Evangelism- Day two. The real trekking begins ;)

January 20, 2010
Our second day of evangelism was more exhausting than the first. To start, I was still tired from the day before, as all the girls were having a little trouble sleeping at night because of the deep cold seeping through our sleeping bags! And we ended up hiking much farther on the second day than the first. We headed out around 9:30, with a smaller group- Manoj, Ranjib, Rami and I.

We went the same way through the jungle as we did the day before, but we continued further, until we reached a mountain that had sporadic houses here and there. So, we would make huge sine waves on the mountain, climbing up and stopping here and there at homes before climbing another 15-20 minutes to the next house. Up and down and up and down and now over to that mountain, back and forth we went. A piece of advice: if you’re ever going door-to-door through the jungle in the mountains and you see the next house and it looks pretty close, it’s not. Because you can’t just walk straight to it. You have to walk up and around a stream and through the rice paddies and then back down. We split up a couple of times, but Ranjib gave us his cell phone so that we could call him and Monoj if we ever got lost or confused (amazingly, we didn’t!).

Compared to the day before, we found even less interest in the Gospel, but there was one home that stands out to me. There were probably around 8 girls and children sitting around, and one teenage boy with them. From the conversation that ensued, we found out that they were all siblings. Anyway, there weren’t any parents home, so we gave the tracts to them. The older girls fanned through them, and handed them back to me. But the boy sat and began to read it with interest. Suddenly, the girls began to lash into him, scolding him thoroughly (scolding sounds the same in any language ;)!). Well, Rami and I walked off, not to get in between a family feud. As we escaped earshot of the house, Rami explained to me that the girls were scolding their brother because their father wouldn’t allow anything Christian in their house, and would beat him for having it. Needless to say, I was slightly relieved that the parents weren’t home when we visited! But I was more excited that this boy had chosen to take and read the tract, even amidst the scolding and probable beating he would get for it. My heart went out to him, though I don’t know his name or anything else about him. The image of him reading that book about Jesus might be ingrained in my memory forever. And while I don’t know anything about him, God does, and that’s what really matters!

After that, we hiked up and down a couple more mountains, and finally, around 4:30 we were finished. We didn’t get to many houses that day (maybe 20 at the most), but that’s the life of missions in the jungle! All four of us were beyond tired, and we weren’t really up to a 2 hour hike back home. That, and around 6 it gets dark, and walking through the jungles after dark with a white girl was just a bad idea I learned! So, we caught this bus that took us this very round-about way on the worst of “roads” back to the road that the church is on. It was the most painful bus ride I’ve ever been on, but I was also more thankful for it than any other bus ride! Never underestimate the relief of being able to take a bus :).