Lemuel* and his family spent 7 years in an African country as missionaries. Lemuel has a heart and passion for the people that he met there, and at the last youth meeting he told us about a project that he and other Baptist churches in Spain are trying to accomplish.

Europe is home to many families who travel every summer to their homeland in Africa for vacation or to visit family members. They come down from all parts of Europe, and while many travel along the Spanish, Eastern coast, hundreds of others pass through Madrid on their way down south. A couple of the youth and the youth leaders took opportunity, along with Lemuel's family, to witness about Jesus Christ. We prepared special gift bags for the people with a Bible, several tracts, a CD, and even a coloring pack for children.

Lemuel explained how to approach people, what to do or not to do in order to respect their culture. We were told to offer the package as a free gift.

Once on site. we divided into groups. Some stayed at the entrance of the rest area and offered coming and leaving cars a package; others walked around in groups of 2 or 3, offering packages to all who would accept one. Those who spoke French walked about and chatted to anyone willing to talk to us about the differences in our religions.

We spoke first with a man who was passing through with his wife and two precious daughters. The man was very pleasant and very open. The conversation started out very sociably, then as we all got to feeling a bit more comfortable, Lemuel broached the subject of religion. Though we were not able to go into much detail, it was an interesting conversation nonetheless.

The next conversation we had was with a young man who had actually sought us out and deliberately wanted to talk about religion with us. He had heard that we were there, and was quite excited to talk with us. Lemuel handed him a gift package. The young man responded by saying, "Tell me something that will convince me that your religion is better than mine". Though we spoke in English and had to translate into Spanish for the benefit of Lemuel, we jumped right into a conversation, starting with the very beginning of the Bible. He begged us to talk about something we both disagreed on. We discovered that he was very well acquainted with the Bible as he had studied the Bible somewhere, and knew the Old Testament very well. We agreed on everything until we reached the subject of the Trinity. That was when the conversation started to get interesting for us all. The young man assured us that one person cannot be three people at the same time. After a lengthy conversation, we had to part ways. We prayed for him as he walked away, thanking God that we had had the opportunity to share with him; and that God had placed a desire in his heart to seek us out and that he was hungry for information. I am sure that we all felt God's presence amongst us.

Though we may have walked away that day feeling as if we had not accomplished anything, we will never know how much of an impact we made on those people's lives. Just seeing us walking around, talking to people with a smile on our faces and giving out free gifts was a witness to them. It is Lemuel's dream to involve more churches in this project, and turn this into a daily project one month every summer. The more consistent we are with sharing the Good News, the more opportunities we can offer others to get to know God. May God bless Lemuel for the work he is so faithfully doing, and may God bless this project!

* Not his real name