Precious was a refugee living in East Africa. Long ago, she had fled her home country were near-constant war ravaged her people. In that time, she had discovered Jesus. To her, He was the kind shepherd she had always longed for, who healed her wounds and guided her through the trauma of what was happening in her home. She wanted her people to know Jesus in that same way, but how?
Eventually got in contact with a group whose sole focus was to reach her people, but do it in a safe way, by running online outreaches in her home country. They shared a lot of disciple making training with her and some other leaders with similar life-stories as her. One of her favorite tools from these trainings was the Discovery Bible Study process, which allowed people to find out for themselves who God is by opening the Bible and exploring all that it has for them in a safe, non-judgmental environment. The group she was a part of recognized a calling on her life and equipped her to lead DBS’ with people from her own culture, both over the internet and in her city, locally, since there were so many other refugees in her back yard.
But there was a problem.
Precious had been through so much. It was hard enough to have dealt with everything the war in her home country entailed, but she also felt like an outsider in her new country. Sure there were a lot of other refugees from her country, and she knew many of them. But they had so many defenses. Hardened by war and fiercely devoted to their own religion, they seemed utterly unwilling to hear anything she had to say about this Jesus. Who was she to convince them? After all, she wasn’t a pastor. She didn’t have a lot of experience.
That’s when things went from bad to worse. The group she was working with had just lost an important source of income that they used to run digital outreaches. These online projects were her best source of hungry seekers. But now, without the infrastructure to send her contacts of people from her home country who were already expressing interest in Christ, Precious would have to rely on the closed-off in-person contacts she struggled with. Sometimes, she experienced some success with seekers, but as soon as they began a relationship with Christ, they felt just as stuck as her. She wished there was some way for discipleship to become sticky, not their challenges.
And then everything changed.
Precious and her supporters at the online ministry learned about Waha, the app that lets anyone facilitate a DBS without any training or experience. You don’t have to be a pastor, or an expert. All you have to do is have a finger to push the play button and the app will do the rest! Having lost access to their previous online evangelism infrastructure, Precious and her team figured, why not give it a try? She loved it. She no longer had to sit in meetings and try her best to remember how to facilitate a DBS. Instead, she let all the app do the work. But what was even more incredible was that the people in her group began to find it easy to apply what they were learning in their own lives, and even share it with others!
“It made discipleship sticky!” She said. “Now Jesus get’s stuck to everyone!”
After just two DBS meetings with Waha, Precious had gathered 19 of her countrymen, all anxious to know more about the hope found in the Bible! As Precious continued leading DBS, groups multiplied, and her fellow leaders experienced the same thing. Before long their little online outreach team had grown from just a few DBS groups to over 34! But what meant even more to Precious was that she was being transformed, herself. Her mentors said they saw something different in her. It was that same calling they recognized on her life from before, but now she was walking out in it with her head held high and a smile on her face. She had found her confidence in the Lord. She no longer felt like an outsider. Instead, she was an ambassador with everything she needed to invite her fellow countrymen into the peace of God’s kingdom!