|
|
|
Two encounters in the Bible shop by Andy Ball, manager of the Bible Society in Israel’s shop in Tel Aviv ISRAEL — A few months ago a man came into the Bible Society shop in Tel Aviv and asked if we had any English Bibles. I said we did, and showed him some. Evidently he was interested in buying a considerable quantity. As he was looking at some examples, my assistant, Daisy, came over and told me quietly that she recognised him from Israeli television; he appears almost every morning. Intrigued, I asked the customer why he wanted so many Bibles. He told us that he was keen to help foreigners in Israeli prisons. He explained that there were more than 200 Sudanese imprisoned here and he had been asked to get Bibles for them. But hearing his story engendered our sympathy for him and we decided to give him four big bags of Bibles; they weren’t all in English but we gave them to him for nothing. He was delighted – and more than a little surprised. “Are you missionaries?” he asked. I said no, adding that I had some bad news for him. “What is it?” he asked. “Well,” I said, “you’re a missionary now!” 200 Bibles He laughed and thanked us with a broad smile. He has been to the shop twice now – still in pursuit of 200 English Bibles. In addition, some friends came from the USA and brought 100 Bibles for him to give out free of charge. I thank the Lord for people like them! Surprisingly, our customer is not a believer himself – but he is nevertheless doing excellent work among prisoners and we feel that God has opened a door into prisons for us through him! Questions A few weeks ago I got into a conversation with a young man in the shop who fired a series of questions at me. “What kind of shop is this?” “Are you Christians?” And many more besides. I answered as best I could and then asked him why he was so interested. “I am Jewish,” he said. “I come from England and I have just moved to Israel to make my home here. In England I had many friends who claimed to be Christians. They all tried to convert me until I was tired of it. I saw how they were living and thought, ‘If that’s Christianity then I don’t want it!’ “But since coming here, I spent a lot of evenings watching an evangelical TV channel. I have been moved by what I saw: every night I felt that they were speaking to me. I wrote letters to them and got books in return. Seeker I told our ‘seeker’ that God must have guided him to us and he agreed. I explained to him about the Bible Society. He asked me how I had got to know Jesus, so I told him my testimony and he started to cry. “It’s so good to hear about Jesus from a Jew,” he told me. Altogether we talked for more than three hours and he asked me to pray for him, which I did. He walked out with a big smile and assured me he would be back. (WR 407/29 - 12.06) |
|
|
After
working out the likely cost, he told us that he would have to pay us
a return visit. “Your Bibles are quite expensive and I want to
pay for them myself,” he said.
“It’s
funny,” he said. “Today I had a day off so I decided to go
to Tel Aviv and the first shop I walk into is the Bible shop!”