Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope you had a good day walking with the Lord.  I had a good day on campus, though some cold medicine I took last night gave me a very bad headache and had me struggling through the day a bit. Still, Aaron and Vanessa each prayed to receive Christ.

Aaron was sitting in the PE building where I headed when I first got to campus, I had to use lockers on the other side of the building since the empty one I use nearly did not open yesterday.  So I zigzagged a bit and found a kid I talk to now and again, encouraging him through a minor trial.  I headed downstairs and saw Aaron laying on a bench. So I decided to see if he was up for doing a survey and cut across the lounge to him.  He had a perfectly rounded afro about 2.5”s high, an amiable face and a big warm smile I did not see until we parted.  He seemed pretty tired. He played football at the school, so he was on the big side. 180lbs I’d guess.  He wore black sneakers, dark blue jeans and a black jacket with a Bulls insignia on it.  He was sitting about 10 feet from where Megan had prayed to receive Jesus yesterday.  He said he went to a Baptist Church every week. I thought Aaron was a Christian because in asking him what he would say to God to get into heaven he said “He paid for my sins. He forgave all the mistakes I made.”  But later, in going through the Gospel, I asked him if he knew how God took away his sins. “What is the big thing Jesus did to take you sins away?”  But he didn’t seem to know at all and I could tell as I went through the Gospel he hadn’t heard it.  He was obviously tired and yawned a bit at first, occasionally distracted by an attractive black girl with a bare midriff and tight jeans who began talking to the guy next to him. He glanced over at that.  But when he looked away I would just repeat myself or the verse and say a silent prayer that the Spirit would be in the Word.  I have the analogies I use most often to illustrate different points memorized, so I can recite them and pray something else in my head as I speak.  And I do that sometimes, praying as I go through, if someone seems inattentive or I sense God is at work and I ask for God to draw them in to Himself.  Aaron tracked with me and, more than I usually would, I’d stop and ask, “See what I mean?” or “Ya feel me?”  He would always say he did.  In the end he said he wanted to be forgiven with God inside him. So I said, “Well it seems like you did not understand this before right?”  He shook his head in the affirmative, so I walked him through the prayer and asked him if that was the desire of his heart.  Then he paused and I watched his pupils go back and forth as he read all the lines of the prayer again slowly and finally said, “Yes.”  So I told him he could pray quietly to himself, like I wasn’t there, and ask for forgiveness. He did.  He thanked me.  I gave him The Bible Promise Book and Playing with Purpose on NBA players testimonies since he had the Bulls coat on.  He took a Bible study as he got up to go to class and said thank you twice, more earnestly this time, and his face lit up in a smile.

Then my friend Emike walked up, thanking me for the Bible study I had sent her last night, and asked me to pray for her test. Then Clarke walked up and she asked Clarke if she had gotten the bible study too. Clarke said she hadn’t, but she wasn’t looking for Robert but Bob, and I finally came up on her phone.  I gave her the Bible she had asked for yesterday and teased her and Brionna a bit, hugged them both and left the building through the tunnel and headed back to my truck to get another Bible.

I had a couple other good conversations and finally after a few hours I was just tired of struggling with my headache that 3 Excedrin Migraine and a chip of muscle relaxer hadn’t really fixed.  I got my coat out of the locker and headed to the other side of the building to the door nearest where I was parked.  I looked in the lounges I passed and a girl glanced up as I walked by one, right by the elevator I was gonna take.  I felt prompted, but that does not always mean God is leading. Sometimes it is just the worker in me refusing to quit on the day.  So I prayed saying, “I’ll ask and if she says no I am going home.”  So I turned around and walked 20 feet back into the middle of the near-empty lounge on the second floor of the BIC.  Vanessa was not doing much. She had her purse on the seat beside her that remained between us, along with a small swing-out table in the middle of the couch when I sat down.  She was willing to talk and I looked at her for the first time.  She had a long really thick braid of very dark hair and had over-the-knee black suede boots and jeans on and a modest shiny rayon black V-neck blouse.  She looked Latina, a pretty girl.

She regularly attended the Catholic Church and wanted to travel.  When I asked her what she would say to God to get into Heaven she replied, “I would say because I have a good heart.  I’ve never done anything to intentionally cause pain or hurt anyone.”  She thought she was very likely to go to Heaven. “Right now I’d get in, but maybe there was something I did as a child, you never know. So 95%, you never know about the other 5%.”  She thoughtfully listened to the Gospel and I presented it seriously in tone. It seemed the thing to do, but maybe I just was too spent by the headache to throw over much energy into it.  But she wanted to be forgiven and have God live inside her. I offered her the prayer, walking her through it.  She prayed quietly in her heart to receive Christ.  I gave her a remembrance view of the mass, saying she could think that symbolically her sins were forgiven and have joy even if she did not get much else out of Church.  We talked some more, for a half hour all told.  I gave her a Bible and a Bible study and got her email to send her some more things to read.  I got up to go and she thanked me.  My headache came back. I’d pushed it away somehow, or God had. I headed downstairs to the door and out.

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

In Him,

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