Conversations with Spaniards

Not so long ago I stopped in at the local music shop to check out some guitar gear, and after a bit of chit-chat about the gear I was looking at, and finding out that I'm an American (darned accent!), the owner started a conversation that turned, well, almost typical.  


O:  "So what is an American like you doing in Alcora?!  Do you work in a factory here?"
BJ:  "No, actually, I'm an evangelical pastor..."
O:  "Huh...well, don't try to convert me--I can't be converted to anything by anyone."
BJ:  "No, don't worry about that...it's not my job to convert you anyhow."
O:  "Well, I don't believe in anything, just in humans."
BJ:  "Really...that's interesting."
O:  "And in this world, there's just so much evil, people take advantage of you and cause so much destruction.  It's terrible!"
BJ:  "Yeah, I know.  But didn't you say you only believed in people and their goodness?  With all the evil we cause, it doesn't seem like a hopeful belief."
O:  "I mean that there are good people who do good things, and bad people who do bad things.  And we need to try to do the good...and the bad people need to be judged and dealt with."
BJ:  "I see what you're saying.  That's actually one of the reassuring things for me about what the Bible teaches.  God is just, and He'll deal with the people who do evil, so I don't have to worry to much about them...God will take care of that."
O:  "Huh..." (Silence...)
BJ:  "And the beauty I see in the Christian faith is that none of us is perfect, we all make mistakes, we sin, and we all deserve to be judged.  But Jesus loved me enough that He took the punishment in my place so that I wouldn't have to face God's judgment."
O:  "Huh...I certainly don't believe in the Church.  I mean, they do some good things, but the Church is all corrupt, throughout the whole hierarchy, and the people who go out to participate in the processions, well, they do it just for show.  I know those people and what they're really like!"
BJ:  "Yeah, I can imagine.  I've found that it's hard for people to separate their ideas of who God is from what the Church has done."
O:  "I haven't gone out to the processions since I was 14 because I didn't want to be a hypocrite, but I did get married in the Church and I certainly never go to mass.  But once in a while I climb up the hill to the hermitage chapel and go off by myself, and I talk alone by myself.  So I might end up being more of a believer than the people who go out for the processions and are hypocrites afterwards."
BJ:  "That's interesting.  So maybe you believe in something after all?"
O:  "Well, maybe..."
BJ:  "I need to get going, but it's been good chatting and I appreciate you sharing your perspective on life with me.  We'll have to talk again."


I'm certainly not a great evangelist, but it's been interesting to listen to people, to hear their perspectives, complaints, and beliefs, and to sow a few seeds of the Gospel into the conversation.  Pray that these seeds would be watered, cared for, and would grow to fruition, whether through me or someone else God has in mind.  Most of all pray for fertile soil here in Alcora and throughout Spain.