Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your week was blessed and the snow storm passes beneath you as it has seemed to do us in Chicago to the south. Niko and SarahMary each prayed with me to receive Jesus Thursday and so 6 students prayed to receive Jesus this past week. Please pray they each grow in their faith and love for the Lord. Their stories are below if you have the time.

Niko was sitting on the bench against the glass that looks into the corner lounge at the doorway on the northeast corner of the BIC. He had a mop of curly brown hair and wore black sweats. He looked a little like better looking version of Steve Guttenberg the comedian. He was a nice guy friendly, a couple clicks bigger than me. I asked him one thing he’d like to do before he died as part of the survey. “Recently I’ve dove into my faith, I’d like to find God before I die,” he answered.  It turned out he had been an atheist when he got to school in Missouri last year but his roommate was a devote Christian and persuaded him to go to church there. I asked him, if he died, what he would say to God to get into Heaven. “I think that up to this point I treated everyone with respect. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I give everyone a fair shot.” He thought he had a 75% chance of going to Heaven. As I went through the Gospel with him I said that in order for God to know and live inside him God has to take away his sin, purify him and make him “His type”. “What’s the big thing Jesus does to take away the sins of the world?” I asked him. He could not think of anything. So I began to explain the Gospel to him, Jesus blood to cleanse him and as a payment for his sin and the Righteousness of God earned by Christ, He is our Robe of righteousness. He periodically would comment “Right.” Agreeing and seeming to take it in like he was saying, “OK.” As I finished explaining your good stuff could not fix your bad stuff I asked if he would want to be forgiven for his sins trusting in what Jesus had done or if he thought something else.  “Life with Christ,” he replied. So I said there was a prayer he could pray if he wanted to be forgiven and after explaining it I asked if it was the desire of his heart. He said it was so I said he could pray it silently right now and I wouldn’t hear but God would hear and he would know he was forgiven. “Wanna do that?” I asked. “Yeah definitely,” he replied. “Just pretend I’m not here,” I said. He took the booklet then and prayed to receive Jesus. I gave him the booklet then and explained living the Christian life by the Spirit’s power, “Inside Out”. I gave him Bible Promises for You and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” on the inside. I gave him a Bible Study explaining it a bit. I talked with him about some apologetics around evolution and gave him The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and recommended looking into Strobel’s stuff. I told him I would keep him in my prayers each day until a year from Spring. I gave him my contact info if he had any questions. “Thanks for all that, I really appreciate it,” he said. I said “God bless you” and I got up and headed out as he went out the door.

 Sarah Mary was someone I met one day after school while I was hanging out with Alma (We do a Bible Study with Alma some times.) who trusted Christ after hearing the Gospel from me last year. Before meeting her I had asked Sarah Mary to do a survey and she’d said no a few times. I’d bumped into her in the hallway and said hi on Tuesday in passing but was talking to another student then (Noah). Both girls are Africans. Sarah Mary is from the Ivory Coast. Her parents never married. Her dad is here but she came here because her grandmother had immigrated to the US years ago. She is short and pump, hard working. She has a really cute circular face, pretty classic lips, small nose, dark skin. Thursday when I bumped into her in the cafeteria I nearly did not recognize her. She was all dressed up with an African sewn dress (She said, “You send someone there money and they sew it for you) of yellow and black print and rhinestones decorating it. Her hair was braided with long brown and black extensions and bejeweled clips in it. She proudly told me she had done it herself when I said it looked cool. She had a black short cape on, wool with a faux leopard collar. I had been praying I could go through the Gospel with her, so when I started chatting with her I said she had to answer my survey question. She agreed. I asked her why God should let her into Heaven if she died. She said she was good to people. I asked if I could show her the verses that say how you get into Heaven and she said I could, saying she had read the Bible this morning. I began to go through the Gospel with her and she could not think of what Jesus had done to take away the sins of the world. I explained the work of Christ and His blood and righteousness she could trust in by faith. I asked if she wanted to be forgiven for her sins or thought something else, explaining Islam and Buddhism and then asked again so would you want to be forgiven trusting in Jesus. “That,” she replied shortly and I said if she wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer she could pray and I explained it asking if it was the desire of her heart. She read it again and said, “Yes.” I said she could pray it silently, I wouldn’t hear her but God would hear and she would know she was forgiven. She laughed and took the booklet and prayed to receive Christ. I gave her Bible Promises for You showing her some of the topics and then turning to “Eternal Life” I wrote Eph. 1:13 and “100%” saying she was sealed by the Holy Spirit in her and the likelihood she would go to Heaven now was 100%. I wrote her name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front and she liked that and I gave her The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and put her name in it and gave her a Bible Study. She had to go to class so I said I would see her around and we both headed out.

Thanks for your prayers for the Ministry and for Evangelism this past week if you had a chance. God truly blessed.

In Him,

Bob