The First of Many
Account of Jack's first time leading someone to Christ.
7/23/20263 min read
Backstory:
Jack had just completed the first half of his Discipleship Training School with Youth With A Mission in Kona, Hawaii. He joined an outreach team going to Papua New Guinea, and one of their stops was serving on the M/V Liberty, a YWAM medical vessel bringing healthcare to the unreached communities of Papua New Guinea.
One day, a man named Pullian came on the ship and at the end of his visit sat down at Jack's chair for prayer. Jack recounts the interaction and his first time leading someone to Christ.
“Yeah no absolutely.
So this gentleman came in today. He’s probably in his late 60s early 70s. He was older and he didn't really speak English. I think he understood English, he just didn’t speak English.
And so I had pulled Kristy to the side and asked her if she could help translate for me. And so they start having a conversation, or she's more listening to him, and she kind of gives me a funny look.
And that's when she's like, 'You’re gonna lead this guy to Jesus today.'
And I kind of got a little nervous cause, you know, I haven't really led someone to Jesus before and I didn't know the questions to ask.
And she was like, 'I'm just going to sit here and I'm going to tell you what to say.'
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He came in, he was telling Kristy that he had gotten on the ship and then he had felt conviction and that he needed to give his life back to Christ and that everything in his life is rough.
And he just—he knew he needed God in his life.
And that's when she kind of told me, okay, this guys gonna get saved today or be led back to the Lord.
And so she told me the first step was to lead him in a prayer repentance and then ask him to accept Jesus. It’s kind of the rough idea, I guess.
I asked him if he was ready to repent, and he said 'yes'.
And he just started just laying it out there. He talked for like maybe two minutes, which was really really special.
I don't know what he said. I think him and the translator could understand, but it was more like a moment between him and God, I think.
He had said he’d done some bad things, and I just kind of reassured him, you know,
'You're forgiven. That's a fact. You're forgiven right now. It's not like it's five to seven business days’—it's immediate.'
There's power in the tongue when you speak. You know, you're given that authority.
And I was just kind of reminding him of that authority that he has in Christ.
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As well as he asked for healing, you know.
And so as I was kind of wrapping up, you know, getting ready to pray for him and to kind of seal this whole thing, and he said that he needed prayer for his eyes.
And at the end I felt led to tell him, like, often times we ask for healing and God—it's very much in God's will to heal, maybe not all the time, but more often times than not he's healing something in our soul as opposed to something physical.
And so I was like,
'You can rest assured tonight knowing that your soul is healed.'
You know– he was kind of excited about it. I could tell that there was like—there was an upbeat vibe, which is really special.
Yeah, I just sat there and reassured him, like,
'You're going to heaven. God desires a relationship with you.'
And then Kristy got one of the audio Bibles ready for him. He took that.
And the translator was actually encouraging him as well, like, 'yeah, if you listen to this, you know, you can spend time with Him.'
And he was worried about getting plugged into a church, and he was kind of far away.
I was going to, you know, encourage him to go to church with us, but he lives quite a ways away.
So I prayed over that as well, that God would reveal a church to him. And yeah.”