House to House

Gray skies drizzled rain on the tree lined walkway as we made our way to the next house. A narrow elevated dirt path skirted a muddy rice field. Balancing myself like a child, I followed my 2 Filipino companions who stepped their way across the slippery path with ease. Moments later, we emerged into a yard surrounded by 3 bamboo and thatched roof huts.

Barefooted children peered from behind bamboo fences. Ragged clothes hung wet on sagging lines. Dogs barked their complaint and cats scurried to safety. An older lady filled the doorway of the nearest house as the father of the family emerged from the back with a carpenters plane in one hand and a rough plank of wood in the other. We were welcomed inside.

This week, 12 members of First Baptist Church of Azle, Texas, and 3 members of Center Point Baptist Church in Weatherford, Texas, are spending a week of their summer on a mission trip here in our city of Iloilo. For the past 3 days, we have spoken in 5 elementary and high schools, singing, sharing our testimonies, and handing out Bibles, then walking house to house, making Christ known to churchless neighborhoods.

This is the simplest, most basic means of evangelization. Jesus told his disciples to go house to house, looking for “persons of peace”, those in whom God has been at work, preparing their hearts to receive His gospel message. The next step is to begin a Bible study in the homes of those who want to learn more. From there, we hope to see house churches formed.

It’s a different world where these Filipinos live. Although life is simple, living is hard. Absent are all those modern conveniences that we think we can’t live without. Food is cooked in pots over a wood fire. Clothes are washed at the creek. The day ends when the sun goes down and begins before it rises in the morning. But God loves these “least” of the world as much as anyone else.

Martha returned from India last week where she witnessed to people of another culture. Less than a hundred miles from Mt. Everest, she spent nearly a week in the Himalayan foothills, sharing the gospel house to house near the border of Nepal. She and 20 other MK’s traveled through the crowded, dirty city of Calcutta, where beggars and homeless slept in the streets.

Regardless of where we are in this sin-cursed world, the needs of people are the same. People are lost in the rural villages of the Philippines. They are lost in the crowded cities of India and in the remote mountains of Nepal. They are lost in the comforts of urban America. But in the regions of Judea, many years ago, Jesus dealt with our sin on Calvary, so we might be saved through His grace. This is the message we carried, house to house.