One of the things I did as a young man for hours upon hours was go door to door asking for the privilege of sharing the good news concerning Jesus Christ. The effort was 99% unsuccessful, but the 1% who received Jesus as Lord and Savior are now joint participants in the promise of abundant life here and eternal life in heaven. In spite of the significance of seeing 1 in 100 come to faith in Christ, I despised the process. I carried a measure of familiar discomfort as we entered Kasakoso neighborhood and the Soweto slum in Uganda to do “door to door evangelism.” As we went from dwelling to dwelling, we asked for just five minutes of time to tell people about God’s love for them.

Can We Have Five Minutes? (Our Translator's Favorite Greeting)

 
God honors obedience in every place and every person. Our team led people to faith in Christ Jesus every time we went out although only one of us (not me) was a confident and experienced door-to-door person. More than twenty people not only heard about forgiveness of sin through Jesus’ work on the cross and the love of God expressed by conquering the grave on our behalf but prayed to install Jesus as the boss of their hearts. Every team member personally witnessed someone give control of their life to Jesus. My favorite account of this transformation involved an individual who was listening to the presentation of the good news “over the fence.” The person our team member was sharing with face to face received Christ, but the unseen hearer came around the barrier and asked if it would be ok it they received Jesus as well. When the Holy Spirit moves there is power!

I had the honor of seeing a businessman named Lubega give his heart to Christ. It was kind of odd to me. My Ugandan daughter, Penny, and I were together asking people if we could talk to him about Jesus Christ and Lubega was happy to stop what he was doing and to hear us. Although I actually tried to dissuade him from making a rash decision to follow Jesus he insisted that he pray to receive Christ. God had obviously been working in his heart, it was humbling to be present when God did what only God can do, change a man’s heart.

The first time to "eat out" for our Soweto church family

We took our Soweto brothers and sisters out for a meal at a local restaurant.  For many is was the first time they had ever had a “eat out” meal and many (if not most) of the children never had a soda before.  I wrote about this experience in a prior posting (click the link below). But it is worth sharing even more. The muzungu were segregated from the rest of our family and fed a fare that was less “exotic” than what everyone else had.  I had the honor of sitting with Ugandan men and eating what they had.  In all honesty it wasn’t exotic at all and very easy to eat.  The only difficult dish was millet or ground and boiled barley grain.  I actually liked the taste of the dish, it was the pervasive sand that made it difficult to eat, but I got quite a bit down and the fellow next to me finished what I was unable to eat…he was genuinely hungry.[https://parson9.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/love-feast-in-uganda/]

Outside the love feast restaurant

The meeting place for the Soweto church...a RENTED alley

A typical walkway in Soweto: clothes, kids and sewage...

Where there is no trash service, people improvise (Soweto)