Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Well, I hope you were blessed today walking by the Spirit.  I had a good day on campus.  I  had some good conversations and Phabian prayed with me to receive Christ.  He’s an African American guy; thin, good looking, kind of crazy hair though.  His head was shaved on the sides and his afro kind of came up in waves like Jimmy neutron boy genius.  He had just a slight mustache.  Phabian was sitting in some chairs overlooking the revolving exit doors by the bookstore and said he’d be willing to answer some questions, except that he really had no answers.  When I asked him what he might say to God to get into Heaven he said, “I honestly have no idea.”  He didn’t have any certainty about if he would get to Heaven and hadn’t been to church in a while.  When his parents moved and he started College he lost the habit.  He literally said almost nothing as I went through the Gospel except a nod or a smile.  But when I asked him if he would want to be forgiven based on what Jesus had done for him on the Cross he said he did and prayed to receive Christ.  He had a bible at home so I encouraged him to read it.  I gave him More Than A Carpenter but he “never read much,” he said.  I also gave him a Bible study and explained the Christian life by living by the Spirit.  He gave me his email to get a bible study from me once in a while.  I told him I would be praying for him and he thanked me a couple times and I said, “God bless you.”  And he said, “You too.”  It wouldn’t be enough to give me hope; short conversations hearing the Gospel, and a simple prayer.  But if the Holy Spirit enters you by genuine faith when you pray, my hope for you is in the Power of God not the faithfulness of man.

So thanks for your prayers for me today doing evangelism if you had a chance and for the ministry.  God is leading me on campus.

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope you felt the presence of the Lord today as you walked with Him.  I had a good day on campus and Jordan and Ryan prayed to receive Christ today.

Ryan was sitting in the MAC Arts building and said he’d answer some questions.  He was from a Catholic background.  He was a nice lookin’ kid wearing a Bears sweatshirt and a stocking cap.  He had his arms crossed over his chest the entire time.  That is said to be a psychological sign of closure, but I think it is more about security or trust.  I read this week, “Millennials possess very low levels of trust in other people [19%]”.  I am careful not to demand follow-up information out of students.  Just because God has brought them to Himself doesn’t me they want to hang out with me.  Ryan was trusting in his works to save him, but was receptive to the Gospel and said he would want to be forgiven.  As I explained the difference between trusting in Christ and in his own works and asked him if he understood it and would want to be forgiven he said, “Probably” But then he was quiet and prayed the prayer as I held it out and said, “Ok.”  I explained the Holy Spirit to him and how the Christian life was to be changed from the inside by God’s power.  I encouraged him to think about that during the Lord’s supper, that he was forgiven and he said, “Yeah but if you have committed a mortal sin you are even more guilty to take it.”  I agreed and said there was a Bible verse that said as much about how taking it unrepentantly would make you guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. [1Cor. 11:27].  I talked to him about forgiveness and that it was only God who could forgive our sin.  I gave him Playing With Purpose on the NBA and a Bible study to read.  As I left him saying, “Good to talk with ya.” he said, “Nice to meet you.”

Jordan was sitting at the hallway entrance to the tunnel that goes over to the PE building.  She had highlights in her hair and was really nice, cute oval face, skinny jeans looked acid washed.  She said the thing she wanted to do before she died was, “To fall madly in love and marry that person.”  She grew up Catholic, but when her parents divorced (probably why she hoped for love), she started to go to an evangelical church for awhile.  But she was working and going to school full time and about to start another job and had no time for church right now.  We talked about other religions and I explained that Christianity was the only religion offering any assurance of Heaven to you.  Hinduism was escape from the endless cycle of births and deaths into nothingness.  Buddhism was similar.  There was no assurance in Islam.  Judaism was really about good works as in the Old Testament you went to Sheol not Heaven.  It was a place of rest but not the presence of God or a reward.  I went through the Gospel with her and asked her, “So the question is:  What kind of person are you or would you want to be?  Would you want to be forgiven for your sins and have God live inside you or is God more on the outside of your life?”  And she began to cry.  I said that was ok when she was kind of apologetic and said she didn’t have to know why, “Oh I know why”, she said and got teary eyed again, “It’s signs [from God].”  I nodded.  She wanted to pray to receive Christ and did.  I gave her More Than a Carpenter to read and a Bible study and got her email to send her stuff.  As I left, her friend had shown up and sat down so I leaned over and whispered, “God loves you.”  And told her she’d be in my prayers through the year.
So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance.  God worked and moved peeps to Himself.

