Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed yesterday and you are having a good day today.  Thanks for your faithfulness in prayer. To God be all the Glory, great things He has done, so loved He the world that He gave us His Son. These 5 students each prayed with me to receive Jesus today, Maddie, Fabias, Micah, Jacob, Joe. Sorry this got kind of long for obvious reasons, a bit redundant, but if you’d just pray for these young peeps it would be great.

Maddie was sitting in the hall of the BIC. When I first walked up to her she was the only one sitting there and the hall was empty all the way up and down. She asked how long it would take do do a survey and then consented. She had kind of gold/blonde hair parted on the side shoulder length, cute intelligent, “straight shooter” kind of face wearing a jacket and jeans with her backpack ready to leave. She answered the questioner I do in a snap. “I tried to be a good person,” she quickly replied when I asked her what she’d say to God to get into Heaven. She said she went to a Catholic Church and did want to be cocky so she’d say she had a 70% chance of going to Heaven when she died. So I jumped into the Gospel and the imputed righteousness of God. She knew Jesus had died to take away her sins but she was’t trusting in that and knew it when I finished, she’d been receptive and engaged as I talked so I said “So which person are you or would you want to be? Would you want to trust in what Jesus has done so he’s on the driver seat or the throne of your life living in you with the Holy Spirit? Or is God on the outside of your life? Islam thinks god’s a mystery, his spirit doesn’t come inside people so they have a different god, or the Buddha–he left his wife and child to seek enlightenment so He’s just off trying to get his head straight. He’s not looking for God at all. So would you want to be forgiven or do you think something else.” “I’d want God in the driver’s seat,” she said with a smirky grin. So I said if she wanted she could pray a prayer, saying she could pray it silently so only God would hear and He would forgive her and live inside, would she want to do that. She said, “Yeah,” and prayed silently to receive Christ. She said she had a bible saying the Church had given every one of the 7 kids in her family a Bible (I believe she said when they went through confirmation) so  she said they had “a bunch of Bibles at home” with a smile. I told her she could read in John, explained that the “Word of God” was a nick-name for jesus Jeremiah used and that’s where John got it. Gave her the verses for the Fruit of the Spirit and the book 20 Things God Can’t Do. I wrote her name the Date and “forgiven” in the front and “By the Spirit’s power”. I told her a symbolic view of the Mass, saying it commemorated that Jesus had died and taken away her sins and so when she took it she could just say, “thank you”. I gave her a Bible study and and she was grateful and I got up to leave saying I’d see her in Heaven and she grinned and said, “OK.” She was a great kid.

Over in the PE lounge it was pretty much empty. I stepped into a brief lull in a discussion Fabius and Micah were  having and asked them if they’d like to do a student survey on what they thought about God and stuff. Squinting at me a bit skeptically Fabius relied, “I might be…” He was sitting on the counter with his back to the doors. (A coach later walked half way into the lounge and told him to sit in a chair with gestures he immediately obeyed. I was sitting on the table top across from him by that point and I also obediently took a chair. Micah was more or less sitting pushed back a bit from the table and I looked back and forth as I spoke, Micah on my left Fabias on my right.) To get it going I said, standing between them, “Well it’s questions. So kind of like, ‘Say you are walking down the road and 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?'” Micah was wearing athletic shorts and a hoodie jacket, had a beard thicker on his jaw line and a mustache. Micah also had a baseball cap turned backwards curly hair pouring out a bit from beneath, he looked Latino somewhat superficially. Fabias had his hair in braids and they were tied up behind his head the ends tinted, his features were African American (muscular dude) and he wore tight old school cotton sweats and a pull over hooded sweat shirt both dark blue. Micah said, “Oh that is a good question!” and Fabias began to answer saying he didn’t want to boast but he’d been a good person, he didn’t deliberately hurt others. Micah said he tried to do his best and describing that said twice he had tried to “spread His word”. He seemed less convinced of his answer. I summed up for them that they basically hoped they’d be good enough to go to Heaven and they agreed. So I asked them if they’d be interested in what the Bible said about it and they agreed to hear me out. I began to preach them up and I could feel a brief surge of the Spirit as I did, which made me grateful as when that comes (only does occasionally) I sense I am on the right track and felt they might come to Christ. They were receptive (the only interruption was the brief insertion of the coach to where Fabias was sitting, the football coaches are always cool to me and I think he might have been trying to help me out as it made him sit closer). They tracked with me. So finishing with the Gospel and the imputed righteousness of Christ I asked if they would want to trust in Christ’s work to be forgiven for their sins. “I would want to Micah said in a reserved tone, he seemed convicted. I turned to Fabias and said what about you? “Yeah,” he replied solidly. I showed them the prayer they could pray walking them through it and saying they could pray it silently and they each prayed to receive Christ. I explained living inside out and offered them a book, they each chose the book Bible Promises for You and so I wrote their names and the date and “forgiven” in the front, first to Fabias and gave him a Bible study too and he had to get some where and took off. Then did the same again for Micah at the table. He was pleased and I said I would be keeping him in my prayers for the next year and thanked him for talking with me and headed out of the lounge grateful.

