DVDs for Your Non-American Neighbors

Probably every American can now say they know a neighbor or co-worker from another country. We need to take this opportunity to take the Gospel to the nations just by befriending the people who have come to live and work among us.

Check out these ten DVDs to see if you find a DVD in the right language group for your friend and their family. The DVDs are grouped by regions of Asia, Africa, and more. If you work on or near a campus, you might be interested in the All Nations JESUS DVD for International Scholars. This one DVD has the “JESUS” film in 16 languages: Arabic, Cantonese, English, Farsi, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish (Latin American), Thai, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese. Subtitled in Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), English, French, German, and Korean.

You will want to come back to Reaching the Nations Among Us in the future to see what more they will have to offer.

Using Web Addresses

I had forgotten my tracts that morning, so I thought I would not talk to anyone. However, a conversation naturally opened up with Lindsay and I jotted down a web site address for her. Read more…

I have often written a web address on a slip of paper when witnessing to people, especially if English is a person’s second language or I do not have a tract with me.

Some easy-to-memorize web addresses you can use are:

For evangelism:
everystudent.com for college students

For discipleship:
growinginchrist.com for learning how to walk with Christ

These will work without the http:// and the www. Try it first, if you like, and then visit Global Media Outreach for a partial list of their ninety-plus evangelistic and discipleship web sites which you could memorize.

You can also make addresses easier by using tinyURL.com. I made one for the video presentation on my web site, which you may use:

tinyurl.com/whyjesuscame for a complete video Gospel presentation

and also two more:

tinyurl.com/whoisjesus-really for the Good News in dozens of languages

tinyurl.com/watchthejesusfilm for a film of the Gospel of Luke in hundreds of languages

If you just want to send a really short link by Twitter or texting, try using tr.im, which will assign a random shortened URL. (If you create an account at tr.im, it will keep track of your shortened URLs for you. With tinyurl.com, I have had to make my own list so I will remember them.) Of course, these really short URLs from tr.im will not be meaningful and will be harder to memorize, but not impossible.

Here’s one, ready to go for texting or Twittering:
Who Is Jesus – Really? tr.im/yboN

If you write an evangelistic blog on WordPress.com, they automatically provide short links now (wp.me), so you can send your evangelistic post easier as a text or a Tweet. Just click on “Get Shortlink” under your post title when you are writing or editting your post.

You could also write these shorter addresses on the back of tracts or make a business card with web addresses if you wanted to.

Please add your suggestions of websites you would use.

What I Keep in My Purse

The clerk watched me rummaging through my purse. I had already paid and should have been walking away. I was pawing through more than seven varieties of tracts trying to find the right one. The minute this took to do was agonizingly long.

This is awkward, I thought, as I finally handed her a little green booklet. I went home and removed some of the tracts. (Read more of this story.)

The basic booklets I keep with me are also different colors and, therefore, easy to identify and pull out.

I have:
green Would You Like To Know God Personally,
blue Satisfied? (The Holy Spirit booklet),
cream/green Beginning Your Journey of Significance (new Four Laws for women),
cream/purple Living a Life of Significance? (new Holy Spirit booklet for women),
yellow The Four Laws in Spanish, and
black The Passage.

I use the green and blue booklets because I think the question on the cover would draw the person in to read the tract. Also, several times when I used to have the original yellow English Four Spiritual Laws in my purse, I would discover in the checkout line that all my booklets were in Spanish! However, God can use that situation, too!

In 2007, I also started carrying the Who is He? mini-CD for giving to twenty-something guys and for giving to internationals since the mini-CD presents the Gospel in more than thirty languages. Check out the content of this powerful tool. (An entire English Bible, apologetic books, and more).

Another tract I have added recently is 4 Laws – Discovering God in Chinese Characters. This tract explains how to know Jesus by explaining the etymological roots of Chinese characters. The message of salvation found in Genesis is revealed in these characters.

Read real-life stories about sharing tracts with the people you meet.

Their Language, Your Home

. . . Malle, I discovered, was from Estonia. Someone had convinced her she could go door-to-door in the blistering Florida summers and sell educational encyclopedias for a summer job.

I had to run back into the house a few times as I was helping my kids paint the hall and they were waiting for me to bring in some more paint. On my first trip back in the house, I clicked on the internet and went to find The Four Spiritual Laws in Estonian. I clicked “print” and went back out where Malle was waiting.

After a little more conversation, I went back in and printed the web site page for the Jesus Film in Estonian and gathered up the Estonian Four Laws. I was on the same page with God by now and eager to see where our conversation would lead.

I handed Malle the Gospel in her own language. . . (Read the entire story).

Your computer is a valuable resource for presenting the Gospel to people whose first language is not English.

You can print a Gospel presentation in other languages or send a link if you are corresponding by e-mail. People always appreciate receiving something in their own language. When I have done this, people have always expressed their appreciation that I could give them something in their own mother tongue. I am more confident, too, that they will actually read it, especially if they are far from home.

Your international friends can also watch the Jesus film in their language, if their computer is set up for video. Once, I showed a technician the Jesus film site and even had my computer playing a Serbian version of the film while he was working inside the house. I know he was listening to this “background noise!”