This is why I came on the World Race. This is why I quit my job and left my awesome family and friends to travel halfway across the world.
I came to preach the gospel. I came to share the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world that NEEDS HIM. And now, FINALLY, after three months, I have the chance to do just that and do it FREELY!
This month, my group is in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and we are working at the Agape Shalom Center. We “teach” English to students whose first language is generally Khmer, and by “teach” I mean we have conversations with them so they can practice their speaking and listening skills.
Our day with the students starts at 2:00 and ends at 6:30. From 2:00-3:00, I am with nine to 20 year olds and can do whatever I wish to help them practice speaking English. We ask each other questions and play various games, such as Two Truths and a Lie, Sit Down If, Would You Rather, Rummikub with words rather than numbers, and the game where each person adds a word to make sentences and stories.
From 3:00 until 6:30, I join the rest of my team in classes with university students. There are three classes, and the first half of each class consists of the students standing up one by one to ask questions of us Americans. Whoever is the “teacher” for that day stands by the student speaking and is supposed to hit his or her hand with a ruler each time he or she messes up. (I have yet to play this role, and I really don’t want to either. The students actually think it is kind of funny, but it is just so different than what I can do in my classes in America.) In the second half of each class, we split into six groups, and the questioning continues. It can be tiring to talk for so long, even for me, but it is an AMAZING chance to do ministry.
Now, when I say they ask questions, they ask about EVERYTHING:
“How heavy are you?” (What???)
“What are your hobbies?”
“What needs to be done to eradicate poverty?” (Yes, they used the word “eradicate.”)
“What is the goal for your life?” (I think my teammate’s jaw dropped on this one.)
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“What do you want in a boyfriend?” (Alright already!)
“How many seasons do you have in America?”
“How long have you been a Christian?”
“Have you had any hardships since you became a Christian?”
“What would you do if you knew that becoming a Christian would make your parents angry?”
“What is the economic state of the United States?”
“How many presidents have there been in the United States?”
“What is the population of the United States?” (Somehow I knew this, but i don’t know how.)
“Who is the governor of your state?” (Um, yeah, I didn’t know that one!!)
Some questions are basic, some are odd, but some present the perfect opportunity to share the gospel.
Two days ago, I was asking a student by the name of Cameron if he was a Christian, and he said “no.” He was a Buddhist, along with about half of the class. And along with most students, he was Buddhist due to tradition and did not even know why he believed as he did. Well, since he wasn’t a Christian, I asked if he wanted to become one. To that question, he said “yes.” I then asked him if he knew how to become one and he said “no.” Wow! Perfect! Rarely is a chance to share the gospel just handed to you like that. So, right there, in our little discussion group, I started with creation and went through the entire gospel message, the ultimate message of redemption and life. Another student in the group who was better at English than Cameron helped to translate parts of it into Khmer for him. I prayed for Cameron, and he said he wanted pray to receive Jesus into his life with a Cambodian friend later that night. I happily told Prasad, our ministry contact, what had happened and he said he would have one of the Christian students follow up with him. I wasn’t sure if Cameron really was sincere about wanting to talk with a Christian friend that night, but I was hopeful.
Well, anyways, right after this discussion, it was time for the Thursday evening Bible study/church service. (Every student that comes to class needs to attend this service or the service on Sunday.) It was my night to preach, and so after 20 minutes of amazing worship, I had the floor for nearly 40 minutes. I had been a bit nervous, but after the discussion with Cameron, I was stoked!! And my topic of the night was perfect. It was all about sin and how only Jesus can save us from it. All I could picture were tons of Buddhist students running to the front to accept Jesus.
I started my “sermon” with James 1:14-15 and explained how desire can lead to sin and then how sin ultimately leads to death. I compared it to how when crumbs are dropped on the floor, the ants will come, and it the mess gets worse, the cockroaches come. If the mess gets even worse, the rats will come. A thought or a want to do something wrong may seem harmless, just like little ants, but in the end, if the thought is followed with action (the cockroaches), it can lead to death which, like the rats, is so much worse. I went through how the first sin was the perfect example of this. First, Eve had a desire: “The woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6). Then, Eve, and her husband Adam, actually sinned by eating the fruit. In the end, they were thrown out of the garden and cursed with an eventual physical death and a spiritual death as well. This curse has extended to each one of us, and we are all now born into sin. “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). We are not born wanting to do good, and even our good deeds are worthless. We are all capable of the worst travesties. We are no better than Pol Pot himself, the man who was responsible for the mass-murder of two million Cambodians in the 1970’s. I explained how once we give into sin, it becomes easier and easier to fall further and further into sin. (Look in Romans 1:21-32 for a good picture of this.) And the frightening thing is, we cannot save ourselves from this sin “disease” on our own. I then went into how only Jesus can rescue us from this sin problem. There is hope! In His death, He took ALL the sin upon himself (Isaiah 53:5-6). He came to set us free. He came to deliver us from the clutches of darkness and bring us into his kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13-14). He came to offer forgiveness. But, although he died for us all, it is OUR choice to choose if we want His free gift. We can choose to continue in the awful cycle of sin and suffer the consequences of Hell, OR we can choose Jesus and have His blood cover our sins and be seen as pure and blameless and new. With Buddhism, a person’s good deeds need to outweigh the bad, and as I said earlier, as sinners, this is nearly impossible. However, with Jesus, we can be SURE we are going to heaven! We are sinners, and we NEED a Savior.
At the end of saying all of this, I asked for the students who would like to accept this gift to stand up. The students had been hanging on my every word, and I was sure somebody had been reached. I didn’t really know what on earth I was doing at that point, but I was throwing myself out there.
It looked for a second as if someone would, but no one did.
At first, I was discouraged, but then Prasad told me how scared Cambodians are to do anything in front of their friends. And I totally understand. It is the same way in America. He also told our group that we could use the next day’s classes to ask the students about what they thought about the message.
Not only did Cameron make a decision for Jesus, but throughout the rest of the classes, it was clear that so many of the students we talked to want to become Christians as well some day. I even had one girl ask me to preach another sermon right then and there in our group, which I readily did. Many of the students want to learn more about Jesus first, but they want to eventually make a decision for Him. My prayer is that God keeps working in their hearts. I pray that through our discussions and the services many Buddhists would be saved. I pray they would not be afraid of what their parents think and realize that ALL that matters is the Lord.