I looked around a while and it was getting later. The School had nearly completely emptied out. I kind of have to make myself leave after 3-4 hours because I am just too trashed. I am not sure why it takes so much out of me but it was the last day and I still had some adrenalin going so I thought I’d look for one more person. Jacob was at a table in a big lounge by himself in ground floor of the BIC on the south side (this is sort of the basement on that side, it is built into a hill). He had on a long sleeve, pull over, crew neck white knit shirt, it was tight and he was a big white guy. He had light freckles and an even growth of mustache the end of which broke before touching the beard. Looked like the all-american guy. Light brown hair, straight short on top. Played offensive line. He had this practiced relax going with the faux yawn (which he did here and there as I spoke). The nothing to get excited about here approach, kind of a put on. He said he’d do a survey after checking out how long it would go and answered, what would you say to God to get into Heaven with,”That’s a good question.” He paused and said, “If I were being honest I couldn’t give you a solid reason. I don’t think I’ve done anything that significant with my life yet.” I asked him what the likelihood was he would get to Heaven. He said he wasn’t sure what qualified him to get to Heaven, hoped he’d have a 50% chance and was not super religious. His parents had stopped going to Church, when he was about 10 for some reason he remembered and did not detail. He thought it might have been a Lutheran Church. He listened to the Gospel watching me and threw in the occasional faux yawn. Still I knew he was interested. When I finished I asked if he’d want to be forgiven or thought something else. “I’d want to be forgiven I guess,” casually he replied. If someone is a bit too laid back I pray that God would guide them as I am talking. I did this with Jacob. I don’t want them to pray insincerely. There have been times someone did not pray with me and I was a little relieved. This is also part of the reason I pray for each student who prayed with me each night for a year or more in the hopes that if they have not genuinely come to Christ they will. (Praying Ephesians 3:16-19  often for students.) So I offered Him the prayer talking through what it meant asking if he’d like to pray silently like I wasn’t there and he said, “Sure. Yeah.” He took the booklet and prayed to receive Christ. I explained walking by the Spirit and living inside out. He did not have a Bible so I gave him one writing his name and the date and “forgiven” in the front. I told him the coaches had a Bible study he might like and gave him a card for Compass Church. He asked when the Bible study was and when it would start up. I also gave him 20 Things God Can’t Do. I wrote “By the Spirit’s Power” and illustrated that for him in a couple chapters (none of the Chapters mention a Spirit filled life I don’t want to send a kid into powerless, frustrating, religious obligations). Finally I gave him a Bible study and got his email which he was up for my having which was a good sign. I said I’d pray for him each night. “I don’t know if I’ll see ya again but I’ll pray for ya.” He smiled genuinely at that and said, “Nice to meet ya Bob.” “Nice to meet you too,” I said and headed out. I walked about for a few more minutes and felt the adrenalin crash and I was very tired so I headed home.

As I got in the truck I remembered the girl staying with us until the end of the Semester, Hope, had said her older brother Joe was coming over to study. We’d both been praying he would come to Christ and there had not been a good sense to jump in when I first met him so I prayed God would make his heart receptive and decided I would tell him the gospel when I got home one way or another. I found them sitting on opposite couches when I got home and walking in I asked Joe if he wanted to answer my multi-million dollar question. “Sure,” he said. So I asked for the 400th or so time this semester, “Your walking down the road and you get hit by a bus, so your dead.” “Wait I’m dead?” “Right your dead. And you stand before God and He says why should I let you into heaven.” He said something about how he wasn’t sure about the conditions but he hoped that by the time that happened he would have lived a life helping people. “So you hope somehow you will be good enough to go to Heaven?” He agreed. “Ok well there is a way you get into heaven in the Bible so I’ll show if you want. Hope and I have talked about it and she’s not sure what you’d think.” Hope then said something reassuring about how it didn’t matter if he made up his mind right away. I went through the Gospel with him as he leaned forward to see what I wrote in the booklet on the little end table between us, me on a wicker ottoman we’ve had for as long as he’d been alive. He was wearing Jeans, a t-shirt and work boots, had a days growth of a heavy beard. He is half Latino, basically the classic good looking guy with Elvis hair, 5’9″, checks dimple when he smiles. I had some background on his life, his parents spit and such I could talk about while talking through the Gospel and Christ’s righteousness (using the parable in Matthew 22 where the wedding garment is the righteousness of Christ.) I talked about how God could make bad things into good. He said he’d want to be forgiven for his sins when I asked him. “Do you believe Jesus is God died for your sins and rose from the dead?” He thought only a second and said he did. I said if he wanted to be forgiven for his sins he could ask there was a prayer he could pray and I read it through to him and asked if that’s what he wanted. He said it was.  I said he could pray it silently and I’d give him space and go get a glass of water, “I’m thirsty and I imagine you are used to Hope being around.” When I came back in I asked if he’d prayed and he said he had and Hope said, “Yay!” and laughed. It was a great moment. More so as since Hope came to Christ from speaking with me this semester she’d been praying each of her family members who didn’t know would come to Christ and they had been.  I told him I pray for people when they come to Christ for a year and would be praying for him but that, “Ellen and I did not plan to stop praying for Hope so we’ll just through you in there even after a year went by.” He grinned broadly. I got some Bibles up from the basement for him to pick from and he picked a compact one with a cross on the front. I wrote his name in the front and “forgiven” which he really liked, I also showed him the “Where to Turn” section. I gave him 20 Things God Can’t Do and talked him through that as I do.

They went out for Ice Cream and when they got back Hope came upstairs saying Joe wanted to talk to me about sex before marriage. Then she left for work. So I went down and we talked that through at our kitchen table. He is in a long distance relationship with a girl he met when they lived in Texas. That is a longer story. He planned to call her last night. So we’ve been praying about that adjustment. He is a high truth person, had never really gone to church, but he honestly had never heard in his life before that you were not supposed to have sex before marriage. This is not even a little hard for me to believe. Please pray for him in this regard, it is not easy to back-up that truck.

So Thanks for your prayers for the ministry all this school year and for Evangelism Friday if you had a chance. God has wonderfully blessed. 155 Students have trusted Christ after talking with me on campus that I know of, God is Great.

In Him,

Bob