In Him,
Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Hope your day was filled with all good things from the Father of Lights.  I had a good day on campus and Dontate [Dante] and Kialah [Kī lä] both prayed to receive Christ.  Dontate was sitting on a bench by a classroom doorway on the first floor of the science building.  He was reading the bulletin board and said he’d answer some questions.  We talked a long time. He was an African American guy, had a black Nike stocking cap on and a black warm-up jacket and was wearing some really worn out cross trainer shoes that looked like they’d seen a couple winters and skinny jeans.  He had big sideburns that were patchy and pronounced features, looked 22 maybe.  He had some of his own ideas about where you went when you died.  It seemed like he thought you went into some kind of greater consciousness, like something Oprah might push.  We talked about the claims of different religions and the impossibility of knowing the “good” thing to do without God, who was all powerful and all knowing guiding the outcome of your actions.  He asked what the purpose of life was and I explained the Gospel and that God wanted to live inside him and do good things through him.  I told him the Scriptures teach that, “All things worked together for good for those who loved God and are called according to His purposes”.  I explained the Bible suggests the fingers of God on earth are men and we are created for good works in Christ that He has prepared beforehand that we might walk in them [Eph. 2:10 ].  “It’s like God wrote you the perfect play for your life,” I told him.  “But you are not graded on how well you say the lines or make your entrances on stage but on how often you ask for guidance right in the middle of the play from God [the Director].  I asked him if he wanted to be forgiven and he said he did.  I asked if he believed Jesus is God and died for his sins and if he trusted in that and he said he did.  So I showed him a prayer he could pray to receive Christ and he prayed with me silently.  I explained the fruit of the Spirit providing the strength to live the Christian life.  I showed him a bunch of books and he decided he’d like to read the Case for Christ.  He had a lot of questions and wanted the video I had that answered apologetic questions so I gave him that also.  He gave me his email to send him stuff too. So that was great.

Kialah, a cute kind of pretty girl black girl, her hair tinted light brown, had a light cream colored linen shirt with a dark camisole under it and a 2 and a half inch think rhinestone head band, jeans on.  She was a nice kid who went to an apostolic church and was sitting with Kyree, good looking (also black) guy with youngish facial hair and a hoodie pulled up over his head.  She’d shot Kyree down before [romantically] in the past it turned out, so I played with them about that.  He did not want to answer any questions but it turned out he had some and felt really distant from God.  He asked me what to do about it and I said to pray for more faith because it was a gift he could ask for more of and to ask God to draw closer to him.  I told him I would pray for him.  He played basketball and I gave him a copy of Playing with Purpose (on believers who play in the NBA) and a Bible study, after he’d he listened to the Gospel as I explained it to Kialah.  I had explained imputation to them, telling them you don’t go to Heaven because you are good but because Jesus was good and His righteousness is to our credit.  I used several examples, finally saying if you get adopted by a billionaire you get to live in the mansion and drive all the expensive cars and if you are adopted into God’s family you get the blessings of it.  The righteousness of Jesus is what you get so you are fit for Heaven.  They both said that made sense.  Kialah had thought awhile {when I’d first sat down and asked} about why God should let her into Heaven and finally landed on, “Because I serve Him.”  That’s obviously the answer given by the people to whom Christ responds, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”  I told her the story, after going through the Gospel with them, and said she’d have the same problem.  I asked her if she wanted to be forgiven and she said yes.  So I asked her if, when she prayed for forgiveness, is she thinking she was a good person who served God and God was a good God and would forgive her or, “was she trusting that God would forgive her because Jesus had died for her?”  “I’m about half way there,” she said with a smile.  “You wanna land?” I asked.  She said she did and so I showed her a prayer to receive God’s forgiveness and she prayed quietly to receive Christ, smiling first to tell us not to watch.  I explained the work of the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life to her and she said she’d email me for more stuff.

