[Esaias]

Sinners aren't reached primarily through "meetings in the home", but rather through each member of the assembly witnessing to the people they come in cintact with on a daily basis. We tried going door to door but everybody is apparently saved already (even had a guy tell me he was born saved cuz he was raised Baptist). Most around here do NOT appreciate ANYBODY coming to their door except friends and relations and the FedEx or UPS guy. This area it seems EVERYBODY is related somehow and if you weren't born and raised here going back several generations you are perpetually kept on the outside. It's a tough area. So we've been re evaluating our approach in these parts. We've had some success reaching some people. One lady has since moved to the Houston area, but another person, a young man, has been coming to our meetings and is getting interested in "this Holy Ghost thing".

Everybody in this area is either Baptist, Church of Christ, Mennonite, or on drugs. Sometimes a combination of those things. The Mennonites pretty much have ZERO contact with non Mennonites unless you're buying something from one of their businesses. The Church of Christ folks are almost all seniors who only seem interested in inviting you to their church. The Baptists are... well, Baptists. There's some Church of God (Cleveland) types, some AoG and charismatics, some JWs, and a handful of Oneness Pentecostals. Seems everyone is what they are because that's what Ma and Pa were, and Meemaw and Pawpaw were, and their cousins are, etc. And it seems only the JWs even want to talk about God (but they're on a mission of their own anyway).

So like I said, we're re evaluating how to approach this area. It's VERY different than when we were in the Houston area. NO church seems to have experienced any kind of growth that I can see since we've been here. Religion seems to be very much simply a family tradition in this area.

But what we have seen is that individuals just being a witness at all times at least gets a conversation going with some folks. And with a few of those, progress becomes visible. But it is slow and kind of tedious. People are so unbelievably and easily distracted.