Mike Young, pastor of Zion Baptist Church, Brownsville, shares the gospel with a BlueOval City worker from South Korea on the doorstep of the man’s home. There are several men living at this address – none of whom speak English.
BROWNSVILLE — Mike Young, senior pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Brownsville, is determined to share the gospel with the employees of BlueOval City.
And he isn’t about to let a language barrier stand in his way.
Over the course of the past few months, Young has found creative ways to communcate with many of the non-English-speaking BlueOval employees — and God has continously opened doors for these gospel conversations to take place.
“The BlueOval region has truly become a melting pot of nationalities,” said Young. “This is obviously a golden opportunity to reach the nations from our own backdoor. Yes, this has also presented communication challenges, but thus far, we have been able to navigate through these challenges with the help of the Lord and His provision.”
For instance, when Young recently learned that a group of BlueOval employees were living in a home in the Stanton area, Young jumped at the chance to witness to them. Never mind the fact that none of the men speak English.
At first, Young simply used an app on his smart phone to translate his message to the men. But when that failed to be as effective as Young wanted — some of Young’s message was literally getting lost in translation — he decided to go a different route.
Young reached out to Danny Sinquefield, Harvest Field One Team Leader for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and the coordinator of the TBMB’s BlueOval City Initiative.Sinquefield was able to put Young in touch with a former IMB staff member who served in South Korea.
Through that connection, Young was abe to share the gospel with the men.
“It was awesome to see God’s hand at work in that situation,” said Sinquefield. “It was just the latest example of how pastor Mike has been open to anything God wants him to do. He is leading his church to embrace this mission field in a beautiful way.”
Also, with the help of Osman Villaneuva — a Hispanic-speaking church member at Zion — Young has been able to share the gospel with a large number of Spanish-speaking BlueOval employees, many of whom have come to know the Lord.
“We are blessed to have Osman in our church,” said Young. “He is passionate about Jesus and about winning BlueOval to Christ.”
Villaneuva serves as Zion Baptist’s unofficial BlueOval translator.
Each week, Young and Villaneuva visit BlueOval City, seeking opprotunities for gospel conversations.
“The Lord, in His provision, sent Osman here for such a time as this,” said Young.
Osman has started a Sunday School class at Zion Baptist to begin the discipleship process with these new believers.
“We can rest in the fact that God gives everything we need in order to accomplish this Great Commission task,” said Young. B&R
