Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed with good will toward men and you prayed for peace or the destruction of God’s enemies by which it would then come. I had a slow day on campus and could not find anyone to talk to for hours until the end of the day. But they have taken up the tables for the weekly college recruiters and it’s pretty close to a ghost town for the most part. Or people are visibly dug in studying for a final so I don’t feel free to interrupt  At day’s end I had only spoken with Sam and he did commit to Christ, saying he would pray at a different time.  He was of course the last person I talked to today and the first. Please pray he grows in faith. His story is below if you have some time.

Sam had just finished his Subway sub, the empty wrapper as evidence of its demise on the table he sat alone at in the cafeteria. He had some time to do a student Survey. He had kind of a baby face mixed with a bit of dock worker/wreck it Ralf, smooth skin, not a big guy. I don’t think he could grow a beard at all. His hair was parted just a bit to the right and went up randomly like straw poking up. He wore generic sweats—blue grey. He wanted to be a businessman and said he’d thought about getting an ecommerce thing going but the shipping went up too high. I asked him what he would say to God if a bus killed him and he was asked, “Why should I let you into Heaven. “”Cause I’ve, ah, I’ve lived a decently moral life. I haven’t been decently in touch with my faith but I’ve always believed, Right now I’ve been more consistent, trying to pray every day.” He thought he had a 60% chance of going to Heaven saying he had some stuff to do. I sat across from him and held open the booklet and he silently followed along and when I asked him what the thing was that Jesus had done to take away the sins of the world he thought of a moment and said, “He was crucified.” I explained salvation by faith in the blood and righteousness of Christ and he was pretty much without a change of expression through it all. I asked if he would want to be forgiven trusting in what Jesus had done or thought something else. “I’d want to be forgiven of course.” I said if he wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer he could pray and I talked him through it and asked, “It says here is this prayer the desire of your heart?” “Yeah,” he said. I said he could pray it silently right then, I wouldn’t hear him but God would hear and he’d know he was forgiven. “I don’t have a lot of time right now,” he said. I said no worries, “Some other time.” “Yeah,” he nodded in a way to assure me that he would.  Do you believe Jesus was God died for your sins and rose from the dead, do you think that is a true story?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said without hesitating at all.  And do you trust in that then to be forgiven?” “Yeah,” he said. “So then your sins are forgiven,” I said and we bumped fists and he looked pleased. I offered him a book with Bible verses but he said he had all that kind of stuff already. So I said I’d be praying for him. I said that if he was trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be his righteousness the likelihood he would go to Heaven was now 100% and I headed out.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism on campus. I hope Sam has truly believed and I will be praying for him.

In Christ,

Bob