I had a good conversation with an atheist, Michael, who took The Case for a Creator to read.  Nice kid, baseball player.  I’d talked to his brother John a couple years ago it turned out.  He thought there was no evidence, but of course there is a great deal of it so I am hopeful and will be praying for him this next year.  I felt like we had a connection talking about guitar playing and Tommy Emanuel, a guitarist we both liked that we’d seen live [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI8p8mYP_5A {this is him on youtube}]  We owned the same brand of acoustic guitar. (Though his is worth 3 times what mine is and he seems to play it 10 times better than me.)

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance.  God really blessed.

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope ya had a good day walkin’ with the Lord Jesus.  I keep looking for the peeps and towards the end of the day came upon Jason who prayed to receive Christ.  He was sitting in a first floor lounge in the BIC building when we began to talk.  He had sandy hair and a warm-up jacket on, good looking kid.  At first blush it seemed like Jason had trusted Christ.  When I asked him why God would let him into Heaven he talked about how he liked to worship God and did so a couple times each week at church.  But this is still just a religious work.  He had no assurance of his salvation, but said it was just “believing you’d go” [to Heaven] but it seemed not in the work of Christ to provide for him.  He acknowledged Christ had died when I mentioned this but it didn’t seem essential.  So I asked him where he went to church and he said, “Church of Christ.’  The Chicago Church of Christ around Chicago is not to be confused with the denomination you see as you head south of here, but is a division of the Boston Church of Christ. I t is really something of a low-grade cult.  They preach that you are saved by your works, your baptism (saying you cannot be saved if you are not baptized) and also Christ’s work on the Cross.  But I have yet to meet a Church of Christ kid who mentioned the last of the three.  Still, I went through the Gospel with Jason, and he said he would want to be forgiven.  So trying to help him think about it I said as I often have with religious nominal Christians who are not saved, “When you are praying for forgiveness, are you thinking you will be forgiven because Christ has died for you or because you are good and go to Church?”  His reply was, “I never thought about it before.”  Which did not surprise me given the teaching of the Church he was in, so I explained further how this was what he lacked and he decided to pray to receive Christ.  I had explained that he did not go to Heaven because he was good but because Jesus was good.  And I reinforced this with him, talking him through the work of the Holy Spirit.  I explained he needed to ask the Holy Spirit to fill him in worship and that that was what pleased God (that he worshiped in the Spirit).  I left him with a Bible Study and the book Playing with Purpose about the Christian players in the NBA.  So hopefully he’ll be encouraged by the stories in it and the way those guys are living for Christ.  Please pray the truth of the Gospel penetrates his heart and God, through His Holy Spirit, leads him to a better church.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for Evangelism today if you had a chance.  God was active by His Spirit and blessed.

in Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We have had a great year thus far doing evangelism, though we wish we had more students coming to the Bible study on Wednesday nights.  I thought I would take a story from this past week and fill in all the gaps from what I had already written in the emails some of you receive, knowing most people only get to read a handful of them in the course of a semester.  So here is the story of Mackenzie coming to Christ on a Thursday.

When I first got to campus I had a bit of a cold coming on that I was beating back with vitamins, so I thought I’d wear my coat in from the truck.  It was near 50 degrees outside and I would usually throw my coat in the truck and dash for it (and save the 50 cents it costs to use a locker.)  Thanks to my Swedish mother’s gene pool I never got fat, but the skinny chill easily.  So I turned in to park at a different door, thinking I hadn’t walked that part of campus as much and there were lockers by it.  But no parking spaces were open.  Not a single one in two different lots.  So I felt like I was just wasting time and went to where I usually park.  The reason I am telling you this is because this entrance sent me straight down a hallway from the lockers toward the bookstore and Mackenzie was the first person I talked to about Christ.  At first she was a bit behind me down the hall.  Then I felt provoked to double-back to ask someone I had passed, an Indian girl who said ‘no thank you.’  By then Mackenzie is in front of me by 15 yards and sits on the bottom steps in front of the bookstore entrance.  Had I not been prompted to talk to the girl who turned down conversation, Mackenzie would have sat down behind me and I would have never spoken to her, having already gone up the steps.

