As a worker for God in a country that is not friendly to evangelism, I pray that He will go before me and prepare the hearts of people to receive His word. And He does.
While walking down the street one day, I passed a small key shop. Two men stood inside talking. One held an old book. They must be reading the Koran, I thought as I passed. I finished my errand and turned toward home. I decided to have a key made so I could talk to those men.
"What are you doing in this country?" the key maker asked as he worked. I told him that I was associated with a travel agency in town. The man still held the old book in his hand. It had been marked with several colors of ink. I knew that people didn't normally write in the Koran. Then I realized that it was a Bible.
I paid him for the key and prepared to leave. As I walked by the man's Bible, I laid my hand on it and said, "This is a great book. You would do well to keep reading it."
"That's my Bible," he said, smiling slightly. "I bought it many years ago." Then he asked what faith I followed. I told him I was a Seventh-day Adventist believer.
"Oh," he said, "I know about them. I've read about Adventists on the Internet. Do Seventh-day Adventists have any books I can get?" I told him we did, and he asked me to bring him one.
Just the morning before this unexpected meeting, my family had read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch for worship. We talked about the lesson this story held that we never know when we will meet someone whom the Holy Spirit has already prepared, and that we must be prepared to teach them when God places them in our path.
As I walked home from the key shop, I thought about how Phillip came across the eunuch sitting and reading the Bible and ministered to him. I pondered how I had never seen anyone in this country reading the Bible. Then today I met this man in the key shop who was reading a Bible-and sharing the Bible with another man.
I pray daily that the Lord will lead us to people who want to know what we know, for our environment is not friendly to evangelism.
Only a handful of Adventist believers live in the country I serve in. Pray for them, and continue giving to the mission offerings, which support missionaries around the world.
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Barnabas Hope is a church planter serving in the Middle East
| Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. email: info@adventistmission.org website: www.adventistmission.org |
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