Neman: A New Man

There were several times this summer in Ghana where I (Ben) was thinking, “Man, I have the coolest job in the world.” Getting to talk to people about Jesus all the time is amazing. Yet,there are times when it is hard and can seem redundant. But I am frequently amazed at God’s grace and am humbled at how He uses messed up people like myself to bring the message of reconciliation to people. I would love to share about one such experience.

It was a Monday, and we were planning on doing a Jesus Film showing in a nearby village after our time on campus. As a result, we were going to cut our time sharing Christ on campus short at 4:00 so we could grab dinner and change before being picked up. The showing ended up being cancelled, so I rallied the troops (39 of us), and shared that we weren’t going to stop for the day, but persevere for another hour and a half before heading back to our hostel.

This was our “Killing the Giants” week of Summer Project. Basically, the heart behind this was to come up with a faith-stretching, yet attainable goal for how many people we wanted to share Christ with that week. As a result, the students and staff were motivated to initiate more conversations and reach more people. The week before, we shared the gospel a lot and finished with 119 gospel conversations. This week, we came up with a collective goal of 688! (Just to ease the suspense, we ended the week having shared the message of Christ 694 times!)

I went with a student named Eli to meet people, and we stumbled upon a man named Neman sitting on a bench. We talked with him for about 45 minutes, and learned right away that he did not consider himself a Christian, had never before heard the gospel clearly, and had justifiable complaints against what he say from Christians at the church he attended. He had to leave before we were able to dig deeper, but I set up an appointment to meet him at 1:00 the following day.

That next day, one of our National Directors Derrick and his son JP joined me in meeting up with Neman. They had flown to Ghana for a week, along with several businessman and friends to get a glimpse of what God is doing through our partnership with Ghana. As we met Neman, he could recount word for word things that Eli and I had mentioned the previous day. We talked more about the gospel, and just had an amazing conversation. Neman was studying to be a lawyer, and the questions he asked and the evidence from Scripture to back up what we were telling him was vital. I don't think I have ever seen a more genuine and real transformation of someone understanding the gospel for the first time. He got excited as we continued, saying things like, “I have never heard this before! This makes sense to me for the first time. I have never understood what people meant when they claimed to be Christian.”

That afternoon, Neman prayed to receive Christ and started a personal relationship with God. We took some pictures together afterwards, and he invited us to come to dinner at his house to share with the rest of his family. We weren't able to due to our schedule, but encouraged him to let God use him to reach the people around him. Romans 10:14 says, “How then will they call on in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Neman left excited to share the best news in the world, that we didn’t have to and couldn’t work ourselves into a relationship with Christ by “being good”, but rather that Jesus was “good on our behalf”. Placing our faith in Him and His finished work on the cross literally transfers our identity to being hidden with Him and being forever right with God.

This is why we want to reach college students; because they are the next leaders of the world. Neman really is the kind of guy that can change families, villages, countries, and the world for Christ. Of all the conversations I had during our 5 weeks in Ghana, talking with Neman was the highlight.