Hey Brothers and Sisters and Christ,

I hope things were blessed today in your life, trusting in God through His Spirit, He holds our future in His hands though the world may change. Lymarie and Ephe each prayed to receive Jesus today. Please pray they grow in their faith. I’m grateful for your prayers. Their stories are in the notes below if you’re interested.

Lymarie was sitting at a table that had one chair on it. She sat on the hall, back to the wall, that runs to the bookstore from the student activities lounge she faced. She’s a cute kid, brown hair in kind of a shaggy haircut framing a face with petite features. There were praying hands holding a Rosary and cross tattooed on her left arm. I asked her to do a survey and she said she was religious and waved the rosary gold cross in her had at me which looked like the tattoo. She had on headphones she slid down to talk, her hoop earrings now resting on them. She wore a truck driver’s cap. She had a tan shirt on that, when she later stood, stopped a few inches short of the waist of black washed-out baggy pants. She was about 5’5”. She thought we had talked before but I asked her the question to think about for the day. “You’re walking down the road and you get hit by a bus, so you’re dead and you stand before God and He asks, ‘Why should I let you into Heaven, what would you say?’” She was unsure. “So would you like to know the answer to the question from the Bible?” I asked “I think I answered it before but I don’t remember what I said,” she replied. So she listened as I went through the Gospel in the booklet. It had been more than a year since—if we’d ever talked. I’m pretty sure I was just talking to someone else and she was there. She did not seem to have any solid recollection of the Gospel. She said she went to Church and Bible studies but would stop and do something she wished she hadn’t to feel better.  When I asked her what the big thing was Jesus had done to take away her sins she said, “He forgives you?” I said, “Yeah this is how it works,” and got through the atonement in fits and starts as a couple boys interrupted (bees to a flower). Her friends from the fashion department also walked by as we talked headed to the cafeteria. 2 girls and a guy tanned for Spring break. I said what she lacked was God’s power inside her changing her so that she could ask for his help and transformation to be a better person by the Spirit. Then more and more she would not do the things she did not want to do. She said she did something she knew was wrong to feel better and I said she could ask for God’s peace in those moments if He lived inside her by faith. “You can ask Him to change you and when you fail ask for forgiveness because Jesus died for you,” I explained. The attractive fashion kids came back, there was a display of some kind they wanted her to see. I asked them for 2 minutes and the spokesperson (a cute girl) for the 3 agreed politely, and they gathered just past us. As I had just explained praying to receive Christ so I encouraged her to do so and she did. I gave her Bible Promises for You and wrote her name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front. I told her I would be praying a Bible verse for her each day for the next year. “Really?” she asked. “Yeah I promise I’ll do it.” She was grateful and headed off.

Ephe was sitting down the hall a bit from where I had talked to Lymarie, not quite to the Bookstore. His parents were both Ethiopian in background. He was born here and had no accent. He had black nylon sweats on that had white silhouette of two women back-to-back with knees bent. From a distance they looked like letters running down the hem, an M or a W. Then I realized they were a mud flap design I’d seen on the highway. He had on maroon hoodie had a beard and a mustache, his afro was shaved on the side and topped like a mushroom. Good looking guy, nice features. He was pretty reserved had little to say though I got him to smile twice. He wanted to care for his family as a life goal. He said he had family in Ethiopia who did not wish to move here (aunt and Uncle). I told him I had read about Muslim terror there where they walked into Churches and killed 20 people. He agreed and said the Government there was trying to destroy the Eastern Orthodox Church he attended. I asked him what he would say to God if asked “Why should I let you into Heaven?” “My best answer I would give… I would say… I believed and [put] full trust in Jesus Christ and followed and tried to lead an honest and peaceful life through the path He created,” he said. I asked what the likelihood he would go to Heaven. “I don’t think I’ve done enough to have God believe I truly [should be] walking on the Heavens,” he replied. I said the last part of the survey was what he thought of Christianity and I thought he would like it. I began to go through the Gospel with him and asked him what the big thing Jesus had done to take away his sins was, “He forgives you?” he guessed. I said, “Yeah He forgives you and this is how he does it.” I explained the Blood of Jesus to cleanse him and as a payment to God for the imperfect things we had done we owed God something perfect for. I explained the righteousness of God that was to his credit. That he would not go to Heaven because he was good but because Jesus was good and he was connected to him. I said that God adopted him and gave him the blessings of his family, the sacrifice for his sins, the blood that cleansed him and the righteousness of God that surrounds him. I said he could receive this by faith and that his good stuff did not fix his bad stuff. I asked if he would want to be forgiven trusting in what Jesus had done so he could live inside him and give him strength or thought something else. “Be forgiven by Jesus,” he replied. I said there was a prayer he could pray and talked him through it, asking if it was the desire of his heart. “Yeah he said. So I said he could pray it right then and I wouldn’t hear. But God would hear and he’d know he was forgiven. “Wanna do that?” “Yeah,” he said. He prayed then to receive Christ. “Your sins are forgiven,” I said as he finished shaking his hand. “Not ‘cause I say so but because Jesus does.” He smiled then.  I gave him Bible Promises for You writing his name and the date and “forgiven!”. He had a family Bible. I also gave him The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and a Bible study on the Deity of Christ. We talked then about Ethiopia a bit. He reached out to shake my hand as I got up to go. I shook it and said, “Thanks for talking with me man.” “No problem. Have a good day,” he replied. And I headed off.

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

In Him,

Bob