Star Cup Lamech

The ministry has been going very nicely indeed lately for both Avril and I, as you’ll perhaps have noticed from recent blog entries.

The first call work is a delight. Once a publisher masters the language and spends a sufficiently long time greeting before coming to the task of preaching, he can enjoy excellent results. One challenge is distinguishing real interest from material greed, especially if you’re obviously from abroad.

Recently I had a excellent experience. Pete Jennings and I were doing some return visit work not far from our place when one householder explained that he would be available after half an hour or so, and that then we could have a conversation at leisure. We didn’t have any back up plan, so we headed for a fancy open-air coffee bar called Star-Cup to wet our whistles.

I struck up a conversation with the manager about absolute truth. Many people here feel that all religions lead to God, whether they teach what the bible says or not. But most are surprised at just how much of church teachings have no basis in scripture – on the contrary, they teach the opposite. I showed him a classic example from 1 John 5:19: that Satan rules. Almost all Christians and Muslims here are certain that God rules the world he created, but the bible asserts that ‘the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.’ (If, dear reader, you don’t know why, ask one of Jehovah’s Witnesses to give you a scriptural explanation.)

The manager, called Lamech, was quite surprised to read that. Then he began asking other questions, and since that short first conversation we’ve met four times, gradually building towards a formal bible study.

Each time Lamech sees for himself a new and unfamiliar bible truth there’s a twinkle of excitement in his eye and a big appreciative smile. I hope that my efforts will come to something, with God’s blessing. (2 Corinthians 4:7)