Let me give you an example of these women that was just on the ship a couple of weeks ago. There were six women who had a condition where they were chronically incontinent of urine because of a child birth injury that occurred because they didn't have access to medical care for the delivery of their child resulting in this condition.
Well, they are on the hospital ward and the staffs had the chance to just get to know these patients. So what they get to do is just sit with them and they'll chat with them and tell them stories of their own lives. Often times those stories will include what they have done, but also they include stories on what God has done in their own lives.
The thing that makes the biggest difference is not the stories themselves but the fact that these women who have been outcast - they may not have had human touch for 8-10 years - just imagine that! They might not have had human touch for 8-10 years and now there is someone sitting next to them on the bed. They're sitting in a puddle of urine because they are chronically leaking and they have a staff member sitting their holding their hands.
It is very common for a patient to say that the care that you show me, just caring and the human touch I had here, I am convinced that there must be a loving God for this to be possible. That is how they say it. Often times in a different language, but that is what they say. (Laugh) This caring touch that I received, it's clear that God is not evil and angry as I have thought. There must be a loving God.
Well, guess what, that opens up the door to explaining about a loving God. Then we can say we are here because He has loved us and it is just the chance for us to share that love with you and that opens them up wide to the Gospel.
And out of those six ladies all of them are Muslims. Four of them chose to follow Jesus as a result of this experience. It wasn't because we had a Gospel tract to give them or were handing them a Bible at the door or anything like that. It is because we sat on the bed with them and touched their hands and told them that there is a loving God and they saw that in what we did. That is the main way the Gospel message is communicated - the touch we give to the outcast people and taking care of people no one else will have anything to do with.
We do show the Jesus Film and we do hand out Bibles by the way. But those are support things and aren't the primary means we use.
This community that we are [currently] in is a community that no one has ever paid attention to before. Why are we there? That is there question. (Laughs) It is because God is a loving God and He has enabled us to come here for you. We would love to tell you about Him.
