Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed in the Lord. I had a good day on campus today.  It took a bit of time to get someone willing to talk, but Samantha, Kayla and Korin each prayed to receive Christ today.

I saw Samantha sitting at the end of the hall on a bench where there are some workout classes. I thought I could ask her as I headed out the side door there leading to the outdoor concert area at the MAC arts center. I headed down to where she was, and she was willing to answer some questions. She has been taking a world religions class at school. She had short brown hair (looked a bit like actress Janine Turner), tall, no make-up and a green T-shirt that had ARMY across the front. She hadn’t been to church a lot of late but had gone to Catholic School. She was wearing yoga pants and seemed to have recently gotten out of a workout class. When I asked her what she would say to God to get into Heaven if she died. She sighed and thought for a bit. She said something about not wanting to sound boastful and then said, “I think I’ve worked really hard to input into others, and other lives. I nanny for special needs children.” She thought she’d have an 85% chance of going to Heaven, but expressed again that she didn’t want to blow her own smoke. She listened closely to the Gospel and seemed to track with everything, though she didn’t remember how Jesus had taken away her sins when I asked. So when I asked her if she wanted to be forgiven for her sins she simply said, “Yes” with conviction. So I asked if she believed Jesus was God, had died for her sins and rose from the dead. She said, “Yes” firmly again. So I said, “Well if you’d like to place your trust in that to be forgiven, there is a prayer you can pray. After walking her through it, Samantha prayed silently to receive Jesus. I gave her a Bible, writing her name in the front and the date.  I also gave her the book 20 Things God Can’t Do (I always write “By the Spirit’s power” in the front of this book) along with a bible study and a card for Compass Church, encouraging her that she could watch a few sermons online. I gave her the Rose publication Why believe the Bible as in my experience with other students it corrects some of what she’d learn in class, depending on the teacher. She said she had to write a paper and thought it might help. I told her I would pray for her and she thanked me and said, “Nice meeting you.” And I said, “You too” and headed off.

I came across Kayla in the MAC Arts building lounge. She was a pretty girl with blonde shoulder length hair tucked behind her ears, an occasional freckle in the right places on her face, wearing black jeans cuffed at the ankles and a gray shirt. She was sitting on a bench by the elevators and after checking how long the survey would take, she agreed. But we hit it off and ended up talking for a long time. She wanted to tool around the country in a VW mini-van. When I asked her what she would say if God asked her why He should let her into Heaven she said, “You should know.” Then she added, “I just try to be a decent human being.” She’d taken a world religions class freshman year and had been a regular attender at her Catholic Church, but fell away from it. She said the idea of Hell as a threat to be a good person didn’t work for her. She just wanted to be good. She seemed to react against religious rules. I told her Christ said that the only law was love, and that you should love God and love your neighborhood as yourself. She agreed with that, so I explained to her that you had to be all powerful and all-knowing to know and do the Good. You had to know what to do and know how to control the outcome of an action and be all powerful to do so. And you had to know what to guide people to do to begin with. I told her a story of how a good deed could go badly. That is why Christ said “No one is good except God alone.” I explained that a lot of what she believed was good was because she lived in a Christianized culture. We talked about other religions and I told her that Christianity was the “Truth Myth” (as J.R.R. Tolkien once told C.S. Lewis). She agreed with what I explained to her. She knew Jesus had died to take away her sins. After going through the Gospel with her she said she’d like to be forgiven. I asked if she believed Jesus was God, had died for her sins and rose from the dead and she said, “Yes, it’s what I’ve been raised with.” Which is what they told her was the reason she believed what she believed in class probably. Though this is not true, I let it go. “Well if you’d like to place your trust in that so your sins can be forgiven and God can live inside you, there is a prayer you can pray. I walked her though it, offering it to her and asking if she’d like to pray to receive Christ. She took the booklet considering and saying, “Maybe, at some point…” but then she read a bit and decided to pray to receive Christ. I gave her 20 Things God Can’t Do and a Bible Study on the ways Jesus claims to be God in the New Testament based on Old Testament passages. I told her I would keep her in my prayers and she said, “Thank you, I appreciate that.” Then I headed outside.

I walked about a bit more with no takers and then finally at the end of the day went up to talk to my advisor who steers some kids to Bible Study. He’s a solid Christian and has my back on campus. We talked for a while and I headed down the 3rd floor hall of the BIC building and passed Korin sitting with her legs pulled up on a couch in near empty lounge by the windows. So I walked back and asked her if she’d do a student survey and she agreed. She had a deep voice, good for radio. She had straight brown hair down past her shoulders and a ball cap on. She wore blue jean shorts and a V-neck blouse, cute kid, a bit shorter. She wanted to have a family and it seemed like she grew up in Hawaii as she described a church there with a Catholic name. She said it wasn’t exactly a typical church in as much as it seemed you could pray in whatever religious expression you believed in, “They read some Bible verses,” she said. When I asked her why God should let her into Heaven she said, “I really don’t know,” half to herself and then said, “I don’t know.” I asked if that is what she wanted to say and she said, “Yeah.” She thought she had about an 80% chance of going to Heaven. She was friendly and just waiting for her class to start. I went through the Gospel with her and she listened closely. So I asked her if she’d want to be forgiven for her sins with God living inside her and she said firmly, “Yes,” much like Samantha had. I asked if she believed Jesus was God, had died for her sins and rose from the dead and again she firmly replied “Yes.” So I said if she wanted to trust in that, she could pray and she took the booklet and did. She was anxious to keep it afterwards and I used it to explain walking by the Spirit. I gave her 20 Things God Can’t Do and a Bible Study. I promised I’d keep her in my prayers and she thanked me and I headed out. Then I remembered and walked back to give her a Compass Church card to watch sermons online and she liked that idea.

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

In Him,

Bob