Fishers of Men

"These things you tell us, these stories, we believe they are true." 

"We know they are good."

"Many white people come here and take boats down the river. They come and take pictures and leave, but they never share these things with us."

"I must study these things...this is the first time I have heard these things and I want to understand more."

"When are you coming back?"

These are all things that I heard last week as I was out on a research trip in search of the "B" people along with 2 teammates of mine. One morning we decided to take a boat up the Gambian river in hopes of finding some "B" people. We came across some fishermen who are from a similar area as the "B" people. We arrived in their village as the men were beginning to repair their nets. We sat under the shade of a large tree and began to talk with the men. At first they just wanted to know who we were and why we had come. After a while we began to tell them different stories from The Word. We began by telling them that fishermen are very important to the Father. We shared a little about how J*sus called fishermen to leave behind their nets and become fishers of men.

After a little while, we started from the beginning, and told the story of The Word...also know as Creation to Chr*st. We didn't tell the whole story straight through though...we told it little by little. After we had told a small section we discussed it. The men would ask us questions and many of their questions would lead right in to the next part of the story. We were telling the stories to maybe 6 or 7 men, but there was one man, we will call him Ibrahim, who was so captivated by the stories. When we began telling the stories he was just repairing the nets along with his fellow fishermen, but as we continued with the stories, he put down his net and just sat and listened. He had very good questions for us and was very interested in hear what we were sharing. Ibrahim along with the other fishermen in this village are M*slims. Many times M*slims will listen to what you have to say, but will not show very much interest. Ibrahim not only listened to us, but seemed very interested.

We stayed with the fishermen for a little over 2 hours, before we felt that we needed to head out back up the river. The last thing that they asked us was, "When are you coming back?" We said we hoped to come back very soon. Thankfully, myself and my roommate should have the opportunity to head back and visit them in the next couple of months. It was so cool to see these men sit and ask us questions about The Word. It was also cool to see Ibrahim desire to hear more stories. My hope is that this is only the beginning of sharing with these fishermen. My desire is to return to them and share more stories with them. I would love nothing more than for them to no only be fishers of fish, but also to become fishers of men.