Monday, January 30, 2012

Working in the Fields

We have been doing a lot of outreach lately. Elder Wakefield picked an area for the whole church to work in and assigned teams to streets. The plan was for each team to make a map of their street. Get to know your "field" where you will be working for the next few months...or maybe longer. We were then to start knocking doors and talking to the people. 

We are starting out by going to each house and surveying. We want to know what they believe, but of course the main goal is to teach these people about Jesus! So many times people will answer their doors looking very wary, especially when we ask if we can ask them a few questions. But after a few questions you can see as they begin to open up, smile, and the ice starts to be broken. 
These are the questions on the survey:

1. What is your religion?
2. What is the name of your God? 
3. Do you talk to God or images?
4. Do you assist a religious service or mass?
5. Do you believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ? 
6. Do you believe in eternity?
7. Do you believe the devil exists? 
8. Do you believe in hell? 
9. If you were to die today, where would you go? 
10. Do you believe the Bible is the word of God? 
11. Do you read the Bible? 
12. Would you like to attend a Bible study in your neighborhood? 

We get some of the funniest answers. Most people love answering the questions, but very few are sure about any of their responses! It is sad, but we do get people that answer #9 with "Hell". Most people just say they are not sure. Most everyone believes the Bible is the word of God, but we come across very few people that actually read it. 

Mexico has been known as being very Catholic in years past, however, slowly but surely other religions are making their ways into our city. We have found in this area Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventist...one young guy's response to #1 was "Stand-by". We get all kinds of crazy answers! 

The map for our street
Each box represents a house. Beside each house is the name of the person we talked to. 

Elder Wakefield and Sis. Julia
Sis. Julia lives in this neighborhood and knows most everyone. Her and Pastor are a team! 

Sis. Wakefield and I are a team...She invites the people to church and explains how to get there. I ask all the questions. Gramma is so sweet, very few can resist when she asks if we can survey them. :)

Bro. Jorge on his street

Bro. Mario and Evangelist Abner (haha) working on their "farm"


Horses...

This is at the end of my street...the people are so poor! But...look at the horses! :)

I took this picture as the boy on the far right came running out of his house with a rifle. I was thinking, "Oh, dear Lord, I hope that is fake!" 

A little Catholic church 

A shack

...and another one. 

Overall, we are having a good time with this!! Sometimes whole families will come out and all want to answer the questions. It really is a good conversation-starter. 
Sis. Wakefield and I had a young boy telling his mom to be quiet and let HIM answer the questions. He was quite the smarty pants.  

Of course outreach would not be outreach without all the street dogs...they are pitiful!

This one wanted attention so badly. He was going bald on the top of greeezy little head. 


We saw this dog on the sidewalk that had apparently been ran over. However, it was SO old that it did not even stink. It was basically just a pile of dog hair...but still in perfect shape. 


A motorcycle with four people on it AND a load of laundry. So funny!!

Sometimes the houses do not have doors...so we knock on whatever there is available!!
If there is nothing, Sis Wakefield yells, "Dun, dun!!?" That is how you say "knock, knock" in Spanish! 

 This lady is one of Sis. Julia's neighbors. She looks about 142! One of her eyes are even blue and she has a humpback. She is a little of hard of hearing so you have to shout at her to get your point across. She is really funny!!

After outreach
 Sis. Julia waving goodbye to us as she went into her little house. 

Pray for us as we work in our fields!! We are very excited about the people we are meeting and are believing God for a great harvest of souls from this area! Pray that God would touch the hearts of the people we come in contact with. These people are so lost and know nothing of Jesus and this wonderful truth. Very soon though, not one house will remain un-knocked! :)


4 comments:

Jennifer Connell said...

Beth and Nicole, I absolutely LOVE reading your blog! Especially since it's about the work of God. Love it! I so want to come visit! :) Very humbling to see how some of those people live. We have done surveys over here too. It's amazing the answers that people come up with! I'll have to remember "Dun Dun" since the neighborhood our church is in is mainly Spanish speaking. Love you guys! Looking forward to more posts.

Abner said...

Evangelista? Jajajaja

Marissa Wilson said...

That is so awesome! I pray for y'all often! I really want to work with the Spanish outreach at our church (we are about to start another one because it has gotten so big) and I would someday love to help with missions! It's an awesome work y'all are doing. Keep it up! We're praying for you!! :)

Dacia Loa said...

I guess I hadn't seen this post yet. I laughed when I saw the picture you put up of that dead dog!!! I suppose it's mean to laugh, but, hey, dogs don't have souls! :D

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