PERSONAL EVANGELISM During the Vietnam war I was a psychological warfare officer, a propagandist.

Propaganda has come to be thought of as the distribution of tons of leaflets and posters, and a barrage of loudspeaker messages. True. We used them extensively. They were not very effective. Indeed, our entire effort was not very effective. Communist propaganda was much more effective than ours. I pondered why and concluded that their efforts were much, much more personal than ours. One particular leaflet, however, did appear to have some value. It was a Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) leaflet. It urged the recipient to defect. He was to empty his weapon, sling it diagonally across his back, raise his arms and approach allied personnel shouting Chieu Hoi and waving the leaflet. The leaflet said dont shoot this guy in several languages, and promised that he would be welcomed back into the fold with open arms. We received reports that the communist leaders required all such leaflets to be gathered up and burned, Ah Ha! I needed to get leaflets into the hands of potential defectors without their leaders knowing it. I needed to get personal. I began to target the civilian populace. I had cheap plastic balls made up for distribution to kids. They were in National colors and imprinted with the message, Vietnam Cong Ha (Hooray for the National Government) and cheap plastic pistols with the same message. (The Colonel wouldnt let me put Death to the communists on them.) The communists literally took toys from kids who had no others and burned them! Thats getting personal.

For the older folks, we had a magazine that was pretty to look at and nonpolitical. The communists didnt object to them. I put Chieu Hoi leaflets in them. The communists found out and required the people to turn in the leaflets. I began varying the number of leaflets that each magazine contained. Occasionally I would not put any in a magazine. Once I actually had a guy defect because he didnt have a leaflet to turn in and was more afraid of his communist leaders than of defecting without a safe conduct pass. Thats getting personal. Communist political leaders were already being targeted by some nice gentlemen in the employ of the CIA. These folks would go to the house of a suspected communist leader in the middle of the night and offer him the choice of surrender or being killed. If he was not home they would rough up his family and consequently reinforce his hatred for the government. These folks, I thought, could be made more useful. I convinced them to change their conduct. Rather than mistreating the family, they were to act with exaggerated courtesy and express tremendous concern for the guys well being. They were to leave some Chieu Hoi leaflets for him and instruct the family to urge him to use them before it was too late. If no one at all was home, rather than looting the place, they were to hide safe conduct passes throughout the house.in pans, in books, in clothing, etc. This way the guy would be finding them for days or, even better, weeks to come. Each time he found one he would have to wonder WHEN it was planted. Now thats getting personal.

It was more difficult to target enemy troops. I began to make tapes for loudspeaker broadcasts to individual units. When we would get a defector I would interview him. I would ask if he had been well treated. When he said that he had, I asked if he would like to invite some of his buddies to join him in his new-found safety. They always did. They would ask their friends, by name to rally to the government. I would keep adding these messages to the tape for a particular unit. Then, when our intelligence sources reported a particular unit in a given area, I would play the tape of that particular unit over that area and drop a cloud of Chieu Hoi passes. His buddies, by name, were invited to defect. This might or might not have had any effect, but the unit leaders also heard the names and subjected the poor fellows to increased scrutiny and pressure. This, too, was pretty personal! These efforts, not taught me during my training, worked. I led the league for the 10 months that I was doing this. I dont know how many defectors I got, but I do remember that my best month was 116. OK, why did I share these experiences with you? Am I just some old guy wanting a CAPTIVE audience for his old stories? No, Ive got grandkids for that. I wanted to stress the impact of PERSONAL contact. Phillip is a great preacherone of the best Ive heard, but YOU can be more effective one-onone, friend-to-friend, man-to-man than his very best sermon can. Ive written on the board some of the Scriptures explaining how to come to Jesus. I urge you to copy the list in your Bible and then pray that God will give you an opportunity to share them with someone. The Bible has many examples of such evangelism.

Imagine the reward. Imagine how it will feel when, someday in Heaven, some guy walks up and thanks you for being the one who told him about Jesus!