Posted: 8/22/03
Missionary gets warm welcome
By John Hall
Texas Baptist Communications
Eastern Europeans love Americans, according to a student summer missionary. But they had no idea what this American stands for until they met him.
Still grateful for the aid provided in past wars, Eastern Europeans celebrate everything American, including July 4.
They waited on Wade Ashby, a Baptist General Convention of Texas student summer missionary, “hand and foot,” even fighting to make his bed. They offered him women “left and right,” he said.
Ashby and his missionary teammate witnessed to the people by correcting their misguided ideas about what the Texan was like. He discovered a schedule was difficult to keep because he felt God calling him to share his faith with people he encountered. Sometimes he spent hours explaining a Bible passage to a Muslim.
“A lot of times, they would have preconceived notions from what they saw in movies,” Ashby explained. “We would have to explain we're not like that.”
Helping people understand his beliefs was one way Ashby built relationships as he taught English and computer science classes. Eastern Europeans asked a lot of questions about his faith, and he quickly learned he could not testify without God's presence.
“You come to the realization you know things by faith,” said Ashby, a senior business major at Angelo State University. “I can't tell (the gospel) without God. Through a language barring you, you can't share Christ unless the Holy Spirit moves.”
Although Ashby did not see any professions of faith in Christ from his efforts, he trusts God will work through his International Mission Board supervisor to lead people to Christianity. Several of the people Ashby met will help propagate the gospel, he believes.
“There were a lot of good relationships built,” Ashby said. “There were a lot of people in the computer science classes the IMB people wouldn't have met who will be great translators.”
The student also was encouraged when he saw a European Christian lead a fellow countryman to Christ at a café. He said he is considering a return mission trip to the area after he graduates in December and is hopeful a wave of indigenous reproducing small churches and cell groups will spread across the region.
“God has already been there,” Ashby insisted. “He's already working. He was minister before I got there, and he's still there now.”
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