being this difficult to us I figured that he may have been that difficult with them also. Not to mention, I have no idea what he was saying even to the people we were talking with.
The following outing, I decided to give it another try but this time with a different interpretor. I wanted to have a better view of this ministry before taking a day off from it. But as I’ve found out, God has a sense of humor. All four of the team members got the same interpretor. My heart sank. This time the experience was better. I still didn’t know a lot of what was being said but at least there was no critiques. (This day we only had time for two houses and the second one the interpretor himself just spoke to the man due to something that irked him that the man had said.)
Friday came and it was time to go door to door again and I ended up having to fill in for a team member. At this point, I was dreading it! I’ve never dreaded doing ministry before. But this time, there was only two of us from the team going and no interpretor. So four of us headed into the neighborhood not being able to communicate much except for a little Spanish/English book that has now grown attached to my hand.
This time started out much like the rest except we prayed while the locals spoke about Jesus and then we would pray with the people at the end. At our last house, a man walked by yelling something in Spanish and the younger man with us went to speak with him. We finished with the woman and then prayed with her before going to meet up this man who had now absorbed a considerable amount of time of our new friend. (At this point, I wasn’t sure if this man was drunk or not since at that time of the day in that area there are several men already intoxicated. But I soon found out that he was in fact completely sober.) And his story (what I could make out and through the help of our handy dandy book) was in itself sobering.
This man’s daily life ended up changing my view of door to door evangelism. God had divinely appointed this interception and this is what all the frustration and irritation was preparing me for. I don’t think in all my life I have ever physically seen such devastation and pain!
To read about this man’s story check out my upcoming blog named Door to Door – One Man’s Story.
