(Shared by the team in training from Entebbe, Uganda)
In July we went for outreach and as usual, we performed dramas and afterwards we went for one-on-one conversations. Afterwards, we gathered together and John shared that he had met three teenage girls and a boy. He first greeted them and introduced himself to them. He then asked them if they had seen these dramas before, and they responded that they have never seen it before, but they were impressed by the dramas.
John then asked them whether they have received any messages out of these performances. They said they have picked up some according to what the interpreter said. He then started teaching them how God loves them. He explained that we live in this world and it is characterized by brokenness. We don’t have to look very hard to see that there are things like disease, disaster, war, broken families etc. and that there’s a lot of pain in this world. But this is not God’s original plan or design. God has a perfect design for our lives. The way that we have gotten ourselves into brokenness is through something the Bible calls sin.
He went on to explain that sin that turning away from God’s design pursuing our own way, and that leads us to brokenness, which we show in the dramas, and brokenness eventually leads us to death, and that death will separate us from God forever. But God does not want us to stay in brokenness. So he made us a way out, and that is Jesus Christ. Jesus comes, and he enters into our brokenness, and the death that we deserve for pursuing brokenness, Jesus takes on Himself and dies on the Cross, and His body is broken for us. Three days after Jesus died, He rose from dead and made a way from brokenness.
People try many things to get out of brokenness. Things like religion, success, money, relationships, drugs, alcohol, among others , but none of these things can get us out of brokenness. The only way is Jesus. John also told them that, if we turn from our sin and believe that Jesus died for us and rose from dead, we can leave brokenness and grow in our relationship with God and pursue His perfect design for us. John explained that there are two types of people in this world: ones who are pursuing God’s design, and ones who are still in brokenness.
He then asked them which group they belong to. They kept quiet, looking to one another and one girl replied that she’s a Christian and others were not. Then he asked those two whether they would like to receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour and they said they were going to think about it. Then John also asked if he could pray for them and the Christian girl responded and he prayed for her.
When people don’t respond right away to these conversations on the streets, we pray that God will continue to work in their hearts and lives, and that the truth they have heard would soften their hearts. Every conversation we have is a seed planted, and we trust that God will continue to water these seeds.
