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Church
Partnership |
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Disciples Making Disciples |
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Ministry Highlights |
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Stories from
Around the World |
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Congo: |
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 I am walking home down a dirt path, enjoying the
sounds of laughter and excited conversation.
It’s delightful. My four ministry companions during
our week in the Congo, Zachary, Samuel, Pepin, and Germain, are having quite a time together.
What a difference a couple of days make. Two days
ago when we left our time of training to begin doing
personal evangelism at appointments set with their
friends, the only laughter was nervous laughter and
the conversation was limited and laced with
apprehension. We had two meetings that first night---one planned, one not. At the first we led eight children to the Lord. I said to myself, "I'd rather be talking to their parents, but this may be a good place for them to get their feet wet." Well, my team got their feet wet all right, and today we did meet with the parents of these children to a great end. That night we also had an unplanned appointment. We stopped in the evening at a small cafe to buy a pop for everyone. Inside we encountered eight young men in their twenties. Germain is a big girl, and she began to call in a jovial yet taunting way for them to join us around our table. Before long, Pepin was guiding them through my testimony. Their eyes began to intensify as our conversation proceeded; they talked for a least two hours back and forth with us. In the end all were led to pray to receive Christ.
Should we say, "Good! They prayed, so now
let's go get some more and hope the Church people
follow them up when we leave?" Now my team is walking home. They are rehearsing to one another
illustrations and ideas on how they can continue to communicate the
points in the first discipleship lesson. They just finished doing
this lesson with these eight men over the last two hours, and they still
want to talk about it. Zachary and Samuel didn't stay with the
group through the whole lesson. Two other men came up and asked, "Can
we join you?" Zachary said, "No, this is a special
study for people who have said they want to follow Jesus. You come with
me and I'll share with you how you can follow him, too." Off
they went with Zachary to share my testimony.
Another man came with the same question, and Samuel pulled him aside
with the same answer. Three more people prayed tonight, and we all
were baptized together into the joy of discipling excited new believers.
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