KDurant7 blog adventures

A series of a 1000 stories of different experiences by Kelly Durant

When I would visit a city where I would evangelize a week or more, I would almost always go to the jails, orphanages, and hospitals and ask permission to sing a song, read a devotional, or do a skit. In Trinidad, Bolivia, in 1977 I encountered a tough Official governing the prison, one like I had not met before. He said, “Ok, if you want to preach to my jail mates, you will need to earn the privilege by showing me you are sincere. I responded, “Challenge accepted, what is it?” He said, “Come Saturday morning at 9:00 am and you must clean all our toilets (about 20 of them) so then after that you can preach to my people.” I hesitated to reply, knowing how filthy the toilets would be, but I agreed to his conditions. I went and scrubbed them shiny clean by 11:00 am. The Official was in shock! He told that he did not expect me, a gringo, to be willing to do that dirty task! He then invited me and my Christian partner to lunch at his house after the meeting. It was in the countryside and looked like a Tahitian resort with palm trees around and with gazebos with grass roofs. The lunch was made by his wife, an ostrich egg omelette. I had never eaten that before! It tasted good. He told me I was welcome anytime to his house or jail, and he said he had never met anyone like me. I echoed his same sentiment, I had never met anyone like him. He went from being an antagonist mocker to being an instant friend. Humility and elbow grease will win people’s trust, but we have to do the work!