On a crowded London sidewalk, Kevin Allen held out an Arabic New Testament as three people walked toward him. An older man and woman passed without taking it. A younger woman walking behind them did the same. Kevin turned his attention toward the next wave of pedestrians.
Then he looked back. The young woman had returned.
“She said, ‘This is the Bible?’ and I was like, ‘Yes.’ And she’s like, ‘It’s in Arabic?’” Kevin recalled. “She took it, and she’s like, ‘I can read this.’”
When Kevin told her the book was hers to keep, her expression changed.
“She smiled real big, and she’s like, ‘Okay, I’ll read this. Thank you,’” he said. “I don’t know anything about her or her story or anything like that, but just seeing that joy in her eyes—I’ll probably remember it for the rest of my life.”
Kevin may never know what happened after she disappeared back into the crowds of London. But that uncertainty was part of the lesson he and eight other members of First Baptist Church Columbia carried home with them: their responsibility was to faithfully offer the gospel and trust God with what happened next.
A few weeks ago, a nine-member team from First Baptist traveled to London to serve alongside London Bridges, a ministry that equips Christians to share the gospel with Muslims from around the world.
Each day began with hours of worship, prayer, and training designed to help team members better understand Islam and prepare them for conversations they might encounter. In the afternoons and evenings, teams traveled to busy areas of London where they offered Arabic New Testaments and other gospel materials to Muslim residents and tourists.
The location is strategic. Every summer, visitors from throughout the Middle East travel to London—including people from countries where Christian evangelism is heavily restricted. A Bible received on a London sidewalk can eventually travel thousands of miles beyond the reach of the person who handed it out.
For Caroline Cartin, who has participated in the ministry roughly 17 or 18 times since 2005, that opportunity continues to bring her back.
“The world has come to London,” Caroline said. “You have access to all of these people from different countries.”
But after nearly two decades of making the trip, her ultimate reason for returning is much simpler.
“I remember one time I asked Skip that question. I said, ‘Why are we doing this?’ And he said, ‘Because Jesus told us to go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,’” she recalled. “Jesus told us to. And I can minister with friends from other countries and other states…and it’s a joy to minister with fellow believers. That’s what keeps me coming back.”
That diversity was evident not only among the people the team encountered, but among those serving alongside them. Christians came together from several states and countries, including believers from London, Jordan, South Africa, and across the United States.
For Kallie Snipes, returning for her second year allowed her to experience that partnership from a new perspective.
“It was cool to see our church doing that work and handing out Bibles and talking to strangers,” Kallie said, “and…answering questions about it and being able to give a reason for our faith, like First Peter talks about.”
Standing on a sidewalk with a Bible in your hand sounds simple. Doing it while hundreds of strangers stream past you is another matter. Most people kept walking. Some politely declined. Others stopped with questions. And occasionally, those questions turned into conversations lasting 30 minutes, an hour, or even longer.
For Kevin, his very first conversation was one of the hardest. A Muslim man approached him ready to argue. Their conversation stretched beyond an hour, leaving Kevin wondering whether he had responded well.
“I remember feeling discouraged after that,” Kevin said.
The following day, that discouragement followed him right up until it was time to return to the streets. His family was praying for him back home, and others on the team prayed over him before they went out.
“The second I stepped out with the Bible, all of that nervousness and worry just went away,” he said.
Other conversations followed. Some were brief; others allowed Kevin to explain what the Bible meant to him and why Christianity and Islam make fundamentally different claims about God and Jesus.
Eventually, he realized success couldn’t be measured by whether someone changed his or her beliefs during a single sidewalk conversation.
“What we’re really doing is planting seeds,” Kevin said. “We hope that one day God and other believers or other encounters that people have along the way will then water that seed, and it will eventually grow into a relationship with God.”
Laura Ellen Allen discovered much the same thing.
She didn’t necessarily have lengthy conversations every night. Instead, one of the moments that stayed with her happened almost immediately. Within the first half-hour of their first night, she simply offered someone a New Testament. He looked at it, shrugged, and took it.
For Laura Ellen, it became a picture of what faithfulness could look like.
“All you have to do is just offer it,” she said. “Just be there, be willing, have a good attitude, and just offer it.”
For Kallie, returning to London for a second year revealed how much preparation mattered. Her conversations were fewer this year, but they often went much deeper. She attributes much of that change to being better equipped to turn to Scripture when questions arose.
