Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed walking in the provision of God who says He will supply all our needs. India prayed to receive Jesus today and Leslie [a rail-thin Latina girl with a pretty face and stick straight hair] said she would pray later but I think she believed. She had been a Catholic schoolteacher before she was recently married to a Marine. So I may not see her again to discover. I’ll pray for her for a while. We talked a bit about how the sacraments would require faith and the power of the Spirit to act on someone. Though I’m not a sacramentalist. Please pray these young women grow in faith. India’s story is below if you have time you wish to spend.

India was sitting at a counter height table in front of what looked to be a large medical text. From behind she had long thick curly hair, about 4 inches past her shoulders and a head band holding it back curly bangs pressed to her forehead in front. I thought I might have talked to her before since it seems there are an abundance of brown curly heads on girls on campus this year. But seeing her face it was new to me. She was pretty and had fair skin with otherwise traditional black features. She had full lips and a nose, wider at the base but thin on the bridge that held black rim near circular glasses. She had a sharp jaw line and a square chin. She told me her name and I said “Like the subcontinent”. She laughed. I asked her if there was any special way to spell it, “Like the subcontinent,” she replied with a smile. She said she wanted to travel. I asked her, “You’re walking down the road and you get hit by a bus. So you’re dead. And you stand before God and He says, ‘Why should I let you into Heaven?’ What would you say?” “You know honestly. I feel like because we’re all born into sin in this life I do what I can to be a replacement for God. I feel like that’s for Him to decide not for me.” She thought she had a 75% chance of going to Heaven. I said that the last thing was what she thought about Christianity in this booklet. She said she felt like people had misconceptions about it a bit but if they’d spend more time reading the Bible, “it holds all the answers they need I this life.” I said there were some Bible verses in the booklet and asked if she wouldn’t mind responding to them. She agreed and I began to go through the Gospel with her. She liked the illustrations and when I asked her what Jesus had done back in History to take away the sins of the world she knew He died on the cross. She tuned right in listening to how the blood of Jesus sacrifice cleansed her from sin and was a payment to God. I explained the righteousness of God for her and that this had to be received by faith.  Faith saved her, her good stuff wouldn’t fix her bad stuff. I showed her the two circles and said, “So the last question is would you want to be forgiven for your sins trusting in what Jesus had done. Then He would live inside her giving her strength and take her to heaven when she died or did she think something else?” I gave her the CliffsNotes version of Islam saying they had a different god and the Buddha (we really can’t be sure what he said but the physical world is an illusion and we must be born and die thousands of times to get a perfect life). “So when you are asking for forgiveness for your sins are you thinking you have been faithful to follow what you should do and hoping you would be forgiven or have you thought, ‘I know I’ll be forgiven because Jesus died for me?’” “Oh!” she said in sudden realization. “You have to trust in Jesus.” “I said, “If you want to be forgiven trusting in Jesus there’s a prayer you can pray.” I talked her through it and said, “It says here ‘Does this prayer express the desire of your heart?’ Would you say it did?” She nodded. “Well, if you want to you could pray it silently right now. I wouldn’t hear you but God would hear and you’d know you’ll be forgiven. Wanna do that?” I asked. “Yeah definitely,” she replied. And she prayed then to receive Jesus. I explained the Christian life to her then living “By the Spirit’s Power.” “Christianity is different than from other religions, it’s inside out not outside in,” I explained how we ask for transformation by His Spirit, be then become good people and we will do good things. “So when I screw up, you’d think being old I would have it down by now. But I don’t just ask for God to forgive me I ask Him to transform me.” I said now trusting in the blood and righteousness of Jesus the likelihood she would go to Heaven was 100%. I gave her Bible Promises for You and wrote her name and the date and “forgiven!” in the front and showed her how she could turn a verse in it into a prayer. I also gave her The Case for Christ Answer Booklet and a Bible study explaining that. I told her I would pray a Bible verse for her each day from now until Spring and one year after asking God to bless her. I said if I saw her again I’d just say hi and not keep her from her studies. “God bless your day,” I said getting up to go.” “God bless you too it was nice to meet you,” she replied. “Nice to meet you too I said 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