It turns out Mackenzie (a very pretty blonde girl) was engaged to be married.  She had been sitting on the steps for no more than 15 seconds when I began to talk to her.  I asked her if she wanted to do a student survey about God for a Bible study group.  (Answer some questions about God, basically.  I don’t use the word “survey” in what we post as it is really a “questionnaire”  Rules prohibit surveys and data collecting on campus i.e. What toothpaste do you use? stuff.)  She said she was waiting for someone.  “But I’m a Christian so I would,” she said.  So I asked, “Well, ya wanna answer one big question?”  She agreed a bit reluctantly and I said, “You’re walking down the road and you get hit by a bus.  So you’re dead, and you stand before God and He says ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’  What would you say?”  Her response sounded like the stereotypical section of Today’s Christian Woman magazine, but it had nothing of the Gospel in it, just love and good works.  So I said, “That’s all great, but that’s not what the Bible says.  Would you like to know what it says?”  She said she would so I continued.  “Christianity is like a blood transfusion.  I have A+ blood so if you got A+ blood and give me a blood transfusion I’m great.  But if you got B- blood, I’m dead.  So God wants to transfuse His life into you, to live inside you with His Holy Spirit.  But to do that He has to take away your sin.  Make you His type.  Then you are all perfect and holy inside and you match God and He can move right in.  So do you know what God does with Jesus to take away your sin?”  “I don’t think they have ever talked about that at my Church.” she answered.

I explained that Jesus had died in her place for the perfect life she had not lived.  “Because you are supposed to live a perfect life.  The Bible says you are to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” [Matt. 5:48].  So really if you stood before God, He’d be like, ‘Mackenzie, welcome to Heaven.  You were supposed to live a perfect life.  Did you live a perfect life?  Where’s my perfect life?’  And you’d be like ‘I didn’t live a perfect life’.  So God could say, ‘Well everything here is perfect, I’m perfect and this is a perfect place.  You don’t fit in here.  You gotta go to Hell.’  But that’s crazy right?  Then everyone goes to Hell because no one has lived a perfect life.  So the solution is:  God becomes a man, Jesus, and He lives a perfect life for you [1Cor. 1:30].  And the merit, or the credit, of His life is stored up.  Then He walks around telling people the truth and they get angry at Him and they kill him.  So now he’s dead.  But Jesus wants to die because the Bible says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins [Heb. 9:22].  And that does several things.  You know how, when you are a little kid and someone does something really cruel to you, it kills you a little bit?”  She nodded.  “Well, when we sin we create death in the world and Jesus is the source of all life, since He’s God and life is in the blood [Lev. 17:11].  So when He sheds His blood He gives His life to the world [John 6:33] and restores life to all the places we made death.  And He dies in your place [1Pet. 3:18] since you were under the penalty of death for not living a perfect life.  And then you know how when someone dies you inherit their stuff?  Like if you got an uncle or something you might get his car?”  She nodded.  “Well, when Jesus dies you inherit the credit from His perfect life.  It’s like say you were taking a class here, and everybody is failing, the teacher’s horrible, and people are dropping.  So there’s only like10 people left in the class and you think you should drop too since you got a Zero.  Literally nothing she says in class is on the quizzes.  But then you hear about one guy, Billy, who has a 100% in the class.  So you figure you’ll talk to him first.  Maybe he’s got a website he’s using or something.  So you go to him and you say, ‘Hey I hear you got 100% in the class.  How come?’  He says, ‘Oh, I took this class last year at U of I.  They changed the course description on me so they won’t let me transfer the credit but she’s using the same textbook and I think it might even be the same quizzes ‘cause I seem to know the answers.  And since they won’t give me credit for my other class, I’ve been turning in all my old projects and I got a 1000 points of extra credit.  Teacher thinks I’m totally geeking on this class, but the truth is I had it last semester.’  So you are like, ‘Oh that won’t help me,’ and he’s like ‘no.’  So he goes for a ride in his car on the weekend and gets wiped out by a truck, he’s dead.  The teacher comes to class on Monday and says, ‘I have terrible news.  Billy has died.  He had a 1000 points of extra credit and I don’t want all that to go to waste.  So I’m gonna give it to you guys.’  You look around and there’s only 10 people left in the class and you think, Well, I’m sorry about Billy but I just got 100%.  That’s what Jesus did.  The credit of his life is to your credit.  In God’s eyes you get 100%.  So you don’t go to Heaven because you are good, you go to Heaven because Jesus was good.”  Then I quoted the beginning of Rom. 13:14 to her.  “How do I get Jesus to do that [for me]?” she asked.  I said, “That’s the perfect question.”  I explained she need only ask Him to, and walked her through the prayer and asked her if she would like to pray to receive Christ, reading her John 1:12 and explaining it.  She said “yes” and prayed.

