Distributing the gospel of John door-to-door was the order of business last week as Mitzi and I traveled to Liberia to work with a group of volunteers from the U. S. The process works like this: We divide up into groups, the number depending on how many workers there are, and go door-to-door talking to people, giving a copy of the Gospel according to John, and asking if they are interested in a Bible study in their home. Often there is also the opportunity to witness to the gospel of Christ.
Usually there are members of a nearby church, if there is one, working with us. Often this is a new experience to these national believers, but they enjoy it. The only problem is that they always want to talk and visit, which is good, but it takes longer to complete the project that way. Of course, that's a problem with us Gringos anyway. We are so task and schedule oriented that we often sacrifice relationships. To the normal Latin American, the relationship is more important than completing a given task, being on time, or keeping a schedule. We could learn something there.
We worked one day with the team, then had to return to San Jose. We always enjoy working with the teams and try to spend at least a little time with as many as we can.
There were over a 100 people that indicated that they were interested in having a Bible study in their home, but we realize that many of them were being polite, or didn't understand what was being asked. The broken Spanish, or Spanglish, which some volunteers speak is sometimes misunderstood, and, like we Americans dangerously do, the people give affirmative answers when they really didn't understand the question. It falls to those doing follow-up to further screen the lists of affirmative responses. This is usually one of our people along with national believers.
Pray for those who showed an interest and for those who will do follow-up screening and Bible studies. Pray that people will see the truth of the gospel and believe.
