And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19

One of the most rewarding parts of working with a culture is when you witness an amazing new connection of that culture and the Gospel.  On a recent trip to South Asia, our HSI team spent the first part of the journey leading songwriting workshops and a women’s event, which are pretty common for our teams. The amazing new connection came in the form of an outreach event which included preaching and dancing, and for the first time in a long time in this region, three pastors using a popular local art form to tell the story of Jesus.

Following this first portion of the trip, the team headed to a small fishing village. As they interacted with the locals, they discovered an older song style that the fishermen sang as they hauled in their nets. The songs helped the workers to pull together and keep a steady rhythm. Just as these men hauled in fish, God calls us to be fishers of men. The team held a songwriting workshop and encouraged the participants to write songs about Jesus calling us to be fishers of men as seen in Matthew 4:19.  

The team helped to encourage eleven new gospel songs written in the participants’ unique cultural folk style! The pastors and worship leaders will use these songs to spread the gospel to reach local tribes who are illiterate or have no Bible in their language.