On Boxing Day my family went to the beach to celebrate Gaby's* birthday. Every year Gaby* invites us and a bunch of her German friends to a different beach for a picnic. We talk, play games and sometimes even swim. Sometimes we get some serious talking in, but usually it is mostly festive talk.
This year I decided to put a copy of a German movie about Jesus in my pocket. This was easy to do. I went to mylanguage.net.au and downloaded the German copy of Magdalena. Just to be safe I also downloaded the English copy. The crowd is mostly German-speaking, but some of the spouses prefer English. I then put them on a nice looking USB stick. 4 Gig is plenty big.
In the car on the way to the beach my wife and I started talking about which of the guests I should give the movies to. We thought of Sayed*, who originally came from Iran, but met his wife in Germany and now lives in Australia. His family had joined us for a Christmas concert at the Town Hall last year, but had missed this year's performance.
When my saw Sayed* she mentioned how we missed them at the concert. Sayed* said they waited too late to get tickets so they went to St Andrews Cathedral for their Christmas program instead. They talked about the great music they had each heard and then Chris asked Sayed* when he became a Christian.
"I'm not a Christian", Sayed* said with alarm. "I am still a Muslim. I go to the Christian services because I like the music."
I was away during this conversation and didn't hear about it until we got into the car. I talked with Sayed about an hour later. We also talked about the concerts. I then told him I had a Christmas present for him: a German movie. He was interested to know more about it and so I said it was a movie about the Christmas story. He was eager to receive it.
We talked further about life and what we were doing. I showed him a project I've been working on: an app of Bi-lingual Gospel tracts. I pulled out my phone and selected Farsi. He read alone for three minutes and then said, "How can I get this app?"
I pressed on a button and said, "Type your email address here and you will get a link. You will also get my email address so we can continue our conversation".
That is how I did beach evangelism this week. What ways have you found effective to share your faith at the beach?
Till next time,