Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
I hope you had a blessed day walking with the Lord. I had a good day on campus and Emily who had talked to on January 30th, but asked if she would pray at home, today said she read the entire booklet and prayed to receive Jesus. Sam prayed to receive Jesus today too. Their stories are below along with my run in with the anti-evangelism wheelchair lady, if you have some time. Please pray they grow in their faith.
Emily was sitting next to Sam two seats over. She has brown long hair and long bangs, an oval cute face, her oval eyes had eyeliner end commas for the illusion of an almond shape. She had her coat on. As I mentioned she said she’d red the entire booklet and prayed. She was friendly. She had said she was from a religious family when we first spoke. I had given her Bible Promises for You. When I had asked her what she would say to God to get into Heaven she’d said, “I always like being there for people, supporting them.” She was sure she would go to Heaven because she came from a “really religious family they got me into God and everything.” She somehow had not understood the Gospel at all but wanted to be forgiven and asked, “Can I pray this at home?” I said sure and she headed off and she said she’d prayed today. After speaking with her I walked over to Sam.
Sam is a huge 6’4” D-back for the football team He was wearing a black watch cap with a Carhartt square label on the fore head. He also had on a black puffy coat and wore jeans. He had a round face with a smooth bump nose and a warm smile, great guy. He was sitting at the base of the staircase near the entrance to the bookstore in an oversized chair he filled up. I asked Sam, 2 seats over if he wanted to do a survey. (It might have helped that he’d heard the pretty Latina girl to his left had talked with me.) He said he’d do a survey so I sat on his right and went through the survey. I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven. “Well God’s supposed to be forgiving. So I would say… I don’t really know,” he admitted. He thought he had a 75-80% chance of going to Heaven. I began to go through the Gospel with him. He knew when I asked him what God had done to take away his sins, that Jesus had died. He listened to the truth that Jesus blood had cleansed him so God could live inside him and was a payment to God for what he had done. Because Jesus had earned all righteousness he would not go to Heaven because he was good but because Jesus was good and he was connected to him. I explained he received Christ by faith and grace by faith saved him. About then an overweight dye job red headed lady in an electric wheel chair rolled up and interrupted our conversation. She’s done this before at school every once in a while. She lined up her chair as if she was going to talk to Emily parking just off his seat. Then she interrupted us off her left shoulder speaking only to Sam. She asked if he wanted to talk to me, and was this conversation something he was interested in. He said it was and smiled at her pleasantly. “Because if you don’t’ want to talk to him we can do something about that right now,” She put in. He ignored her statement. She has never told me her name but seems simply to hate evangelism. I very quietly then suggested to Sam it was strange she’d think I could pressure him into anything, he grinned. She interrupted again and saying I had very “subtle pressures”. (I actually never pressure anyone as it’s a drag to talk to people who are disinterested. God just makes some people want to talk to me. So I just kept taking to Sam. She never stuck around before to hear what I say so today I spoke softly after. She began playing something on her phone really loud and finally gave up and tried talking to Emily getting her name. (Another guy, D, told me today her name is Elizabeth, might be. She’s an older white lady. He said she once complained to the cops he was playing his music too loud. D’s a tough fair skinned black guy. He just told the cops she was harassing him so they left. When he talked to the cops later complaining about her they told him she was handicapped so he had to let it go. Anyway she’s 0 for 5 or so going after people I talk to or trying to interrupt. I talked with Kiyla on January 27 in the cafeteria at the counter she seemed to deliberately run into the leg of her chair with her wheel transport. Kiyla ignored her agreeing she was mean and kept talking to me. So far the students just politely tell her that yes they want to talk to me and then later pray to receive the Lord. In fall she rolled up to me and told me I was dumping on students. I just walked away after repeating what she said back to her adding, “That’s great.”.) Sam said “The first one,” when I asked if he would want to be forgiven trusting in Jesus or thought something else. I said if he wanted to be forgiven there was a prayer he could pray and I read it through. Something from the discussion I was tuning out distracted him during it and he said, “What?”. I asked again if he thought he’d like to pray the prayer silently and know he was forgiven. “OK,” he replied and prayed to receive Jesus. I told him the likelihood he would go to Heaven now trusting in the Blood and Righteousness of Jesus was 100%. He said, “Thank you.” I explained the Christian life living By the Spirit’s Power” I said God could give him strength and help him even in a game helping him to see the offense, which put an interested expression on his face. I explained the Christian life was “Inside Out”. I gave him Bible Promises for You writing his name and the date and forgiven!” in the front. I also gave him The Case for Christ Answer Booklet with a piece of Strobel’s story. Finally I gave him a Bible study. I said I would pray a Bible verse for him each day asking God to bless him from now until Spring and one year after since I did not know if I would see him again. He said, “Thank you,” again and I said, “Sure,” and I headed off.
I don’t know what the woman in the electric wheelchair said about me after I left, but I really don’t care. I only care that Sam held on to what Jesus had said about him.
So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for Evangelism today if you had a chance, God truly blessed.
Peace,
Bob