College senior Mia Crawford learned a very valuable lesson about evangelism after spending a week in Paris sharing Christ during the 2024 Summer Olympics.
“It taught me how to evangelize in a different culture,” said Crawford, a student at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City and an officer (secretary) in Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) on campus.
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Crawford has participated in Beach Reach for each of the last two years with other BCM students from ETSU and around the nation. After just one day in Paris, she discovered there is a huge difference in how you share the gospel in an unfamiliar culture.
She noted that during Beach Reach it was easy to engage other college students in conversations that would lead to sharing Christ. “The people in France were not as easy to engage,” she said.
“The culture in France is not as warm and accepting (of the gospel) as the culture in the South is,” she observed.
Working through discouragement
Crawford was among more than 300 short-term missions volunteers who served with the International Mission Board during the Olympics. Team members distributed flyers, Olympic pins and Bibles in French in an effort to begin gospel conversations.
“A lot of people would walk by and take a flyer but would not stop to talk. It was very frustrating,” she acknowledged.
“The first two or three days were very discouraging because it was only surface evangelism. There were no deep conversations,” she continued.
She noted that she learned how to “utilize prayer” more on this trip than previous mission trips. “During Beach Reach we had set times to pray, but in this setting I learned to pray constantly for her other team members and those who walked by without stopping.
“If they would not talk to me, I could still pray for them,” she said.
Crawford also realized that she would not be able to measure how successful the trip was by the number of conversations she had or the number of people who prayed to receive Christ.
She said she was “scared” that she would return to Tennessee and not be able to report a large number of conversions to the members of her church (Risen Life Fellowship in Jonesborough). “I didn’t want to let anyone down.”
Crawford said she finally realized that she had to “take myself out of it. It wasn’t about me. It was about God and sharing His truth. … I wasn’t letting anyone down. I was being faithful and obedient to the Lord.”
She said she believes her experience at the Olympics will help her as she prepares for her final year of college and BCM.
“It has given me the courage to take advantage of the opportunities I have on campus to be evangelistic and intentional to share my faith with all the students I meet.”
Crawford was one of more than 30 BCM students from ETSU who participated in summer missions this year, said Jonathan Chapman, collegiate ministry specialist at ETSU. “We have been pushing students to serve on summer missions more and more each year,” he said. This year’s group was the largest ever, he added.
Chapman praised the efforts of Crawford. “Mia is an amazing young woman of God and we are grateful to have her in leadership at the BCM.
“She loves Jesus, the gospel and sports so serving with the IMB in Paris at the Olympics was a match made in heaven for her,” Chapman said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Lonnie Wilkey and originally published by Baptist and Reflector.
