Grandma, how are you?

In 28 December 2015 until early February 2016,  I joined Residential Bible School which was held in Cameron Highlands. It's a 1 months plus Bible school. I'm going to share about my evangelism experience in the street, which is one of the task we need to do while attending the school.

On the 21st of January 2016, my team (which is about 6) were sent to a small town in Cameron Highlands called Brinchang for street evangelism. Honestly, this was my first time and my very first try to preach gospel to strangers. Therefore, I felt scared. Since young, I wanted to be a doctor to help those poor people, providing free treatments to them. I think this was why God had implanted me a higher sense of compassion and always urged me to help others all the time. God used my personality to give me my first lesson in evangelism.

The circled spot was where I found a lonely and homeless grandma.

After my team was dropped off at Brinchang, we split into pairs of two or three. My group of three walked around almost the whole Brinchang for about 30 minutes but the whole street was either empty or met the wrong person. As we walked back to the place where we were dropped off, I saw a grandma sitting under a tree. She was more than 80 years old. Since we had not preached to anyone yet, so I tried on her.

She was partially dead and when the first thing that came into her mind was "Jesus", she kept asking us to leave her alone. From here, I guess she might be anti-Christian person. She believed in Guan Yin because this was her family tradition and kept mentioning how good her life was. But in contrast, what kind of "good"? It was just because her sons and daughter were working now, not doing any bad stuffs. Besides that, she was happy because she cold earn some money from selling old newspapers and boxes. But her children did not take care of her well!!! Well, she was satisfied with it.

I don't really get the opportunity to tell her the truth about Jesus Christ. Instead, I got to know more about her life. Through her eyes and my own feelings, I knew that she hid some parts of her life because it might be very painful for her, the dark side of her life. I can't felt the love of her family. If her family members love her, why would be she living alone, and only a grandson in Cameron Highlands, surviving by such a low and unstable income? I don't know why.

She's really a strong woman. She covered the truths with lies perfectly and not exposing any minor details to me, in fact she kept telling me to obey my parents, work harder in life and don't do bad things. I guess she might had have a deep hurt before? For weeks, what was still in my mind was her eyes. Yes, her eyes, which was filled with tears but she just can't show any weakness to me. Her pain might be too deep to be mentioned.

Through this heart breaking experience, my heart of feeling the need to preach gospel was increased. I did cried that night because the pain she had and I can't help her out. My tears felt off were warm. I might not well enough to express my feelings and thoughts here. It's all messed up with my emotions. My first evangelism wasn't successful, but God let me to have the heart of evangelism.

I pray that her family can give her the love that she really need. Furthermore, I pray that she could find someone who she trust and share about her own hardship to express her innermost feeling. Finally, I pray for her salvation and her openness towards Christianity.

The above article was originally written at 27 January 2016.

It's been more than 1 year that I've never been to Brinchang. If anyone could see an old lady nearby that area, with a brown hat, a dog and lots of boxes around that area, please approach her and give her a hug maybe?

                                                      Grandma, how are you?