Have you heard the expression “Boots on the Ground?” Well our Live Dead Missionaries are the boots on the Silk Road. Here we’d like to take a moment and allow one of them to share a snapshot of their life with you. Some names and details have been changed, but this is a true story from this colorful, vibrant, and sometimes surprising region.

“Can Jesus lie?” My friend’s question caught me completely off guard, so I immediately with a little bit of incredulity replied, “Of course not! He is God. God does not lie.”

Before we go any further, I should probably give you a little bit of backstory. Our family are members of a team living and working in a country on the Silk Road. We have helped to open a center where five days a week we hand out Bibles and Christian books and have significant conversations with those who, for the most part, have yet to hear the truth about Jesus.

Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour).

John 1:35 – 39

My friend, Frank, has been coming to the center almost since it opened. In the beginning he would show up one or two days a week. Gradually, the time he spent at the center grew as did his curiosity. Week after week, we had deep conversations about faith in Christ, which leads me back to Frank’s original question, “Can Jesus lie?”

He continued: “Then tell me what Jesus means when He says, ‘You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart’ (Matt. 5:27 – 28). How can this be true?”

What followed was an even deeper conversation about how the law only deals with the fruit of sin (adultery), but Jesus came to free us from the root of sin (lust). Eventually, after almost a year of coming to the center, Frank made a confession of faith in Christ.

This is what it looks like to see people answering the call of Christ to “come and see.” Rarely is a person’s journey to belief linear. Discipleship is not something that only occurs after the point of conversion. We begin discipling people towards belief in Christ from the first time we interact with them, trusting the Holy Spirit through the kindness of God to draw people to repentance. There is a saying that we have heard several times as we have worked to learn the language: “Yavaş, yavaş.” It means, “Slowly, slowly.” Learning this language is very similar to sharing the gospel. Slowly, slowly, we see people being discipled towards repentance and belief. Slowly, slowly, we get to witness the lost answering the call to “come and see.”