Deborah Drapper: 14-Year-Old Evangelist
In 2009, we received an email from a girl in the United Kingdom who had been filming an upcoming BBC special entitled, Deborah 13: Servant of God. That girl is Deborah Drapper, and she wanted to tell us about this upcoming special. Unlike most girls in the U.K., Deborah is a devout Christian creationist, and she goes to bed every night to the sound of creation DVDs playing on her computer in her room. The documentary covers a summer in the life of this extraordinary girl, who, though only 13 at the time, devoted her life to evangelism.
Faith beyond years
Deborah’s testimony was stunning, and when we got a copy of the documentary, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Deborah presented the truth of God’s creation and the gospel with such clarity and boldness. In fact, I think it was her sincerity that captivated us the most. With pure, childlike faith, she approached total strangers on street corners, asking them if they considered themselves to be good people. Using the law to convict sin, as she had seen done by evangelists like Ray Comfort of Living Waters, she would then show these souls the truth of the glorious gospel. At one point in the documentary, Deborah even put the question to the woman interviewing her! “Would you consider yourself to be a good person?” The message Deborah had for the world was simple: We are all sinners. No one is truly a good person in the eyes of the Creator, and we are therefore under God’s judgment for that. But the good news she shared was that Christ came into the world to take our punishment upon Himself for us if we will repent and trust in Him.
Trip to the Ambassador’s Academy with Deborah
Creation Today had the privilege to attend the Ambassador’s Academy in California with Deborah and her father, Andrew, and sister, Kirsty, hosted by Tony Miano and Living Waters. Attending this soul-winner’s training event and working alongside Deborah in evangelism was such a blessing. Soon after this trip, Deborah stopped in to pay us a visit here at Creation Today. She told us how she used creation, not as an end in itself, but as we use it—to further the gospel through evangelism. Creation is a wonderful area of study, but in its proper context, it is only to clear away the stones in the path of the sinner on their way to the Savior. Evolutionism is a dangerous religion that has littered the path to Christ with so many objections, skepticisms and pitfalls. But as Deborah brought out, these could be thoroughly removed from the way by the powerful message of creation.
Sometimes sinners need to see their sin, and so we take them to the law. Sometimes sinners need to see their Creator, and so we take them to creation. But as we saw demonstrated by Deborah Drapper, evangelism is the ultimate goal. Creation is merely a powerful tool in the broader scheme of evangelism. It prepares us to deal with the obstacles preventing souls from seeing their Creator. And to see a young girl like Deborah Drapper, a servant of God, using that tool, along with the tool of the law to win souls, reminds us of why we’re in this struggle in the first place. It reminds us of why we fight for the truth of creation. It reminds us of why we use the law and creation to evangelize: to bring glory to our Creator.