I explained the work and fruit of the Holy Spirit to her as quickly as I could, giving her Galatians 5:22,23.   I explained that faith saved her and not her works.  As I went into a story about a lousy boyfriend who was a thief, a whore and a drug addict, she stopped me and said, “That’s like my fiancé.  He was arrested last night for felony theft of $1,000 in stuff.”  I looked in her eyes and said, “You need to break up with him.”  And she said, “I know.  I think God is speaking to me through you right now.  I don’t want to sound strange, but I think God led you to me.”   I agreed with her, given that she had prayed to receive Christ.  She talked some of her addiction problems saying she had been sober for 18 months.  “I am a good Christian woman {now}.  But I have to go,” she said.  “My mom is texting me [her ride] asking where I am.”  She showed me the text “I’m in front where are you?”

I encouraged her as much as I could briefly, and gave her a Bible study on the ways Jesus claims to be God and the book,  Enjoying Your Walk With God: How to Live Above Your Everyday Circumstances.  Just as I left her I said, “I don’t know if I will see you again, but I can pray for you.  Spell your name for me Mackenzie.”  She spelled her full name for me and I wrote it down and I said to her, “Leave that guy.”  “I will,” she said and ran to the doors.

Mackenzie is just one of 39 students who have prayed to receive Christ this semester through mostly one on one encounters.  Here are their names:

Berto, Jake, Kaichelle, Kayla, Jose, Arielle, Dustin, Matt, Kiara, Jevante, Kiera, Rashundra, Lonie, Aleena, CJ, Burnelle, Lorn, Andrew, Daniella , Ana, Chelsea, Maria, Caitlan, Zam, Nettie, Courtney, Christian, Daniela, Kayla, Adriana, Ruby,  Leesha, Paola, Cody, Atche, Sabrina, Sheridan, Mackenzie, Dannielle

Thank you for your prayers and financial support.  They make bringing the Gospel to college students possible.

