Don't Forget the Eavesdroppers

     While the church in Colinas (Joao Pessoa) knocked doors in their neighborhood, they came across a house with a broken gate. It was a problem for the grandmother who kept her grandchildren and worried about them running out into the street. A brother came and fixed her gate, and her daughter accepted a Bible study.

     When we study the Bible with someone, we try to find a quiet place with no interruptions, where privacy may allow the person to open up. But the Gospel is seed, and a lot of times we can't control where it is going to fall, and that is the way it should be.

     After the God's word was shared, the daughter decided she wasn't ready to give her life to Jesus, but her mother, Dona Antonia, who had been eavesdropping from the kitchen, came in and said, "I know all of that and I want it for my life." She was baptized the first Sunday of February.

     Come to think of it, several people we know eavesdropped on the Gospel. Bartolomeu turned up the TV to drown out the Bible study with his wife, son, and mother-in-law in Caruaru, but something got through, and till today he is a faithful disciple.

     Manoel in Recife was a rude, explosive man in the other room while his wife had a Bible study. But Jesus transformed him into a gentle man, faithful to death. He passed last year.

     I remember studying the Bible with Ivani here in João Pessoa. We would invite her husband Francinaldo, but he had a Mexican soap opera on TV that he couldn't miss. But he would hear bits and pieces of the Great News, and today he loves the Lord and the church, and is a constant source of encouragement.

     So when you share the Gospel, speak up, you never know who might be listening.