Saturday morning, 10:30 am, in a garage of a crisis center for abandoned babies.
70 children from toddlers to teens trickled in for a movie and popcorn. To their surprise it wasn’t a cartoon or comedy. The movie was “The Jesus Film.”
10 minutes into the film, the Lord started recollecting memories of this film for me. 3 years ago, as an intern for my church, we took this film to a community center in town to share it with the senior citizens of the area. I remember learning about this film in my missions class at Mississippi College. It was created as an outlet to share the Gospel all over the world. After much difficulty in finding funding and producers for the movie, it finally made it to production. It was designed to be translated into unreached people groups native language in an attempt to reach people with the Good news across all borders.
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Here I am in a garage of a tiny rural town of South Africa watching the Jesus Film in Zulu. Out of 11 accredited languages in South Africa itself, the Jesus Film is being translated to the perfect one right before my eyes. I sat back and relished the moment of witnessing 70 children hearing the Gospel for the first time in their lives. Excitement started pumping through my veins.
This is why we’re here.
After the movie ended our instructions were to send them home. But I couldn’t just let them leave like that. I had to be sure they knew — that they truly understood Gods love for them. So I made my way through the crowd to the front. I asked how many of these kids had ever asked Jesus Christ to come into their hearts.
None.
I even had an older boy translate for me to be sure everyone understood. When I realized no one had ever heard of this before, I began sharing with them the story of Jesus Christ. Being born into this world and living a perfect sinless life, he sacrificed himself so that we may have eternal life with God. Sin was an unknown word as well. I described it as “anything we do that displeases God.” (Thanks to my church’s children’s minister, Mark Williams, for being able to draw that tool out of my belt). I went on to share that we are born as sinners and that means we must pay a price, death. But Christ, because of His great love for us, died the death we deserve. Due to Jesus’s sacrifice we are able to have a personal relationship with God. All we have to do is ask him to come live in our hearts and let Him be the Lord of our lives. Then I led them in the sinners prayer.
** side note – This was my first time to ever lead someone in the “sinner’s prayer.” I’ve learned on the Race that the sinners prayer isn’t specific words you must say to have God enter your heart. It’s not something that can only be done by pastors or ministers. It’s simply confessing before the Lord that you are a sinner, asking Him to forgive you for your sins, and believing in your heart that you will be saved. There are no fancy words or specific prayer you must follow. You don’t have to be called to ministry or full time missions. You right where you are, are called to lead those around you in a forever relationship with Christ. YOU are called to come be a disciple and make disciples.
I followed up by sharing how we begin a life of following Christ. We do this by praying – talking to him as we do our friends, going to church – to be encouraged by other believers, and reading the bible – to hear what God has to say to us.
We planted many seeds that day. Seeds that for the next 3 weeks we plan to water. Seeds that long after 3 weeks is up we trust that God will continue to water and bloom into growing flowers.
I was floored to be able to be apart of such an incredible moment.
