The gospel in mime

There's a tension in any kind of mission. Mission is God's work. And yet, he wants to accomplish his work through us. It's difficult to understand how all that plays out.


I spent a summer on a mission trip with Campus Crusade in Japan. I spent time all summer with a guy named Toshioki. I shared the gospel with him ten times or more. We went to baseball games, camping; he hung out at our apartment. And finally, at the end of the summer, Toshioki told me he wanted to receive Christ. We prayed together and he asked Christ to come into his life and forgive his sins.


I was so pumped that day, I was fearless and ready to proclaim the gospel to anyone I could find. So I bumped into a guy on the way back from Toshioki’s place. This man spoke no English at all, and I spoke even less Japanese. I had a bilingual gospel tract, so I preceded to just flip pages and point. It was the gospel in mime. At the end, to my incredible surprise, this guy decided to pray. Having no idea how much he understood, or even what he was indicating, I arranged for him to meet with a Japanese Crusade staff member the following week. I'm not sure how we even set that up through our limited means of communication. But sure enough, he showed up the following week. He talked with the Japanese Christian, and it seems his conversion was real. He became involved in a disicipleship group right away.


With Toshioki, God used all of who I was – time, interest, knowledge. I laughed with him, asked him questions, went out of my way to get to know him. With the second guy, I just showed up. 


Whenever I think about the sovereignty of God as it relates to evangelism, I come back to that day in Tokyo where two students prayed to receive Christ in very different ways. Mission belongs to God, and yet he graciously wants to use us to make it happen.