In Him,

Bob & Ellen

To donate online to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Hope ya had a great day walking in the Lord.  I had several good talks with students and Courtney prayed with me to receive Christ.  She was laying on her back, looking at her phone in the Mac Arts center.  She has long brown hair and was dressed all in black with some white in her shirt at the neck line, kind of a rounded diamond shaped face, brown eyes.  Her dream is to work in a music studio.  Kind, nice girl.  Courtney had been to a couple of churches but had left, feeling like the Church was about them — as opposed to caring for people, I believe.  I didn’t know if she was a Christian but she had a heart of compassion.  But of course that would not save you.  She admitted later she did not read her Bible and I encouraged her to read the Book of John explaining it a bit to her.  “I feel like my heart would deserve it (Heaven). It’s always been in the right place, the way I think about things.”  But it turned out she had not trusted in or understood the Gospel but was just going to Church, kind of trying to follow along but not knowing the path.  When I explained the Gospel to her she had known the story a bit but had not asked God to forgive her based on what Jesus had done.  I explained the work of the Holy Spirit to her and how God could give her the strength to love others and live the Christian life. She wanted to pray to receive Christ and be forgiven, to have God live inside her.  She said she was not a disciplined reader at all.  So I gave her a Bible Study and a copy of More than a Carpenter to read, telling her she could just read it little by bit and not to worry about her progress.  But to trust that God would do the work to transform her and to keep asking Him to do so by His Spirit.  As we were getting up to leave she said, “I think you talked to my boyfriend the other day.”  I asked her what his name was and she said, “Tyler.”  I said, “I remember him. He had a Cubs jacket on and a hat.”  And she said, “He did.”  I said I had talked to him over in the science building but he had not prayed with me.  So I encouraged him to and said to him, putting my hand on his shoulder, “You know this is true.” as he got up to leave.  And he agreed he did.  I told Courtney I had been praying for him.  She gave me her number as her email did not work, so maybe I will text her next week to see if Tyler had prayed to receive Christ.  I’ll keep them both in my prayers now.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had the chance.  God blessed and called Courtney.

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Hope your day was blessed and you felt God near.  I had a good day sharing the faith and had some good conversations with students.  Nettie prayed to receive Christ.  She was sitting on a couch-bench in the upstairs of the Mac Arts building when I came across her.  She is a tiny cute kid, long brown hair and glasses, wearing yoga pants and a black long sleeved t-shirt–seemed like a sweet kid.  I asked her what she would say to get into Heaven and she said, “I’d say something about a chance, like you gotta give somebody one chance.”  She was not that certain she would go to Heaven (50%) though she had gone through the hoops in her Roman Catholic Church and been confirmed.  After I had gone through the Gospel with her she said she felt like you had to earn Heaven by doing good works.  I said, “There are a couple problems with that.  One is how do you know when you have done enough good works?  You may have told a lie but how often do you have to tell the truth for it to be enough?  The Bible never tells you, it just say you have to be perfect so how do you know you did enough?”  I explained that since she was not perfect she would have to stand before God admitting she had lied here and there or stolen an answer.  “What if you are driving too slow in traffic because you are just not paying attention and you just make the light but make the guy behind you misses it.  Then there is a traffic accident right after you go by and the guy is stuck there and it makes him late for work.  It is his 10th time so he is fired.  He goes home and tells his wife, his unemployment leads to the break up of his marriage and his kids turn into crack whores.  All because you stole his time.”  So little things you might think are not big sins might have caused a bad result.  Or even good things, like smiling at a guy and it is a weak moment for him and makes him lust after you and he starts obsessing and breaks off his engagement and it ruins his life.  I told her she would have to be all-powerful and all-knowing to know and do the “Good”.  All-knowing to know what to do and all-powerful to control the results of her actions so they would lead to good results.  I told her a Tolstoy story to illustrate it about an old man who lost his horse but it is kind of long to write out.  (If you want to know, call me sometime or ask me at a wedding or something.) But by the end of all this she said, “I see what you mean.”  So Nettie was persuaded she needed God’s help to do good things and to control the outcome of her actions, making them good.  So she decided to pray to receive Jesus as her savior so God could live inside her and she could live asking for help from His Holy Spirit.  I gave her the Student edition of The Case for Christ to read and a Bible study.

So thanks for your prayers for the Ministry and for Evangelism today if you had a chance.  God blessed and it was Good.

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Hope your day brought you peace in the Lord.  The world is in turmoil but God is in control.  At least it seems so to me on campus as He continues to lead me to people who trust in Him.  Chelsea and Maria each prayed to receive Jesus today.

