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PROGRAM D-8272
In sharing about banana ministries, I’ve I told you how my friend Judy, a missionary in Kenya, inspired her driver, Baraza, to realize that he could do something as simple as give a needy person a banana—and in that way, share God’s love with them. I’m suggesting that every one of us who are Christ-followers should look for our banana ministry—something we intentionally do to share the love of God.
Let me tell you about my friend, Kiyoko, a Japanese woman in my church. She was inspired to use her creativity as a way to share the Gospel. She makes beautiful little bookmarks using things people throw away—like candy wrappers—and makes designs on a bookmark with a scripture verse on the back.
She carries her bookmarks with her and whenever she has an opportunity—with a stranger, a store clerk, someone she sits by on the bus or on an airplane—she gives them one of her bookmarks. She calls them “born-again bookmarks,” and explains how she made them from scraps of paper that people throw away. This opens the door for her to tell them that her born-again bookmarks are nice, but they will eventually fall apart. Then she shares the good news that when a person is born again through faith in Jesus Christ, it will last for all eternity.
She has given away over 300 born-again bookmarks. Can you imagine how many times those bookmarks have been looked at, read, used—and how many seeds have been sown in the hearts of many people? Kiyoko is using her creative gift—her skill at origami—to share the truth of the Gospel. It’s a ministry that she has developed, on her own, using the gift God has given her, to fulfill the Great Commission of taking the Gospel to others.
So, what is your banana ministry—what is your born-again bookmark idea—that you could develop, on your own, as a way to share God’s love and the Gospel with others in your life? I have no doubt that all of us could come up with something unique we could do that would give us an opportunity to share God’s love. And if all Christ-followers developed banana ministries, what impact that could have on our world!