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PAY A PRICE
Each summer thousands of students and lay people raise the
money to cover their expenses and travel to Asia, Africa,
and Latin America on film teams. They give up comfortable
beds to sleep in hammocks on an Amazon river boat, a straw
mat beside a Philippine rice paddy, or a sleeping bag on the
floor of an African mud hut.
Their schedule is demanding, the work is hard and the difficulties
endless. For every showing in every village, they must locate
a place to stay and a way to feed themselves, and they must
adapt to diets that are strange to them. In most places they
battle language barriers, unable to express even the simplest
thought without an interpreter. There are cultural barriers
that confront them, and the threat--and reality--of diarrhea,
dysentery and malaria.
In every new place they must establish hearings with town
officials and gain permission to show the film; then they
have to involve local churches, train couselors, and do personal
evangelism. In many places religious prejudice precedes them,
creating situations of very real danger, and in other places
national unrest and war threaten their very lives.
Under unpredictable and sometimes frightening circumstances,
they show the film, guide non-believers to new relationships
with Christ, and begin discipleship groups that continue in
local churches long after the team has returned home. Because
of the continuous strain place on team members, there is time
set aside daily for personal quiet times with the Lord, Bible
study, and team prayer. Every week or two they have a few
days for rest, recreation and spiritual restoration. Team
members testify to incredible personal growth, and to learning
new lessons in spiritual values.
Every day teams around the world are called upon to bring
their equipment into remote locations and show the JESUS
film to those who wait for the message. Of the hundreds of
teams in eighty-five countries, less than fifty have the luxury
of using a jeep or an all-terrain vehicle to haul necessities.
The rest make do with what they can find. (pp. 146-147)
Surprises, danger and hardship remain, but the life of a JESUS
film team member is seldom dull. From every kind of background,
every walk of life--Campus Crusade staff members, church members,
college students, laypersons and nationals--these are people
with a vision of reaching the lost for Christ, and they
are doing something about it!
In Thailand a team supervisor had just finished threading
the film into the projector when he felt the cold steel of
a gun barrel pressed against the back of his head. The gunman
demanded that the team leave the area. Frozen with fear, no
one moved.
"I am not afraid to die for Jesus," the supervisor said. "If
I were afraid to die, I would not be here."
The gunman looked at him for a moment, then pocketed his gun
and left. The film showing went on as scheduled...
Charlie Abro, coordinator for JESUS in India, says,
"Every film team in India has been beaten and stoned. We don't
even think about it anymore. Everyone has problems to face;
this is just one of ours."
Bandits roam and plunder in large sections of India. Many
are better armed than the sprinkling of police authority.
In one small village the film was just about to begin when
runners breathlessly warned of bandits on their way to attack.
Frightened villagers fled and when the bandits arrived only
the team remained with their equipment. Most Indians love
movies, and bandits are no exception. The showing that night
was an exclusive screening for bandits only. Several received
Christ, and the village was spared. (pp.148-149)
In the light of all they face, it could be hard to understand
why a bright, eager college student or business-person might
sacrifice vacation time, or take a leave of absence from a
lucrative job to spend their time as part of a JESUS
film team. Judy George explains it best.
"People are lost without the Lord, and if we don't help them
know Him, maybe nobody else will. When I help train Filipino
students to share their faith, I can see the results. Entire
villages are reached for the first time with the message of
God's love, I've had something to do with that."
She flashes a quick, contagious smile. "It's not always easy,"
she says, "but I've never been bored!" This life is rewarding
beyond anything I've ever experienced." Judy looks toward
the mountain where she spent her summer with the team, then
adds thoughtfully, "I never understood how great the Lord
is until I had nobody to rely on but Him." (p. 157)
Joe, the local coordinator for showings of JESUS,
pulled around an oxcart and stopped the car next to a soupy
irrigation ditch. "We've shown the film in eighteen villages
in this area," he said. "This is one of them."
I followed his gaze out the dust-laden window toward a scattered
settlement of thatched huts.
"There are about five hundred people who live here, Paul.
Before we showed the film seven weeks ago there were no known
believers in this village. Last Sunday we baptized a hundred
and thirty-eight. All of them found Christ through the film,
and we've established a prayer cell which meets in that little
shack over there.
"New believers meet there three or four times a week to pray
and read the Bible," he went on. "The Church of South India
is trying to send them a pastor, but in the meantime one of
our village evangelists meets with them twice a week to help
them grow in their faith." He opened the car door. "C'mon,"
he said, "I want you to meet some of them."
Each person I talked to said they had decided to follow Christ
after seeing JESUS because it was the first time
they had heard how to know God. And that is what they wanted:
to know God.
One young couple I spoke with invited me into their home.
It was a painfully crude shack and it was easy to see they
did not have much. When I asked them what it was they liked
most about Jesus, the man said, "He cares about poor people
like us." Softly his wife added, "I knew He was poor like
we are because He never carried a suitcase."
Another couple smiled and said, "We have been so worried because
we owe others a great deal of money. But when we saw the picture,
we learned that Jesus said that if He took care of the birds
and flowers of the field, He would also take care of us. We
still are not sure how we will repay our debts, but we know
Jesus will help us find a way."
The next new believer I met was Samuel. Samuel was in his
eighties, sporting a few short, white hairs on the sides of
his head, and peering at me through round spectacles taped
to broken frames. His brown, leathery skin hung in folds around
his thin frame, and he dressed in a few pieces of dingy white
muslin. At a quick glance, he could have passed for Gandhi.
