Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope you had a life filled with joy and peace today. I had a good day on campus and Haetham and Chris each prayed with me to receive Jesus. Please pray they grow in their faith. Their stories are below if you have time. Thanks for your prayers.

I felt a prompting to walk towards the PE building when I first arrived. Haetham was sitting alone in the same lounge that Patrick was in yesterday on the north side ground floor of the BIC. The lounge has some vending machines and some tables with folding dividers that have some history about the school on them. It turned out Haetham was from Iraq. He was wearing a Cubs hat and a down vest over a white short-sleeved t-shirt. He had hazel / green eyes and an oval face with a square chin. He described himself as a former Muslim who now was a Christian.  I had talked with another guy who described himself that way this year, Angel, who prayed with me to receive Christ. So I asked Haetham if I could just ask him a quick question. I wanted to make sure he understood the faith.  I asked if he died what he would say to God to get into Heaven. I didn’t have the chance to write his exact response in the moment but He said something like; “I had not always been living in a way where my life directed or flowed with God.  My life has been up and down in that way but I am moving in the right direction.” He had not mentioned Jesus died for him. This sounded to me like he might be believing in Christianity in general but more as a framework than saving faith. So I said, “Christianity is like a blood transfusion. I have A+ blood, if you fill me with B- blood I would clot up and die. So God wants to transfuse His life into you, to live inside you with the Holy Spirit. Then you would be one with God and He is eternal and the source of life so you would have eternal life.” He seemed to track with that so I quickly showed him some verses and I said, “The problem is that you have sin in your life. God can’t be one with sin but he wants to live inside you so he takes away your sin. Then you are perfect and holy inside and you match God and He can live inside you. So what is the big thing Jesus does that takes away your sin?” “He purifies you?” he ventured in what sounded like a guess and was really just repeating what I said. So I explained the atonement to Him, Christ’s blood cleansed him and was a payment to God and the righteousness of God Christ earned and was to our credit. He would not go to Heaven because he was good but because Jesus was good and he was connected to Him. I said that he was saved by faith and not by works. I asked if he would want to be forgiven for his sins trusting in what Jesus had done or thought something else. He wanted to be forgiven trusting in what Jesus had done. He decided to pray to receive Jesus trusting in Him alone. He was pressed for time working on a paper for a religion class. I explained the Christian life living Inside -> Out by the Spirit’s power. So I said I would pray for him the next year. I gave him Bible Promises for You and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front and I gave him a Bible study on the deity of Christ. I also gave him The Case for Christianity Answer Book that has nearly 60 answers to apologetic questions in it. It seemed he had trusted in Christ for his salvation for the first time. I will pray for him and hope he grows in faith. He said when he was a boy he had met a friend of mine Hesham who is a local pastor and used to translate for a Bible study his parents went to (at a different Church than my friend pastors now) years ago. The conversation was faster than I would have liked.  I gave him a quick hug as I left him. “I appreciate you. Thank you for taking this time,” he said, as I left him. I thanked him for his time and headed off. I felt the Spirit moving as I spoke with him, which was great, he needed the Gospel clearly explained. He asked that I pray for him concerning the parable of the Sower in Luke. He felt like there were many seeds sown and he wanted to respond to those sown in him by God.

I spent an hour with one of the guys from the Bible Study who was trying to figure out an application online. After that it was a bit late but I went into the cafeteria and saw a couple I had not remembered seeing before. They were sitting at the counter looking outside. Chris looked Latino but his girlfriend (though a Latina) had dyed her long stick straight hair blonde. He was wearing sweats with some branding on the front and patterning on the legs that looked like mock animal skin. He had a black t-shirt on and a pencil thick mustache above his lip. His beard was only a patch beneath his chin. He had a diamond shaped face. His hair was cut in a fade over his ears and the top of his head a mop of hair like a bowl and was slight. He was willing to do a survey but his girlfriend wasn’t and was on her phone. She was not listening. Finally saying something to him about where she was going she left towards the end of the conversation leaving us alone. 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?” He thought for a second and said, “I was like, following the word of God, not doing crazy stuff,” he replied. He thought he had an 85% chance of going to Heaven. He said he had wanted to get a Bible and read it more. I began to go through the Gospel with him. After explaining God wanted to live inside him but had to take away his sins to do so I asked “What’s the big thing Jesus does to take away your sins?” “He died on the cross,” he replied. So I explained how the sacrifice of Christ cleansed him and was a payment to God. I told him Jesus had earned the righteousness of God and he would go to Heaven if He was connected to Him by faith and the Holy Spirit would live inside him. I asked if he would want to be forgiven trusting in what Jesus had done and God could live inside him or thought something else. “Be forgiven,” he replied. So I said there was a prayer he could pray if he wanted to be forgiven and talked him through it. I said he could pray it right now silently; I wouldn’t hear him but God would and he’d know he was forgiven. “Ok,” he said, “Can I keep this?” he asked. I said “Yeah,” then realizing what I’d asked he said, “Pray it right now? OK,” and he prayed to receive Jesus.  “What is the difference between the Old and the New Testament?” He asked when he finished. I said the Old Testament was the story of a people with prophets and kings that God held together, so that when Jesus the Messiah came he could fulfill the prophecies and you’d know it was him. The New Testament was the story of Jesus and His Kingdom. I began to explain the Christian life to Him living “Inside -> Out” by the Spirit’s Power to transform him. I wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” in a Bible and showed him some things to help him study.  He asked where he should start reading. I put a marker in John and explained that there were reading programs on line at Bible Gateway and they would send him a notice each day reminding him to read and he could read through the New Testament in a Year. He thought he’d like to do that. I gave him Bible Promises for You and The Case for Christ Answer Book and he thought he had remembered the movie. I also gave him a Bible Study on the ways Jesus claims to be God for the Old Testament into the New, which actually fit his question on the difference well. He thanked me for the Bible saying, “I needed one.” And then said about the discussion “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I said he was welcome and I would keep him in my prayers for the next year praying a Bible verse for him each day. He was a solid guy. I thanked him for talking with me and I headed off.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today God truly blessed.

In him,

Bob