“Ten miles wide and one inch deep, an endless surface with
nothing underneath the lost exterior.”
“Ten Miles Wide” by Solomon’s Wish
Evangelism.
As we were walking to go share the Gospel at some primary
schools, a little boy sees us and comes out from his shelter. He’s wearing a worn Spiderman shirt, dirt
covering his face, and says “muzungu!” (white person) as he walks towards me with arms wide
open. I’ve never met the kid, but he walks
straight into my arms and I give him a hug.
How could you do anything less. I
love walking the streets to do evangelism.
We wave to countless children running out to say hello. We’ve seen a camel, cows with HUGE horns,
Nile perch (enormous fish) being cut up on the side of the road. At an open air meeting the other day, Erica
and I sat down and helped two women shell peas.
Not much seems out of the ordinary for us anymore!
I didn’t think I would enjoy this month because I’m not a
natural evangelist. I don’t know what to
say when the pastor turns to me and says “ok, they are ready to hear the
Gospel.” I grew up knowing the Gospel,
how is it so hard to share it?! I
typically stumble through something, praise God for speaking through me anyway,
and finish awkwardly, not knowing what’s expected next. The pastor/translator usually rattles
something off in Swahili or Luganda, then turns and says “they want to pray to
accept Jesus.” Ah, just like that? No questions?
No conversation? They’re just ready? And so I say a prayer, and they repeat
it. And then we thank them, bless them,
and walk away.
I struggled for a long time with this. African faith suffers from something I call
“10 miles wide and one inch deep.”
Everyone will say they believe in God, they know Jesus, etc. But there is no depth. They hear the Word and accept it, which is
AWESOME, but there’s little we can do to follow up and make it go deeper. I finally came to the conclusion that it’s
not my decision. I respect the contacts,
and we do what they do. I trust that God
will use what words we’ve spoken to light a spark. And then I have to trust
that God will continue that spark and fan it into a flame and not let it die
out. I have to trust that the work we are doing is not in vain. And I think I finally do.
