But we usually try to fight it off and stay on our sleeping mats until 7 a.m. This morning was different, though. My partner, David, and I had been invited by our local friend, Tyson, to go fishing. So, as the sun was just coming up, we were heading out in Tyson’s boat with two other guys.
Fishing here is definitely not a rod-and-reel exercise. These guys are spear fishermen. We parked our boat a couple hundred yards off the coast, and they went to work. Dave and I had brought along our own masks, snorkels and fins to watch the action.
The guys were incredible. They had old masks and one homemade fin each and homemade spear guns. They would dive down to a depth around 50 feet and then just hang out at the ocean floor until they spotted a good one. Then, they would shoot their spear guns with deadly accuracy. It was pretty incredible to watch. We stayed out in the water for about two and a half hours, and all three fishermen got about 20 fish each.
Later that evening, all three of them came to our house for a Bible study. We taught out of Luke 5, where Jesus asked Peter to go back out on the water after he had not caught any fish all day. Peter obeyed, and he ended up almost sinking his boats because of all the fish he caught. We were able to share how sometimes Jesus will ask us to do things that don’t make sense, but we need to be able to trust him.
It is always exciting when you can see a piece of the gospel fit in culturally and personally to people. The guys really related to Peter and the other fishermen, and they could see how it related to their lives.
Jared Jackson, a student at the University of Texas at Arlington, is serving with Go Now Missions in the Philippines.
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