Sharing Faith Close to Home
9 Apr 2018
It can be especially difficult to share our faith with our own families. If you are the only member of your family who believes in Jesus, it’s even harder. But what if you were the only believer in your whole neighbourhood, and everyone else followed a completely different religion. One of our Pioneers workers shares her recent interactions with one such local believer…
My dear Christian friend, Mrs Sasmita*, and I have been regularly going through a series of New Testament stories of Jesus life and ministry. Only three months ago she was very unwell and ended up having surgery on a neighbouring island. I was able to go and visit her in the hospital, along with a few of my teammates, and she was in so much pain it was hard to see. We were able to pray with her several times, and we gave her a small book of the Psalms for encouragement. We had to check with her nieces that they were happy with that, as they will have to read the book to her, and like all Mrs Sasmita’s family, they are of a different strict religion. Praise God, now she is fully recovered.
Although Mrs Sasmita has a deep love for Jesus. in the past I wasn’t sure how to encourage her to be sharing her faith with her family and others around her. Often, I would mention someone, and she would say, “oh no, they’ve done the pilgrimage to Mecca, they wouldn’t be interested.” However, that has started to change in the last few months! It started when we went together to the corn fields to share a New Testament story together. Mrs Sasmita’s husband works in the fields with the second wife (yes, he took a second wife seven or eight years ago, and no, he can’t afford it). Mr Sasmita*, the second wife and her daughter all ended up joining with us. This was awesome, as in the past Mrs Sasmita would always say, “Oh no, we’ll do it later, where it’s more quiet.” They really enjoyed listening to the story, and in their local dialect as well!
Last week, I had it on my heart to go through a Psalm with Mrs Sasmita. It turned out one of her neighbors who is also a relative, Mrs Muljana*, joined us as well. We listened to Psalm 24 in the local dialect, as well as the story of God choosing David. Mrs Muljana kept saying she was getting goose bumps listening to Psalm 24, she was so excited. While we sat, we started discussing things to pray for in our lives and Mrs Sasmita started to explain to Mrs Muljana how Jesus taught us how to live and why it was so important. I was so stoked listening to Mrs Sasmita share.
Be praying for her to grow in courage and wisdom of how to share, and that Mrs Muljana will continue to join us in our studies.
*Names changed for Privacy