Chelsea is African American.  Her straightened hair was pulled back into a medium-length pony tail.  She had jeans on and a hooded sweatshirt, no makeup, slight features, attractive and she is studying to be a nurse.  She was raised in a Christian environment and said God had been a big part of her life growing up.  When I had gone through the Gospel with her, much of it seemed familiar.  But I asked her if she had truly been trusting in what Jesus had done for her on the Cross to forgive her or in that she was religious and good.  “I guess.  I’ve been baptized… I’m not really sure if I ever did.”  She thought about it some more and so I said, “Well if you wanted to be sure, there is a prayer you could pray.”  And I walked her through it, asking her if it was the desire of her heart.  She said it was and decided she wanted to pray.  And she did.  It seems like if you are not sure you ever asked God to forgive you based on what Jesus had done for you, you should.  She had to run to her class but I had a chance to explain living by the power of the Holy Spirit to her and gave her a Bible study and More Than a Carpenter to read.  I asked her to email me if she’d like to learn more.  She seemed to be in a worshipping church.  Hopefully now she will be worshiping in gratitude that her sins are forgiven.

I talked to a black guy earlier in the day whose name was Cozing, similar thing though I don’t think he knew the gospel. He thought he would like to pray later so I hope he will.

Maria was sitting in the Cafeteria and after a couple peeps had turned me down she made eye contact so I asked her and she wanted to answer some questions.  The Lord seemed to be moving in her heart as she sat looking out the window at the counter against the glass.  She was a bit on the heavy side with a sweet, nice face and very curly long brown hair.  Her background was Spanish speaking and she went to some kind of Roman Catholic Church downtown that she sometimes attended, though the services seemed somehow nontraditional.  I asked her what she would say to God if she died and He asked why He should let her into Heaven and she said, “If I’m worthy–to let me in.”  So I went through the Gospel with her.  I asked her in the middle how God, with Jesus, took away her sin but she just said, “I’m sorry I don’t know.”  So I explained to her His death and imputed righteousness, dying in her place and she said she would want to be forgiven.  She explained though her family did not always get to Church she felt like God was with her.  I said, “God is with you, but this is more a question of if you want Him to be in you with His Spirit helping and guiding you.  Say for some reason we took a class together here and a guy in it decided he liked you and he asked me if I knew you and I said we’d talked.  Then he asked me to give you his number.  So I give his digits to you and we all get to know each other and even study together but you never call him and he never calls you.  Well, you have a relationship with him because he is your friend but you are not in a relationship with him.”  She understood the difference and I asked her if she would like to be in a relationship with God.   I explained a prayer she could pray and she decided she wanted what it expressed.  After she had prayed I gave her a Bible study on the Deity of Christ.  I explained again the righteousness of Jesus to her credit, that she did not go to Heaven because she was good but because Jesus was good and died for her. And that trusting now in that she would go to Heaven.  She looked at me and earnestly said, “Thank you.”

So thanks for your prayers for the Ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance.  I’m truly grateful for your help.

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Hope your day was blessed and you felt the presence of the Lord.  I believe the Lord guided me again today by His Spirit through prayers.  Ana prayed to receive Jesus today.  Daniella, who I’d gone through the Gospel with just barely before she ran to class a few days back, sat across from me while I went through the Gospel with Vanessa.  I smiled at Daniella and she smiled back and listened a bit. (A pretty petite brown haired girl.)  I had a given her a copy of the booklet as she ran off to class.  Vanessa thought she would like to pray later and left and I went over and Daniella told me she’d read the prayer in the booklet and took More Than a Carpenter from me.  I told her I would pray for her.  She seems like a really sweet girl.  I bumped into Lonie and Aleena (two African American students) waiting for the bus by the revolving doors of the SRC, who I’d gone through the Gospel with on the 8th.  Lonie had prayed to receive Christ then and Aleena said then she would pray later and she smilingly told me today she’d prayed to receive Christ.  They smiled, laughed and thanked me when I told them I would be praying for them and had been.

