Tales from the Field

The very first thing we fell in love with here in Liberia is the wonderfully responsive preaching field.  When your audience is God-oriented, hospitable and foreigner-friendly it makes our objective much easier and enjoyable.  So here’s something that happened recently:

One woman Daun had stopped visiting was very low-key and never seemed outwardly excited or even pleased.  After a couple of months while next door to her, she said she’d been wondering where we were.  A study was offered and accepted, but since Bible Teach books are more than scarce she was told that a book would be brought for her to use on the study and then taken back so others could share it.   Guess that was unacceptable because the next time she had on hand a copy she was given in the past and was ready with many questions like ‘Why does God allow suffering?’.  A couple of sessions were conducted from Chapter 11 to quench her initial thirst and then started from Chapter 1.   

Funny thing though she has never accepted invitation to attend meeting at the local Kingdom Hall.  However, when our recent ‘No Part of the World’ Circuit Assembly was near she was very surprised to learn that Jesus told us to be ‘no part of the world’.  When asked what she thought that might involve, she didn’t know so we invited her to attend and asked her to phone when she was en route.  Unfortunately Saturday before she arrived she had a little mishap that made her return home but the next morning she called to apologize for not making it.  Not too easy to hear me amidst crowd before program so she asked why.  Seems that she didn’t realize the program continued on Sunday so she hurriedly prepared again and came just before the lunch break.

She ate lunch with us and met many some friends who had already been on her study along with some new ones.  Her eyes scanned and she was even more quiet than usual.  During the talks she followed along in her KJ Version and paid close attention till the end of the day.  In a little bit of an awkward way she left looking very thoughtful.  The next time we studied her sister joined us and she had the assembly program handy to share with us and her sister which points she really enjoyed.

It was nice to find out what she found most strange (like signs for ‘FIRST AID’ ‘TRUCKING’ ‘ATTENDANTS’) and what she loved most (that seating was general, with even children who are of little account in African culture deserving a seat and that all points were supported/explained from the Bible).  We told her that now since she’s seen on a large scale how we worship that she shouldn’t feel shy about our smaller gatherings.   Still waiting to see how this one grows . . .