Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed walking with the Lord. I had a good day on campus. The best part of the day was David a Roman Catholic guy prayed with me to receive Christ and follow Him. I also had encouraging another Christian Brother and had a long Apologetic conversation with Reese, an African American who identified as a Muslim. I have gone through the Gospel with several Muslims of late.

David was sitting on a bench across from the bank desk. He had on cargo shorts and had just pulled full-ear headphones out of a container box, which then remained around his neck as we talked, his laptop on his lap and phone beside him. He wore a polo shirt and had a mop of curly hair that came down on his forehead in a wad of bangs he occasionally grabbed and pulled up, only for them to return to the place they were in before. His eyes were in a perpetual squint. And he spoke in almost plotting manner his face in a kind of sly dry expression. He had kind of a traditional looking face, thin lips he had light tuffs of beard where sideburns tried to grow. He listened to me and took it all in; it might have been one of the longest conversations I have ever had that ended with someone praying to receive Jesus. The pace of it was like molasses in January. The Spirit was on me providing patience. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he said, “I would say, Hmm… Why?,” he asked himself. Then thinking more he said, “I suppose Church every Sunday isn’t enough. I tried to live the best that I could and tried to surround myself with good caring people that pushed me to be better.” He thought he had a 90% chance of going to Heaven though he wanted to say 100 but didn’t want to sound proud I think. He listened to the Gospel and knew Jesus had been the sacrifice to take away the sins of the world. I asked if he would want to be forgiven or thought something else. “I would want to be forgiven,” he replied. So I said if when something went wrong and he asked God for forgiveness was he thinking he had been a good person and went to Church and based on his past record he’d be forgiven or did he think “I believe I’ll be forgiven because Jesus died for me.” That’s a lot to take in,” He replied. He then spent a while, thinking then processing about how he had gotten more into his faith after CCD (which he admitted had been boring) in a group they had at St Francis called “God Parents” where they talked about life more, it was not related to baptism at all. He had really liked the fellowship of that group of his peers and said he was “nostalgic” about it. He had been the first year at the age of 14 that had done a mission trip, which as he described the trips each year they seemed like relief work, simple good works. He was still going to church but did not have a group to go to. I suggested he was kind of in a desert between fellowship, but he could use this time to come closer to God and ask Him to live inside him and change him. That his other activities could instead of mere nostalgia a building block as he committed his life as an adult to what was really behind what he’d been up to in HS. I said that we do good works to show God our gratitude for what He has done to save us on the cross. He could take the next step with God and become more of an “electron donor” in the next group. I was searching for something like “hit the ground running” but my head didn’t grab that in the moment, it was the end of a long week and I was tapped to be honest. I talked to him about several things in metaphor. I asked if he’d seen Lord of the Rings where Gandalf said, “You shall not pass!” to the demon monster and rode it down. “The Balrog,” he said. “The Balrog,” I said saying I’d forgotten its name. I talked about being in a desert place like Gandalf but emerging as “Gandalf the White” from having been “Gandalf the Grey”. The wizard in the book battles the demon and everyone thinks he died but he came out victorious and even more powerful. He liked the analogy I could tell. I talked to him about the symbolism in the Mass and it commemorating that Jesus had died so he knew he was forgiven. He said his older brother, Sergio, had turned away from the Church and stopped going for the last couple years. He used him as an example of culture and saying was surrounded by anti-faith forces. I talked to him about not living in his own strength but trusting in the power of the Spirit to do good things. There were stretches of silence and I talked him through the prayer where he could ask God to live inside him and take the next step with God and asked if it was the desire of his heart. He said it was and so I said he could pray it silently and God would hear and forgive him. He looked at it then after a bit as I held out the booklet and I could tell he was praying, then he crossed himself and said something in Latin and I took off my hat and said, “Amen.” He was a click brighter then. I gave him a Bible Study on the Deity of Christ and 20 Things God Can’t Do writing his name and the Date and “forgiven” in the front. I told him, “I will pray for you every night from now until spring and one year after praying one of the prayers of Paul for God to bless you.” He was taken a bit by that and I know that struck him. He was a typical student whose High School youth group had become the main expression of his faith and he’d lost it having gone to college. But I encouraged him he could prepare for the next thing God had for him to do in the next fellowship group by being changed in His power “Inside Out”. I believe the Gospel began to take root and I also said I would pray for his brother Sergio too whom he had had a recent argument with saying he could pray for his brother to see Christ in Him. He thanked me and I headed out saying I was excited for him taking the next step in his faith.

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

In Him,

Bob