Shokurie

In my Basic Evangelism class we are required talk to someone and describe the encounter of a spiritual conversation. These are our Verbatims. Verbatims should pose spiritual questions such as, “Do you ever think about what happens after you die?” “What do you think about the church and Jesus?” “Do you believe in Heaven or Hell and what do you have to do to go there?” The point and goal is to lead to a presentation of the Gospel using a method learned in class. This is my first verbatim:

On Wednesday March 1^st, I had the opportunity to meet with my friend Christy in San Rafael and travel to Dominican University with hopes of sharing the Gospel. We had met earlier that day for lunch and to discuss the campus ministry she was involved in. During lunch we discussed Dominican and the make-up of campus. I was interested in what type of campus and demographic we were working with. Dominican is a private Catholic University. Although it does have religious affiliations, it should not be considered a “Christian School.” Dominican does not differ much from most secular universities, as it attracts people of all faiths and beliefs. This was important to understand so I did not approach campus with any preconceived notions (or so I thought). Dominican has a culturally divers population of students not only from the bay area but a large amount of international students as well. There are several students from various faiths, which the University supports with their interfaith policies and events.

       Christy and I went to campus but unfortunately it was a cold, rainy, and typical dreary day in the bay area and therefore there were not as many students on campus as I had hoped for. We set out with bottles of water, canvassing the campus, and praying God would to lead us to people to talk to. The bottles of water were conversation starters. Going out on campus and talking with students is not new for Christy. She enjoys going around campus with water bottles, giving them away to people that are willing to ask her a question about the bible.  This allows her to start a conversation and physically have something to offer someone (icebreaker). This gets their attention while focusing her conversation on Jesus or God. She first obtained this idea from another group that would go around advertising “Beer and Bible,” where students went around campus offering root beer for questions about the bible. 

       As we walked around campus, it became apparent there were not going to be a lot of people to talk with since it was raining. Those that were outside were walking in haste from one point to the next. It was not a great environment to stop people out of the blue and carry on religious conversations. So we began to pray, asking God if there was some one on campus we were to speak with that He would lead us to them and give us the opportunity to stop and have a quality conversation. Only a few moments passed when we came to a bus stop with one lone student crouched by the curb.

       As we approached the potential passenger my stomach began to get the butterflies and questions raced through my head. What if He rejected us? What if we annoyed him? What if he challenged us? But what if he actually listened to us? More so what if God actually used this very moment to radically change this guy’s life and call him as a believer? I had about a million questions and before I knew it we were going through introductions.

His name was Shokurie. At least I believe that is correct, because he did not speak good English. In fact he spoke very little English at all. He was from Japan and was at Dominican studying English (makes sense). It was soon pretty clear the one question I had not thought of was the one thing that was going to stand in the way, “what if he doesn’t speak English?” He was extremely nice and shy, and he wanted to talk.

I’m sure two white girls walking up and starting a conversation was not something he expected that day, but in looking back it kind of made our job easy. There were no expectations. It was extremely easy to offer him the water and tell him that we were giving it out if he would ask us a question about the Bible. Now I really like this approach to evangelism. I find most people are not too offended by the Bible at least not if they are given the opportunity to ask anything they want about it. But I do think more people become defensive once you bring up the name of Jesus.

So when Christy asked him if he had a question about the Bible I wasn’t nervous. But then I noticed something I did not expect. He just stared at us. Not that he didn’t want to answer, he didn’t understand what we were asking. He didn’t know what the Bible was. Christy asked, “Have you ever heard of the Bible?” He shook his head no. “Wow” I thought to myself, “hmm, okay this should be interesting. Well maybe he just doesn’t understand what we mean by Bible.” Just then Christy asked, “Have you ever heard of God and Jesus? Have you ever heard the name of Jesus?” I thought “Certainly he’s heard of God. Surly at least heard the name ‘Jesus’…I mean its Jesus!” My heart sank so low when he answered, “No, I don’t know that name.”

Okay so I have never really thought of myself a naive about things in this world. Yes I know I lack perspective on some things, but I’m not naive. But I was floored. Here I was, standing in America, on a University Campus, a place of higher education, knowledge, and learning, in the most advanced “Christian” nation in the world and there is someone who more than doesn’t know who Jesus is, HE HAS NEVER HEARD HIS NAME! I truly fought back the tears as Christy handed him the water bottle. There was obviously going to be a huge language barrier but before I could catch my breath from the initial shock of our interaction, he was on the bus and the opportunity was over.

Did we fail? I hope not! Did we plant a seed? Will he go and ask someone who Jesus is? Will he ask for a Bible? I pray so! But my biggest fear is, will he just forget about us and go on? I was so frustrated. Never had I wanted to know Japanese more in my life. Never had I wanted to be able to speak in tongues more. Never was I so shocked at the lost-ness of our world, our county, this county and city, than I was at that moment. I don’t know if it was a success. I pray it was. I pray it was a seed that God will grow to go back to Japan to tell more people about Jesus.

We were not able to share the gospel with anyone that day. Shokurie was the only person on campus that we were able to approach. I think God had us speak to him and only him for a very specific purpose. What? I don’t know. I do know I learned a great deal out of the encounter. I cannot take anything for granted as a minister of the Gospel of Christ. I cannot assume everyone knows Jesus, even if by name here in the U.S.

 On my next attempt on sharing I will take into account the weather but I will also go into it with little to no expectations other than to be lead by the Holy Spirit. I do think it is an interesting way to start my verbatims. I think I will not be as afraid to say the name of Jesus. I cannot imagine how I would have felt if I had allowed fear to keep me from saying the name of Christ to Shokurie. I would have never gotten over the missed opportunity knowing what I know now. But we don’t always get that opportunity to know. I wonder how often I have already missed that chance. Who has passed by and not know known Christ or God. I pray God will use this brief encounter with Shokurie to lead him to a relationship with Jesus. I also pray that God will use this encounter with Shokurie to remind me that the Gospel is to be told to everyone as the “Good News” and that I should not shy away from it because it could be the first time some one is hearing it…even in America.

Please join me in praying for Shokurie and that God opens all our eyes to lost-ness

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?" Romans 10:14