LYNCHBURG — When Ralph and Tammy Stocks answered the call to the mission field, they assumed that their ministries would lead people to Christ. But neither of them imagined that one of their best evangelism methods would be family photos. This innovative approach has led to scores of commitments to Christ.
For seven years Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church in Lynchburg has sent mission teams to Hungary, where they link with the Stocks to take pictures of Romany (gypsy) families. The Stocks, native Virginians who were appointed through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to the Roma people group in Hungary and Romania, noticed the absence of photographs in the homes of the gypsy people. When he inquired why this was so, he learned that they simply could not afford them.
“The Roma families are the poorest of the poor,” explained Laura McDaniel, interim director of Women's Missionary Union of Virginia and a member of the Rivermont Avenue missions team. “Whenever someone says ‘gypsies' people usually think of nomads. Often the word ‘thieves' comes to mind. But for only a very small percentage would these terms apply,” McDaniel affirmed.
The Stocks prefer to use the term “Roma” rather than the more common and demeaning “gypsy.”
“The gypsies are the largest people group in the world without a country of their own” said McDaniel. “They are the most despised and distrusted people globally. But the truth is they are very family-oriented.”
When Stocks shared his dream of providing a family photo to every Roma home with the Rivermont Avenue missions team, “photo-evangelism” was born. On their next trip to Hungary, team members went loaded with digital cameras, laptops, photo-print paper, picture frames and a high quality color printer.
Photo-evangelism is a simple concept. The Stocks work with a core of believers in villages to develop local mission churches. Working with the local leaders, Ralph announces that on a certain date a team will be present to take photographs and each family in the church is asked to invite one other family. On that day, photos are taken followed by a worship service of singing, testimonies and a message. After the worship service, the families receive their framed family portraits.
McDaniel estimates that more than 5,000 Roma family members have been photographed with 700 families receiving pictures. “I wish you could see the joy in their faces when they see those photographs for the first time. It truly is a gift we are giving them. We take it for granted, but to them it is a treasure,” McDaniel remembers.
In one five-day, five-village circuit, 40 people gave their hearts to Christ. The team also took the idea to the Project Ruth School in Bucharest where they provided simple yearbooks and class photos for the Roma children there.
“The children were told, ‘This is not really about the Americans who have come here and it is not really about the pictures they have given you. What we want you to remember is how you can be in God's family,' ” reports McDaniel. The children were then told that their families could get photographs if they came to the church the following Friday evening. “That night the church building was packed out.”
McDaniel notes that aside from its effectiveness, photo-evangelism is uncomplicated and easy to replicate. Unlike construction projects which require strength, specialized tools and costly materials, anyone able to travel is capable of engaging in photo-evangelism.