Ana was the last person I talked to today in the MAC Arts building, sitting overlooking the lounge.  She is a pretty, Latina girl, with sharp features, long brown hair and a big engagement ring on her finger.  She is engaged to guy in the army stationed in Hawaii, and I got his name to pray for him as well.  She plays the saxophone in the Army band.  We talked for about an hour.  She thinks of herself as Catholic and didn’t know how God took away her sins.  She said she really did not know much about the Catholic faith, but her entire family is catholic and she has been trying to motivate herself to get back into church.  Her fiancé is really religious and she asked me about how I thought it would work in regard to the Catholic Church.  I told her I was marrying a girl from a Catholic background to a guy who is Lutheran next summer.  I said my understanding was that if she got marriage counseling through the Catholic Church they would recognize a marriage outside their specific auspices.  She hadn’t been to confession in a couple years and did not like it.  She wasn’t very inclined toward church but her fiancé was “very spiritual”.  We talked about naming (she was struggling with taking her fiancé’s name) as belonging to someone, as that was the topic of last night’s Bible study in light of the 3rd commandment [if ya want the notes out of curiosity I can send them. 😉 ]  We talked about men and women and respect and love, but all this was after I had gone through the Gospel with her and she was really receptive.  She said she wanted to be forgiven.  After I went through the prayer I asked her if it was the desire of her heart and she said yes.  For a moment she was not sure she wanted to pray, but then changed her mind and prayed to accept the forgiveness of Christ.  I explained about asking for the Holy Spirit’s power to have the strength to love.  I poured as much marriage guidance as I could into about 25 minutes.  I gave her a Bible study to read and gave her Enjoying Your Walk with God.  We talked about raising kids and I encouraged her that it would be good if she could find a church she felt comfortable in that was kind of middle ground.  I encouraged her to check out Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton saying it was “high church” and might feel familiar to her and be acceptable to her Fiancé too, who did not want to attend the Catholic Church.  She said she would think about it.  I got her email and so I think I will send her the link for the Church where some friends attend as she does not live too far away to go.

So thanks so much for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance.  20 people have prayed to receive Christ this year so far on Campus and God has truly been faithful in answering prayer.

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp

Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
How’s your day been walking with Jesus?  Andrew prayed to receive Christ today.  And I had a good day, although most of the peeps who were willing to talk to me claimed to be Christians (though they thought they were going to Heaven based on their good works when we began talking, but were professing faith by the time I finished the Gospel.)  Many Churches are so busy telling you what to do that they fail to remind you why you have any power to do what they say.  But I wonder sometimes how many people seem to be converted to believing in their salvation as Grace by Faith in Jesus work as we talk and don’t even realize they have begun to think about it differently.

But Andrew realized there had been a difference between what he had been told at church and believed, and the Gospel I taught him.  He had not known of the imputed righteousness of Christ and that he would not go to Heaven because he was good, but because Jesus was.  When I explained it to him he said, “That’s great.”  Andrew had jet-back hair combed straight back James Dean style, black-rimmed glasses and a Black shirt on with a white print of bass guitars made to look like a Rorschach blot.  He played base.  He had been going to church until recently, and even went to a Bible study.  But he had not thought about Jesus’ death for his sins before.  When I asked him why God should let him into Heaven he said, “I think I’ve been an overall good person.  I donate when I can.” He left his church when the Preacher had preached kind of a harsh sermon on activism that just made him feel like he was in the wrong place.  It seemed like he was in a conservative church but activism and good works had somehow become the focus of the Christian life instead of God’s love in the Gospel.  But he listened patiently to the Gospel as I told it to him, quoting Bible verses, and said he would want to be forgiven based on what Jesus had done for him.  So I told him that if he wanted to he could ask for forgiveness based on that, where the Holy Spirit could enter him and give him power to live the Christian life.  I got out one of the booklets then and showed him a prayer he could pray, explaining it.  He took it and prayed to receive Christ.  I got his email to send him some stuff and gave him a Bible Study to read.  He took a copy of More Than a Carpenter, saying his mom would probably like it. “She’s the one who got me into all this.”  So I will be praying for Andrew to grow in his new faith.

Thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance.  We had a fun group at Bible study tonight too.  God blessed.

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp