Churches investing creativity in direct missions
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___When Jesus said the workers are few but the harvest is plentiful, he could have been talking about the current situation in Bangladesh.?
___"We are in a serious situation where we have two career missionaries for 130 million people, but the people are very responsive," said a Texas missionary who cannot be identified for security reasons. "When you're talking about Muslims, you're talking about the hardest people to reach, so when the window is open, it is crucial that we take advantage of the opportunity."
___The missionary recently was in the United States for two reasons: To find people who might come to work in Bangladesh for short-term assignments of two years and to find churches willing to adopt the Bengali Muslims as a focus of their prayers and involvement. Mission strategists have divided Bangladesh into 64 districts, each containing from 1 million to 3 million people, and churches are being asked to pick a district for adoption.
___Four churches already are at work in the country, each employing a different strategy.
___Anderson Mill Baptist Church in Austin is one of those churches. Pastor Rod Minor and a businessman visited their adopted district, looked at the resources available, caught a vision for the ministry possible there and developed a strategy to make that vision a reality.
___The church now teaches women in the area to make baskets that are then sold over the Internet. The ministry specifically targets women.
___"Access to Muslim women is severely limited. In Muslim society, they are almost impossible for outsiders to interact with," the missionary explained. "They stay behind the veil, behind their husbands. We wanted to find some way to draw them out."
___The strategy worked, as 23 women showed up for training. In addition to the training needed to make the baskets, the women were exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
___For three months, the women were trained in how to make the baskets, were taught about Christianity and shown the "Jesus" film. They began bringing their husbands and family members. Then 400 people were organized into six groups for Bible study as decisions began to be made. From that group, 25 men have become Christians, one of those an imam, a Muslim religious leader.
___The Texas church also helped set up a computer business in Bangladesh. The business provides training and leases computers to residents. The missionary, who lives among the poverty of Bangladesh, was uncertain the concept would work because he didn't think enough people would have enough money to make the business run.
___The Austin businessman, however, showed him how to make it viable.
___"Businessmen are the No. 1 request for involvement in missions worldwide," the missionary said. "You've got a bunch of seminary grads who don't know anything about business, so we're relying on the gifts of business laymen."
___The district the Anderson Mill church has adopted is seeing about five baptisms and one church start per week, the missionary said. "You won't find that anywhere else among Muslim people."
___Meanwhile, Bear Creek Baptist Church in Houston has taken a different approach to ministry in Bangladesh. In the district the church has adopted, 145 people have been baptized since December.
___Bear Creek sent $4,000 through the International Mission Board to purchase Bibles, and then men from the church traveled to the country to disperse them.
___Women from the church went to the schools and photographed the children there. The photographs were given to the children's mothers. They did this because many children from the region are kidnapped and taken to India and forced to beg in the streets, some being maimed so that they will have more earning power and not be able to flee. The photographs will give parents a tool to use to try to find their children--something to show to people rather than a vague description that might fit thousands of children.
___Omar Garcia, minister of education and missions at Bear Creek, said the simple act of taking the pictures and presenting them to the mothers had a tremendous impact.
___"The imams teach that all American women are immoral and dress like prostitutes," he said. "These acts of kindness took the force out of those teachings. Our women did a wonderful work of ministry, and these parents appreciated that. We've learned that kindness can lead to truth."
___Last year the Houston church also created open doors for witness by testing water wells for arsenic poisoning.
___After the testers completed their work, they told a couple of stories from the Bible using a storying technique. If the villagers said they would like to hear more, storying teams were sent in to tell the stories of the Bible from beginning to end.
___Garcia told of one time when the stories of the New Testament were told to 10 Muslim men in concert with the showing of the "Jesus" film.
___"While the film was playing, the men kept talking among themselves, but of course I couldn't understand them, so I asked the interpreter what they were saying. He told me, 'They are saying, "This is wonderful to see this story in this way. We will not forget this story. We will go home and dream about it."'"
___All 10 professed faith in Christ and were baptized.
___The trip became more tense, however, after the imams in the area became angry about Bibles being given to the people.
___"The people were eager to receive these books the Koran refers to," Garcia said. But the imams told the people to begin looking for the truck that had been passing out the Bibles.
___"The missionary told us, 'We have to leave the area and we have to leave right now,'" Garcia said. "That feeling you have when you sense danger--I had it then."
___Adopting the Bengali Muslims has been a terrific thing for the Houston church, Garcia reported.
___"The idea and goal to begin with was to develop a greater heart for missions so that we were doing more than praying and giving," Garcia said. "As a result, even those who have not gone have grown vicariously through that."
___Churches do not have to make a huge financial investment to participate in this project, he said.
___"It's not a monetary investment as much as it is a spiritual investment," he explained. "It has not been a major financial investment, but an investment in creativity and a commitment to prayer that have made the ministry work."
___ For more information on working with this project, contact Joe Bruce at Texas Partnerships, (214) 828-5184.

©2000 The Baptist Standard