TAYLORS, SC — Two years ago, Josh Powell, pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church, spent the night in jail for sharing the gospel on a faraway island.

Powell has been to five continents and undertaken an estimated 60 mission trips. He’s pastored Taylors First Baptist for four years, preaching the gospel publicly. But he recalled the first time that he was ever legally in trouble for sharing his faith.

It happened a couple of years ago.

Powell and a friend, Greg Cargill,* met up with Jacob Brinley* and James Courage* on the islands. Jacob was a missionary in a country that neighbored the islands, and James had already labored on the islands for a year and a half and baptized his first convert. Powell said he heard of James’ good work and wanted to see if there was potential to send in more missionaries. The four men became a team.

Evangelistic opportunity

They arrived at the islands’ capital on Friday night, met up with James, ate local food and heard testimonies of the Lord’s work. “What are we going to do tomorrow?” one asked. James said he knew a man on the island of Hope* and wanted to connect with him.

The island man, who was spiritually lost, recently lost his brother and was texting James questions about what happens to a person after death. The four-man team decided to meet with the lost man.

The island of Hope was reachable only by a public ferry or speedboat. The men paid about $30 each for a ticket and chose to hop on the speedboat the next morning.

“It was hot, sunny, not a cloud in the sky,” Powell recalled. The island is small and has no cars, It takes roughly eight minutes to walk from one side to the other. They met up with the man who lost his brother, answered his questions about death and shared the gospel with him. Though it was a good conversation, the lost man didn’t believe, Powell said. But the man thanked them for answering his questions.

After meeting with the lost man and eating lunch, they had a few hours left. They decided to split up and prayer walk around the island, asking for wisdom and for God to open doors. Cargill and Jacob, the missionary, went to one side of the island, and Powell and James went to the other.

By this time, it was midafternoon and growing hot.

Powell longed for a Coke but needed some ice. “I don’t want a hot Coke,” he said. So, Powell and James started looking for ice. As they were walking, a man named Rafael*, who was sitting in a chair in the shade, said, “Hey, what’s up?”

Powell and James sat in the shade and started talking to him. Rafael was a friendly man, Powell said. He ran a party boat on the island. After engaging in small talk for half an hour, James asked Rafael, “What about your faith?” Rafael was taken aback by the question and said, “Are we really going to do this, are you sure?”

Rising tension, rising heart rate

Powell and James told Rafael about Jesus, and Rafael expressed his Muslim beliefs. As the conversation ended, James got Rafael’s number and sent him access to the Bible. They told Rafael, “We’ve read your book, the Quran, so why don’t you read ours (the Bible)?” By now, it was about midafternoon and the search for ice continued. Some people directed them to the middle of the island where there was a store with ice. But as they walked in that direction, tensions began to rise.

“We’re headed that way when I hear somebody yelling, ‘Hey, you, stop!’ Powell said. “I look, and it’s two men running toward us, screaming.”

He couldn’t understand what they were saying. When the islanders realized they didn’t understand, they began to shout in English. Powell said they were in his face, and the mob grew to about eight men. One man yelled, “What did you say to my brother? Did you talk to my brother about Jesus?”

Powell responded, “I told your brother Jesus is Lord. We asked what he believed, and we told him what we believed.”

Powell said “Jesus is Lord” was the first thing that came to him, and he wasn’t going to filter it.

“When the opportunity came, it wasn’t a thinking game. The last thing I want to do right now is deny what I was saying. There’s no comfort in that. The comfort is to proclaim Him, speaking His name, and trust Him.”

The mob’s agitation continued to escalate, and one man asked, “What did you say?” To which Powell said again, “Jesus is Lord.”

The second time he said it, “this guy puts his fingers in his ear and starts screaming at me,” said Powell. Powell, at 6-foot-5-inches tall, towered over the mob. He decided to sit down in hopes of easing some of the tension.

Powell’s Apple Watch kept buzzing, alerting him that his heart rate was up.

Blessed are those

Soon, two casually dressed men arrived on a moped and told Powell and James to come with them. Powell hopped on the moped, and they were taken to the small police department, where they sat in an empty room with a guard keeping watch over them. Several hours passed. In the meantime, they searched the phones of both men. Each of the men who heard the gospel that day were brought in as witnesses to testify against them.

Finally, the chief island police arrived and invited them in separately for questioning. Powell recalled the most poignant moment during the whole scenario. As Powell walked out of the office, and James was going in, the word “blessed” came out of Powell’s mouth as he passed James. James smiled and replied, “Blessed,” thinking of the Scripture that says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).

Powell was taken to jail on the island where he spent the night. It was a small room with a shower and bed. Next door to the jail was a hostel that had free Wi-Fi, so Powell FaceTimed his wife. She was at Myrtle Beach in tears. They spoke for five minutes and prayed together.

When Powell got off the phone, he began thumbing through Acts on his phone. He read about Peter and John in Acts 4, when they were released from prison and reported what happened to their friends. The two apostles didn’t pray for persecution to cease, but for boldness. That lesson stuck with Powell.

‘Leave and never come back’

Powell said he dozed off around 3 a.m. and woke up at 4:45 a.m. to the Adhan going off. He said it was surreal being in a foreign country, in jail for sharing the gospel, and waking up to a Muslim call for prayer. He began to pray that God would open doors, open the country and open the people’s eyes to the truth.

At 7:30 a.m., the police came to get Powell. They took him to the speedboat and told him to leave the islands and never come back. Powell’s buddy, James, was sent to a prison island where he remained for 26 days before his release.

Powell’s other two teammates met him on the island, and all three bought tickets and flew out that day.

“That conversation (with Rafael) would have simply been another conversation on the side of the road,” Powell said, “and we would have walked on looking for ice if James didn’t have the courage to say, ‘What about your faith?’

“And the amount of courage it took in that moment to just simply ask that simple question, I mean, it’s unreal to think about how much courage it took just to go, ‘What about your faith?’ He knew he was crossing the line. All it took was a little boldness, a little bit of courage.”

*Names and locations have been changed for security reasons.