Did you ever hear the story of Jesus and Abraham?

I was in Cambodia recently. On one of my days off I went to a local handicraft market. My friend and I found that several of the women that we bought crafts from could speak some basic English.

One lady was seven months pregnant with her first child and as we were leaving her stall my friend said, “Why don’t you tell her a Bible story about a baby?” Her suggestion was that I tell part of the Abraham story, especially the birth of Isaac.

The problem was that the word ‘God’ in English she probably wouldn’t understand and even if she knew the word she might not know what God I was referring to. I wanted her to know that we were followers of Jesus. So I decided to use the word Jesus rather than God in the story. In one sense the switch has no problems even if it is rather unconventional to use the title in the Old Testament stories.

So the story was, “One day about 4000 years ago, Jesus said to an old man called Abraham … (Genesis 12:1-3 promises) and then on to the promise that they would have a son next year … Abraham laughed and said, ‘Is it possible that an old man of nearly 100 and his 90 year old wife would ever have a son?’ … ‘with Jesus all things are possible’ … the next year they had a son and called him laughter.”

I always try to have some way that people can be followed up so I asked, “Do you know any followers of Jesus?” She did and I suggested that she go and ask them to tell her stories.

With the success of this effort I then went on and told the unusual story of ‘Jesus and Noah’ to another saleslady. She too knew a follower of Jesus. She was clear that she didn’t want to read stories (“I don’t like reading”) but would love to HEAR stories.

It never ceases to amaze me how many adaptations can be made to allow people to hear stories. May both these ladies remember that they met followers of Jesus who told interesting stories and go to find out more.