Learning how to seize opportunities – storying at parties

Lynne recalls her early experiences of telling stories in Central Asia.

Over the last four years I have sat at an uncountable number of local parties, and each of them was the same. We would sit on the floor around a tablecloth filled with bread and sweets, about twenty ladies in the room, and the ladies would gossip while I would sit there silent and frustrated, wishing I could share something that would lead them to know the Lord but not knowing where to begin. Starting is always the hardest, isn’t it?

Then as I began to grow in confidence telling the creation and Fall stories to individual women, I started to realize that there are opportunities to begin all over the place. The more I would tell the stories, the more links and ways to begin I would see. I also noticed that the Lord was prompting me and I was often just too fearful to open my mouth. By the time I got up the courage, the conversation would have moved on. I determined that, with the Lord’s help, I would try to act immediately on any idea he gave me.

Surprise, surprise, at the very next party I went to, a lady had come back from years living as a ‘foreigner’ and ‘stranger’ in Russia and spoke of how hard it was. They all turned to me and commiserated with me that I was also away from my homeland. There was my opportunity! “But I hope you realise that I’m not the only foreigner here,” I said. “Actually we are all foreigners, away from our true homeland because none of us are in the special place God created for us. Let me tell you a story from the holy book…”

Adapted from ‘Telling the Gospel Through Story’