Missionaries for a day

For those of you who grew up going to church, you might remember that Sunday every few years when The Missionary came to give his report about how the work was going in Brazil, or Africa, or Mexico, you can fill in the blank. Along with this report usually came a "we are all missionaries" charge, one in which you were encouraged to be your own missionary at school, or at work, or on the basketball court, etc, that it wasn't necessary to move overseas to be a missionary. That is true, but so many times people are left with the question "how?"

Today I had the opportunity to see my friends at Comunidade de Cristo be missionaries for the day. Geraldo is a name I've mentioned several times on this blog. He was baptized in September of 2008 and has since brought his wife and four kids to church. His family has been a great encouragement to all of us because they are excited for God. Just talking to Geraldo makes you excited to do something to share the love of Christ with others. So it was no surprise that soon after he was baptized, Geraldo had tons of ideas for how we could share the love of Christ with his neighborhood. Today we had an "evangelistic campaign" in his neighborhood, where we split up into groups and went door-knocking, inviting anyone who would answer the door to a Bible study at Geraldo's house later in the evening.

I was so proud of the young people of our congregation. Door-knocking, especially with an invitation to learn about the Bible, can be a risky feat. You run the risk of getting the door slammed in your face, people assuming you're asking for money, or people just being mean. (And, in my case, you run the risk of running into dogs. Lots and lots of BIG, scary, barking dogs.) However, they all arrived at Geraldo's house ready to get their knock on, and after everyone finished I even heard stories of people fighting over who would get to talk at the next house! It was an exciting day for all of us, and we were thrilled when 16 people that we invited showed up to the study! Praise God for those 16, and we pray that God will continue to work on their hearts as well as the hearts of those who answered their doors, listened to the invitation, but for whatever reason decided not to accept it. We know that God knows each of their names, each of their hearts, and maybe allowed a small seed to be planted today.

Ok, enough for narratives. Here's proof!

Osmildo giving last-minute instructions before we split up

The troops setting out to start knocking on doors

The sign hanging outside Geraldo's house. It says "Evangelistic Campaign. Theme: Come to Me" with an arrow pointing down that says "Here". The "Come to Me" theme was based off of Matthew 11:28, a pretty good theme verse for an outreach campaign, if you ask me!

Getting everything set up in Geraldo's garage

Chatting and getting the snacks ready

We had an uninvited guest crash our party.

Full house!

This lady wanted to share that today she was down in the dumps when Fernanda and Geraldo knocked on her door and offered to pray with her. She had her bags packed to move out and leave her husband, because he told her he didn't want her anymore. She cried and cried and cried, but said that after hearing the message from God's Word tonight that she's going to go home, unpack her bags, and show her husband that she's not giving up on 30 years of marriage.

Most of our door-knocking group after the Bible study (and after the tasty snacks they served!)