As Christians we know that God is always working through us, but we often forget that He is also working through people all over the world. This past week in Brazil has been a fresh reminder to our team that God is omnipresent and He is the God of every tribe, tongue, and nation. In our short time here, we have already seen first-hand, how God is not limited in any way, He has no boundaries, no restrictions, and no restraints. He can move through us whether or not we speak the native language or can fully understand the Brazilian culture.
One example of this is when we went to the park this week to evangelize to local Brazilians. Our team was asked to lead worship and perform the gospel drama we have been practicing for this trip. As we were singing, many people stopped by and looked over to see what was going on and lingered around our group. After we sang a few songs we jumped right into acting out the skit. While we were in the middle of it, a group of teenagers walked up and were captivated by the story we were portraying. When we finished, they applauded and seemed to be moved by the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection.
They explained to some of our team members that they felt like their lives were falling apart and were encouraged by what we were doing through the story we had just portrayed. Some of our team had the opportunity to talk with them further and pray over them.
This experience shows that God can and will use anyone and anything to glorify Him when we are willing to fully trust Him and be obedient to what He is calling us to do. It could have been more comfortable for our team to ignore what God was calling us to do, but because of our obedience to Him we were able to witness to a group of people who needed to experience the love of Christ. God was present and He was the focus of what we were doing, the attention was not on us, everything we said and did was the overflow of God in us. We were just being the vessels He needed to speak to those specific teenagers at that specific time.
This encounter taught our team that evangelism is more than just speaking the gospel to someone. We were not able to fully communicate because of the language barrier, but through acting out the story of the gospel we were able to plant seeds and be a light to people who were living in darkness. We learned as a team how to share the gospel without even having to open our mouths. Language and cultural barriers do not hinder God from continuing to use His people to grow His kingdom. He cannot be limited in anything that He does, He is truly the God of the impossible.
