Bengali outreach in Tonga

We were heading to Tonga to speak on frontier missions at a seminar. Just before we left our friend in Tonga contacted us, telling us to bring Create International’s Bengali evangelistic film with us!

So we took a few copies with us. The evangelistic film is in the Bengali language and culture and set in Bangladesh using Bengali actors!

Recognising the need

Our friend was in Tonga himself and was speaking as well. While he was there he found that across the road there was a group of Bengali Muslims working on a construction site. There was about 30 of them labouring to build a hotel.

Seeing an opportunity

The Bengali are largely unreached by the gospel. So together with our friend we planned to teach and example how to use resources to reach unreached peoples groups! This was exciting, as this was the reason we had gone to Tonga! And the Tonga believers would get a hands on opportunity to share.

Planning and getting resources

When we arrived, we showed the Tonga believers the video we had brought with us. Next, while displaying the Ummah Al Masih website to the believers, we helped them to download the an evangelistic booklet called the Straight Path. The booklet is contextual, very relevant to Muslims and it’s free!

We made copies of the booklet, one for every Bengali we were going to invite and began to arrange a meeting to invite the Bengali to. The meeting we planned would be simple – make the people feel welcome, watch the Evangelistic film, share a little about Jesus and then enjoy refreshments and talk.

Inviting

We encouraged the Tonga believers to make invitations and hand them out – inviting the Bengali to come to a movie showing and fellowship time. So they crossed the street and struck up conversations. The invites where a great talking point and tactile object ot leave with the Bengali people as a reminder.

Sharing

When we had the meeting the Tonga believers made the the Bengalis feel welcome and led the meeting. We all sat down and watched the movie and afterwards they handed out the booklets, one of the believers shared about Jesus and then we had refreshments.

The Bengalis were so happy that they asked if it would be ok if they sang the Bangladesh national anthem to us!

Follow Up

The Bengali all left with the evangelical booklets we gave them and a welcome for them to come back and talk with us. And the Tonga believers now had new relationships to develop and share Christ through.

It was a great night and the Bengali walked away positive, welcomed, having heard and seen the gospel and with an evangelistic booklet in their hands as they left.

This experience from our point of few was excellent. We were able to teach and see the local believers understand and embrace the opportunity to share the gospel with their Muslim neighbours. The whole planning and evening flowed really well and we were so excited to see people trained in using media resources to share the gospel and also see people hearing the gospel for the first time.