Bridge built

He just kept hounding us with his heavily accented English. "Meester, just one listen, Meester, I can hiilp you, Meester, you can safe money." It seemed to get louder and louder as he grew more annoying in my mind. He stalked us...ok maybe it was followed us down the street yelling and acosting us for about one hundred yards. It is funny that while being antagonized I thought about a session I had heard from Dave Stone, Pastor of a church I am a member of in Louisville Kentucky, called “building bridges.” Dave explains how everything can be turned into an opportunity from Christ. That Saturday morning session in KY with donuts and coffee in air conditioning given not by a missionary but by a pastor came to the forefront of my mind as I walked in 95+ degree sun in a foreign country with a screech echoing in my ears.

I turned to my stalker, and said "ok I will listen to you if you listen to me" as kindly as I could at that trying moment. He went through his spiel about hotel rooms really cheeep, he had hotel rooms all around the world and I could have cheeep access to them if I purchased something from him. I thought beads of sweat were pouring down from my brow but they were more like golf balls of sweat. He finished finally and I politely said “no thank you, I don’t travel the world and I am not interested” as kindly as I could knowing that my attitude was not very cheery at this moment. At last, it was my turn I thought to myself. I pulled my bible out of my backpack and opened to Romans 3:23. I asked him “do you know where you are going when you die?” He started to grin from ear to ear and said to me, “Are you a Christian?” Sarcastically, I said, “yes, are you?” Expecting to hear the typical, "I am, almost." Instead, he exclaimed loudly, “yes, I love the Lord and hesitatingly added but what kind of Christian are you?” "I believe in the bible and Jesus is the son of God." I asked him are you baptized? He said "no." My attitude of self righteousness would not let go and spiked at this precise moment, this was my chance to get him. "Well let’s go baptize you right now" I stated with gusto. We all knew we were within walking distance of a body of water called the Atlantic Ocean. To my complete surprise and admittidly shagrin he said, "ok, lets go." I was so taken off guard I forgot which way the ocean was. After getting my bearings we headed off. We talked on the way to the beach as I tried to find out if he really had given his life to Christ. From what I could gather he truly was living for the Lord. But then it happened. I said, "do you have a towel or anything" and he asked why? I said, "well when we dunk you in the water you will be wet." He said, "oh you are not going to sprinkle me on the head?" Had his ploy worked or did I need to explain why we baptize by immersion. As I talked I could only think about him claiming to be a Christian just to get me to buy something. We did not baptize Philippe that day. He did give me his phone number and I promised to call him when I was in town so he could be baptized. We seperated and I had learned my lesson about my attitude. I had to ask myself if God was thinking well of my not so joyful giving.

I called Philippe a few times to no avail as I was back in his town for various things. I figured he gave me a fake number and just wanted my money. One Saturday on whim I called him again and spoke with him. I told him I was going to be in town on Monday and that if he wanted to he could be baptized. He said it would have to be at 6pm after work so we agreed to meet. On Monday I was on my way to meet up with another missionary who was working with Mercy Ships. I shared with my friend Jeff King what I wanted to do and he readily agreed to assist. I was still not so sure what would happen with Phillipe because it was not such an easy road to set this all up. I kept thinking isn’t God in control and remembering my poor attitude of the "chance" meeting of Phillipe? If God is so big then why would he stop one of His kids from being baptized? There was also a little challenge in communication. While Philippe could speak English it was difficult to understand so we spoke mostly Spanish. His Spanish was also a challenge for me because Philippe is Haitian and my Spanish is sub-par. I found out later he had little schooling but could still speak four languages (Creole, French, Spanish, English) as opposed to me who has had much schooling and have trouble with standard English. It wasn’t because he was speaking Spanish poorly but rather I was not accustomed to hearing this type of heavy Creole accent in Spanish.

Jeff and I went to the meeting point. Philippe was not there. About thirty minutes later I got hold of him by phone and said, where are you? He said he lived just 20 minutes away and that he would be there shortly. 7pm came and went; 7:30 came and went. Jeff and I with my colleague Amaury who had also joined me sat down at a local restaurant and had a soda. Amaury helped me drive the 90 minutes or so from Santiago to the coast. At 8pm still no Philippe. For sure he is not coming and he is just wanting my money I thought again. Well, he is only going to get another phone call to chew him out. At 8:15 between my third and fourth soda I spot him. Philippe showed up to be baptized. Not only that he brought with him a cousin who also wanted to be baptized. I still was admittedly sour and I was not going to make this easy for them because they were so late. I asked them numerous questions and we talked for about two hours. Somewhere around 10pm we walked to the shoreline.

Amaury had the camera and I rolled up my pants to get into the Atlantic Ocean. I entered and Phillipe called to me from the beach and said, you are going to get all wet we are not going in with our pants on. At that moment I was not sure what to do. I prayed ever so fast, "Lord I don’t want to take my pants off what should I do?" The answer I got was “this is not about you John, make them as comfortable as possible." I thought to myself, "make them as comfortable as possible, what kind of a response is that God?" How easy it is to think about baptizing someone is going to get me points in heaven. I am so glad that we don’t work on a point system because even as I was preparing to baptize others into the Body of Christ I was thinking about myself. How selfish am I? I walked back up to where they were standing in this deserted part of the beach, looked around to make sure no one was watching and ever so caustiously, removed my pants while peering up and down the beach for people.

Until that moment those guys had not started to head toward the water but when I reluctantly took my pants off it was like a race for them to get into the water. Under a almost a full moon, a cornucopia of twinkling stars, listening to the gentle lapping of waves from the calm sea and with soft sand between my toes I baptized two new brothers in Christ. There was not a better place to be that night. What a thrill for me to see this happen and in all of it God has taught me how to obey Him and persevere where He is involved. At any point especially right on the street I could have easily told Philippe off and who knows if he would have been baptized? At any other given point because of my “negativism” I could have ruined a very good thing. I praise God for not letting me get in the way of His work. I have learned to continue to take various situations and turn them into God moments. I was in a room recently where we were evangelizing and a child dropped a plate. The mom was very upset but God gave me the chance to use that broken plate incident to explain the Gospel and how we are broken. The mom's countenance changed considerably when she heard how God could change her broken life.

If you ever get the chance to take the building bridges class I urge you attend with open ears and then share with an open heart, not like me. It makes things much more difficult. Tell Dave a mssionary in the Dominican Republic learned a thing or two from him