Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope you had a great day walking with the Lord. Vanessa prayed with me to receive Jesus today so that was great.  I was pretty tapped out from a longer day of talking than usual yesterday. My jaw is still broken and swells up when I talk too much and it hurt, so I decided I needed to rest it and left a bit early.  I got through the Gospel with 6 people though, so that was good.  I know you are thinking I should be grateful. Most people don’t have an objective means of knowing when they talk too much–Ha.

Vanessa was sitting outside at the top of the stone work that lines the stairs outside the MAC arts building atop the last concrete cap.  She was willing to talk, so I slipped over the top of the hand rail and sat on top of the next tier down.  She is a cute Latino kid, wore bleached out skinny jeans and a gray pullover hoodie with a school name on it I never quite made out. She had sea-blue nail polish on all but one finger.  She wanted to travel, so we talked about that and I asked her what she would say to God if she got hit by a bus and was killed and stood before Him and He asked why He should let her into Heaven.  She held her face in both her hands and kind of exclaimed, “I don’t know.” Then after thinking a bit she said, “First I would question why that day I got hit by a bus–then if I deserved to get hit by a bus.  And then if I do I guess I don’t deserve to go to Heaven. I don’t know.”  I asked her if she thought she’d go to Heaven and she said, ‘I feel I do, more than 50%…”  She thought more and landed on 70%.  So she had a merit view of her salvation.  Later, when I asked her if she went to church, she said she hadn’t a lot lately and that was why she only gave herself a 70% chance of going to Heaven.  She listened to the Gospel and nodded and took it all in. She said she’d like to be forgiven, just pointing at the circle I described as the kind of person who had “asked God to forgive them based on what Jesus had done on the Cross so He could live inside them.”  She had known Jesus had died for sin but acknowledged she hadn’t put it all together or trusted in it, but was hoping she was good enough. I showed her the prayer, saying she could pray and she said, “I like to pray alone.”  “Well I could walk over there and leave you by yourself and come back in a little bit” I offered. “You want me to pray right now?” she asked. I said I did, because the Bible says Satan can steal the seed of God. The sower goes out and sows it, but Satan can take it away.  “I’m worried that if you wait, you will forget or give Satan a chance to take it away.”  That made sense to her, so I walked away, leaving my stuff and after a few paces recited the prayer in my head (for timing) I had read to people so many times.  I paused and looked at something I saw in the grass. I was just a bit over the rise but when I looked up she was looking at me, seeing just her head over the bushes, looking like she was finished so I came back.  I talked her through some more things and gave her 20 Things God Can’t Do.  I gave her a Bible study on the Deity of Christ and gave her Zwingli’s view of the mass, just to remember when she took it that she was forgiven.  I talked to her about how God loved her and was not surprised at her sins when she confessed them but wanted to make them into Good. (2Cor. 7:10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death).  I got her email to send her some stuff.  She was a very sweet soul. I shook her hand to say goodbye and told her my name again and she said, “Nice to meet you Bob.”  I said, “God bless you.”  “God bless you too,” she said and smiled.  That felt good in my heart.

So thanks for your prayers for the Ministry today and for Evangelism if you had a chance. God truly blessed.

In Him,

Bob