This is Part 2 of Street Evangelism: The First Person I Ever Led to Christ!
A little while later during the second day of street evangelism (Aug. 20th), our group joined with another group of evangelizers (two fellow World Racers from K-Squad and three youth men from Mission Ephrata). In this larger group we encountered a man who was on his way to work. He had just jumped in a truck when a very bold male youth from our group (let’s call him Philip) ran around to the drivers side to see if he wanted to talk about Jesus.
Now, if we were in America, stopping someone on his way to work probably would have been the least opportune time to bring up Jesus. As Americans, we are very task-oriented and someone getting in the way of a task like being on time for work is a big no-go. In Africa, they are very relationship-oriented and being a few minutes late to your job while meeting someone new and hearing what they have to say is not seen as an unnecessary obligation, but a necessary courtesy.
So instead of this man getting upset with Philip for making him late to work, he seemed intrigued and got out of his truck to talk. Philip and a few others spoke to him about Jesus in French. He listened for a few minutes, then it seemed like the conversation was over. The man returned to his truck, our group moved on to another group of people about a hundred feet away, and no explanation was given to us non-French speakers.
My teammate Amy and I were invited to sit on a bench with the next group of people we approached, and we once again embraced the awkwardness to listen in on a faith-based conversation entirely in French. A few minutes into the conversation, we were interrupted by the man from the truck who rushed up to our group (still in the middle of evangelizing to someone new), handed all of us evangelizers sealed packs of Mentos gum, and started excitedly talking to part of our group in French, including Philip. This group started praying with him in French so he could receive Christ into his life and become a Christian!
It was so exciting, but so much was going on at once that half of our group didn’t realize that the man with the gum had become a Christian while others were talking with a different man until we had walked away from that area. God was definitely moving that day, whether the two men who had become Christians received the Good News in their own language or not.
Please join me in continuing to pray for these men, that they would have a desire put on their hearts to know more of God each day. Pray that they would start coming to Mission Ephrata for church and get connected with other believers who can teach them more about how to live a Christian life!
