Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Hope your day was filled with all good things from the Father of Lights.  I had a good day on campus and Dontate [Dante] and Kialah [Kī lä] both prayed to receive Christ.  Dontate was sitting on a bench by a classroom doorway on the first floor of the science building.  He was reading the bulletin board and said he’d answer some questions.  We talked a long time. He was an African American guy, had a black Nike stocking cap on and a black warm-up jacket and was wearing some really worn out cross trainer shoes that looked like they’d seen a couple winters and skinny jeans.  He had big sideburns that were patchy and pronounced features, looked 22 maybe.  He had some of his own ideas about where you went when you died.  It seemed like he thought you went into some kind of greater consciousness, like something Oprah might push.  We talked about the claims of different religions and the impossibility of knowing the “good” thing to do without God, who was all powerful and all knowing guiding the outcome of your actions.  He asked what the purpose of life was and I explained the Gospel and that God wanted to live inside him and do good things through him.  I told him the Scriptures teach that, “All things worked together for good for those who loved God and are called according to His purposes”.  I explained the Bible suggests the fingers of God on earth are men and we are created for good works in Christ that He has prepared beforehand that we might walk in them [Eph. 2:10 ].  “It’s like God wrote you the perfect play for your life,” I told him.  “But you are not graded on how well you say the lines or make your entrances on stage but on how often you ask for guidance right in the middle of the play from God [the Director].  I asked him if he wanted to be forgiven and he said he did.  I asked if he believed Jesus is God and died for his sins and if he trusted in that and he said he did.  So I showed him a prayer he could pray to receive Christ and he prayed with me silently.  I explained the fruit of the Spirit providing the strength to live the Christian life.  I showed him a bunch of books and he decided he’d like to read the Case for Christ.  He had a lot of questions and wanted the video I had that answered apologetic questions so I gave him that also.  He gave me his email to send him stuff too. So that was great.

Kialah, a cute kind of pretty girl black girl, her hair tinted light brown, had a light cream colored linen shirt with a dark camisole under it and a 2 and a half inch think rhinestone head band, jeans on.  She was a nice kid who went to an apostolic church and was sitting with Kyree, good looking (also black) guy with youngish facial hair and a hoodie pulled up over his head.  She’d shot Kyree down before [romantically] in the past it turned out, so I played with them about that.  He did not want to answer any questions but it turned out he had some and felt really distant from God.  He asked me what to do about it and I said to pray for more faith because it was a gift he could ask for more of and to ask God to draw closer to him.  I told him I would pray for him.  He played basketball and I gave him a copy of Playing with Purpose (on believers who play in the NBA) and a Bible study, after he’d he listened to the Gospel as I explained it to Kialah.  I had explained imputation to them, telling them you don’t go to Heaven because you are good but because Jesus was good and His righteousness is to our credit.  I used several examples, finally saying if you get adopted by a billionaire you get to live in the mansion and drive all the expensive cars and if you are adopted into God’s family you get the blessings of it.  The righteousness of Jesus is what you get so you are fit for Heaven.  They both said that made sense.  Kialah had thought awhile {when I’d first sat down and asked} about why God should let her into Heaven and finally landed on, “Because I serve Him.”  That’s obviously the answer given by the people to whom Christ responds, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”  I told her the story, after going through the Gospel with them, and said she’d have the same problem.  I asked her if she wanted to be forgiven and she said yes.  So I asked her if, when she prayed for forgiveness, is she thinking she was a good person who served God and God was a good God and would forgive her or, “was she trusting that God would forgive her because Jesus had died for her?”  “I’m about half way there,” she said with a smile.  “You wanna land?” I asked.  She said she did and so I showed her a prayer to receive God’s forgiveness and she prayed quietly to receive Christ, smiling first to tell us not to watch.  I explained the work of the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life to her and she said she’d email me for more stuff.

I had a good conversation with an atheist, Michael, who took The Case for a Creator to read.  Nice kid, baseball player.  I’d talked to his brother John a couple years ago it turned out.  He thought there was no evidence, but of course there is a great deal of it so I am hopeful and will be praying for him this next year.  I felt like we had a connection talking about guitar playing and Tommy Emanuel, a guitarist we both liked that we’d seen live [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI8p8mYP_5A {this is him on youtube}]  We owned the same brand of acoustic guitar. (Though his is worth 3 times what mine is and he seems to play it 10 times better than me.)

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

In Him,

Bob Bollow

To donate to our college ministry:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Third-Watch-Ministries-Nfp