“I really was more equipped as far as what I knew about the Lord to share,” Kallie said. “Scripture knowledge was so important, and is much more important than even knowledge of Quran.”
Instead of feeling responsible for having the perfect answer, she could open the Bible.
“I knew most of what you were going to ask me, so I knew where to find that in Scripture,” she said. “That’s the power of the living Word.”
One of those conversations was with a Persian Jewish man named **** who had become curious about Christ but remained caught between belief and unbelief.
“He was like, ‘Kallie, I feel like I’m in a bad spot that I can’t deny it, but I can’t accept it,’” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Actually, that’s a pretty good spot to be in. At least you can’t deny it.’”
They continued talking, and Kallie shared Scripture with him, including Christ’s words in Matthew 7:7 to ask, seek, and knock.
Eventually, **** told her, “I’ve heard what I needed to hear today.”
Kallie doesn’t know where that conversation will ultimately lead. That, again, belongs to God.
The week wasn’t without difficulty.
Members of the larger ministry team dealt with sickness, deaths and emergencies back home, and other circumstances that forced some participants to step away or even leave London early. Caroline herself returned home early after experiencing a health issue. Through it all, the team continued praying for one another and serving as they were able.
Kallie became sick for several days and wondered whether she would be able to participate on her final evening. She spent much of that day in her room praying. She asked God for enough strength to go back out. She also made two remarkably specific requests: she wanted to see a man she had met during the previous year’s trip, and she wanted another opportunity to see ****, a young man she had spoken with earlier.
She initially planned to stay outside for only an hour. Then, among millions of people in London, she saw a familiar face. A man in a wheelchair crossed the street. It was the same man she had met the year before.
“I was like, ‘Come here,’ and he came back over, and we got to just catch up from last year,” Kallie said. “He was so tickled that I remembered him.”
She was able to remind him again of the love of Christ. Then she saw ****, too.
“Same night,” she said. “The Lord just renewed me.”
The evening became one of the most memorable of her trip. Gospel materials were disappearing from their cart as quickly as the team could distribute them. Conversations continued well beyond their expected stopping time. A woman serving alongside them prayed that they would return with an empty cart.
They did.
“Because you ask, you receive,” Kallie said.
Bringing London Home
By the end of the experience, the impact wasn’t limited to the people receiving Bibles. The team members themselves came home changed. For Kevin, conversations with Muslims challenged some of his assumptions and reminded him to see the individual standing in front of him rather than a religious label.
“Until you actually see the person, you have all kinds of ideas about what a group of people might be like or what they believe,” he said. “But…we’re all just people on this earth.”
He found that Muslims, like Christians, represented a wide spectrum of cultural backgrounds and levels of religious devotion.
“We really are just people on this earth in need of a Savior,” Kevin said. “That doesn’t need to be a dividing line between us. That can be something that actually opens the door for conversation because we’ve had different experiences.”
And perhaps the biggest challenge is carrying that same willingness back home.
In London, the assignment was obvious: take the Bible, step onto the sidewalk, meet someone, and be willing to talk about Jesus. Back in Columbia, the opportunities may look less obvious—but Kallie believes they’re everywhere.
At the grocery store. On a college campus. At Soda City Market. In a conversation with a cashier. Anywhere God places another person in your path.
“There’s so many opportunities to share,” Kallie said. “How can I represent Christ well and be open to how that conversation goes?”
The London mission may have taken nine members of First Baptist thousands of miles from home, but perhaps one of its most important lessons doesn’t require an airplane at all.
It simply requires being available.
On a London sidewalk, that looked like Kevin holding out an Arabic New Testament to a young woman who initially walked away.
He offered. She came back. She took it. And somewhere today, she may still have it.
What God chooses to do with His Word from there is a story only He can write.
A Note About This Story
Special thanks to Kevin and Laura Ellen Allen, Kallie Snipes, and Caroline Cartin for sharing their experiences and helping tell the story of this mission. Their interviews, firsthand accounts, and reflections provided the foundation for this article.
A note on photography: Some images featured in this story are AI-generated illustrations created to help readers visualize the street evangelism described by team members. These images do not depict actual individuals or specific moments from the trip; they are visual representations based on firsthand descriptions and accounts shared by those who served in London. Other photographs featured throughout the story were provided by members of the mission team.