Samuel had lived in this sad little village all his eighty
years, but now he knew Jesus.
"I let some of my children become Christians," he told me,
"but I was always against it. Then when I saw the JESUS
film, I understood for the first time in my life that
Jesus never died for Himself--He died for me! When
I learned that, I knew I had to accept Him." He shook his
head, as if angry with time. "If I had received Christ when
I was young we would have a big congregation here, and a church."
He looked me in the eyes and said in a strong voice, "We need
a church and a pastor. Can you get them for us?"
As I was getting ready to leave, Samuel grabbed my arm. "My
Hindu name used to be Muni Swami. That means "little guru."
He smiled broadly, "But, I was baptized last Sunday and my
Christian name is Samuel." I will remember Samuel. (pp. 160-161)
In a gray and hopeless prison in Port Sudan the invitation
to receive Christ was given after the showing of the film.
Would these hardened convicts be open to such a simple message?
Of the one hundred twenty who attended, eighty desired to
know Christ.
One who responded was a man who had killed five people. He
could not understand how God could forgive him until he saw
the gospel explained clearly on the screen. He wept openly
as he received Christ, and he said afterward that he could
die without being afraid because he had peace in his heart.
He knew the first face he would see after his execution would
be the face of Jesus. A few days later he was shot by a firing
squad.
The breath of the Spirit of God is blowing fresh across the
world. We are in the midst of the greatest harvest of the
centuries, reaping the results of the work of faithful men
and women of God who have gone before us. But the harvest
is great and the workers are far too few..unless you and I
are willing to live our lives on the edge of a miracle doing
whatever is necessary so that one more village can hear. (p.
164)
It was late, and the moon hung low and bright over the Caribbean
as we struggled against the waves threatening to capsize our
dugout canoe. Warm winds blew hard through the palms on shore,
churning the sea to a tempest while the thirty-five horsepower
outboard strained to pull us through. Several inches of water
sloshed around us and our equipment, and I watched the two
native boys bail it back over the side as fast as their arms
could manage. There were no oars, no moon, and no life jackets
and I prayed earnestly that God would get us to shore.
We were headed along the coast of Honduras with missionary
David Dickson bound for a Garifuna village where the gospel
had never been shared. JESUS was scheduled to be
screened for hundreds of Black Caribs in the language of the
Garifuna Indians, and we did not plan to disappoint them.
Finally, we headed the canoe toward shore and were soon unloading
on an isolated beach.
In a tropical paradise that stretches along the coast of Honduras,
Guatemala, Belize and Nicaragua, one hundred thousand Black
Caribs coax their livelihood from the sea as fishermen. Descendants
of 19th century black Africans who escaped from slave ships
and settled with Carib Indians, they have been almost overlooked
by those with the Good News--but not quite. In 1955 a young
Wycliffe translator named Lillian Howland went to Central
America to begin translation work on the New Testament. Thirty
years later she completed the translation but few Garifunas
had responded to the gospel. David Dickson heard that she
had mastered the language and began to study it under her
tutelage and is now the only white man to speak it fluently.
As he learned the language, his burden to see the Garifunas
reached increased. He saw the JESUS film as an opportunity
to spread the message quickly.
In 1984, David and two Garifunas left the palm-lined beaches
and jungles of Honduras and flew to San Bernadino, California,
to dub the film into their language. A few months later our
team returned with the film ready to be shown to the Black
Caribs.
In one scene Jesus greets a small child with a greeting known
only to these people. "What are you doing?" Jesus' Garifuna
voice says, "Nothing," the child responds, and the Black Carib
audiences break into applause and delighted laughter. "This
man knows Garifuna!" someone says. "He speaks our language.
He knows our greeting!"
As the film progressed, Dickson moved among the crowd of two
hundred chattering people to hear what was being said about
the film. When Jesus healed someone, comments like, "Look
at that! Can you believe that!" were heard. One woman said
to her friend, "Who wouldn't believe in Jesus? Did you see
Him heal that blind man? Anyone would want to believe in Him."
The Garifunas were especially please with scenes that involved
the sea and the fisherman's way of life. They loved watching
Peter and the disciples haul straining nets filled with fish
into their boats. And when Jesus spoke to the winds and calmed
the sea, everyone in the audience related to what they saw
because all of them had lost family and friends who drowned
in angry storms at sea.
They talked throughout the film, but the message got through.
After the showing, fifteen men and twenty women gathered under
the lights to make decisions to trust Christ. On the final
evening, the team showed the film in a large village to a
crowd of eighteen hundred Garifunas. Everyone came--drunks,
unruly children, even witch doctors performing incantations
as the film was shown. But the Spirit of God is strong enough
to meet any challenge, and that night one hundred fifty-five
made decisions for Christ.
The need is there--an insatiable hunger for the God of love.
And through the film JESUS, the message is being
told and understood. On our three-day trip to the Garifunas
two hundred of them prayed to receive Christ. Churches are
being established, disciples are being made, and their faith
is being built up. "Come back," a Garifuna village chief said.
"You must come back again and tell us more about Christ."
This year David Dickson will take the film to forty more villages.
He believes that as many as ten thousand may respond to the
message. The Garifuna and Tarahumara Indians have been called
"unreached people." The JESUS film may be the key to reaching
them and thousands of other groups like them around the world.
(pp. 168-171)
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