Sharing stories in Colombia
Just a quick testimony of how awesome God is in teaching us what he wants to teach us, when he wants to teach us, and using whatever he wants to, to show things to us. If you read my previous blog, I shared a bit about reading a book and then, after God showed me a few things through that, I started to focus a bit more on giving over and having fun, instead of over-complicating everything or being too serious all the time. He showed me that, amongst other things, he placed us on this earth for two big reasons:
1. To spread the gospel to the ends of the earth in all you do, say or think; giving glory to the One who created all things.
2. To enjoy!!
But there is one little problem. If I can be honest, I don't always enjoy "evangelism". I don't know, maybe I'm a bad Christian, but to me it has never been extremely fun knocking on a stranger's door or stopping someone in the public square, telling them "We are a group from South-Africa, travelling through South-America to serve the local church. Please come listen to our sermon tonight" or even "Jesus loves you and wants to have relationship with you" and then pray a prayer and never see that person again. Don't get me wrong, the Holy Spirit can and does definitely work through that when you go out in God's Name and I have also learned a lot about what evangelism is really about and different ways to share the Gospel, but what I am trying to say is that for a long time in my life I didn't think that sharing the Gospel and having fun really had anything to do with each other. I thought sharing the Gospel is a very serious topic, and as soon as that is out of the way we can start having more fun.
But then, coming to Colombia, God put some amazing people on our path that had some great lessons on their hearts to share with us, one of which was called the "Divine Drama" told by a newfound friend, Wayne Smith. If someone had to ask me what he does for a life, I would probably reply that he is a professional story-teller...and it wouldn't be far from the truth. He is a missionary from America, currently part of the leadership in an organization that focuses on teaching young people with a passion for the Lord to go into unreached tribes all over the world to spread the Good News of God. He shared the Gospel with us in quite a unique way, starting from Genesis and ending in Revelation, but telling it as some type of story you would love listening to around the camp-fire. And after spending two nights, captivating us with the story of a Creator working with a plan to win back the love from His creation (his bride, the church) he turned to each of us and he said: "This is what sharing the Gospel is about. It's about telling the story. Everybody does is in their own ways, but don't you just love telling stories? And don't people love listening to good stories? And that is what we are called to do. Share the story!"
And I realized, even more that I enjoyed listening to this fantastic story, Wayne actually enjoyed telling it to us. Then the question finds an answer. How can spreading the gospel be fun? Well, how can it not be when you're busy sharing the most awesome, captivating real-life story ever written? I WANT people to listen and believe in the awe-inspiring leading Character of this drama...and I am willing to spend my whole life to get this story "out-there", because what can be more fun than telling great stories for a life?
A view over the Capital of Colombia, Bogota
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