Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed today walking with the Lord. I had a good day on campus and Emrah and Aristaia each prayed with me to receive Christ.

Emrah (I used a search engine to look up his name and it seems to be Turkish) was sitting on the bench seat by the door in the south east corner of the BIC building. He wore jeans, a pink polo shirt inside a long sleeve button v neck shirt, kind of the old school prep look. He had a mop of blonde hair with some product in it, parted on the side, tall lean looking guy. He seemed to be waiting on a friend and said he wanted to see the United States. When I asked him if when he died, what he would say to God to get into Heaven. He started saying, “I haven’t committed any…” then changed it to, “not committing the worse sins” and finally landed on, “I have committed very minimal sins.” He thought it had been about 4 years since he had gone to church. As I went through the Gospel he said, “Makes sense” several times, understanding it well. He hadn’t remembered from Church that Christ had died for him. He wanted to be forgiven for his sins, pointing at the option of Christ living inside him when I asked. So I walked him through the prayer and he prayed to receive Christ silently with me. I gave him a Bible as he did not have one, writing his name and the date in the front and I also gave him a Bible study on the Deity of Christ. I wrote “By the Spirit’s Power” in the front of the book 20 Things God Can’t Do, having explained the life in Christ to him. His friend was waiting by then, so I asked if he wanted another Bible study and he said “Perfect” and headed out the door.

In the afternoon, Aristaia was sitting in the Science building. She’s from a Greek Orthodox Church, (spoke Greek some) her mom is Greek and her dad comes from a variety of folk. She had blue-green eyes that seemed to change color and sandy blonde hair, wearing yoga pants and a red short-sleeve top, pretty girl with one of those perfect smiles. She wanted to travel the world. When I asked her what she would say to God to get into Heaven she thought for a moment and said, “I try to help people a lot. That’s like my favorite thing, to help people. I’ve tried to do that my whole life. I care about people generally.” She basically went on to say she made people important and I said, “There is a Bible verse that says that. ‘Let each of you consider one another as more important than himself.’” [Philippians 2:3] She knew that Jesus had died for her sins but hadn’t understood imputation of Christ’s righteousness to her. But when I asked her if she would like to be forgiven for her sins with God living inside her, she right away said “Yes” with conviction. Suggesting she might not have put all of this together before enough to trust in Christ for forgiveness, she said, “I went to Sunday school… but they didn’t really talk about it that way.” So I offered her a prayer she could pray and she silently prayed to receive Christ. I explained living inside out to her and many other metaphors I use to help students think about how God acts in the world, since she seemed to have time. She had a Bible, but I gave her 20 Things God Can’t Do to read, writing “By the Spirit’s Powers” in the front. I talked to her about living “Inside out” where God would transform her on the inside and then she would do things by his strength in the world.  I gave her a Bible Study also. She’d thought she had about a 50% change of going to Heaven so I said, “This is 100%. If you are trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be your righteousness, how righteous is Jesus?” She agreed He was 100% righteous and that his righteousness is worth an infinite amount. I said “Maybe I’ll see you around. I’ll just say hi.” and she smiled and I headed off.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance. The Lord truly blessed the work.

Tomorrow is a book table day and we are hoping to get some kids interested in Bible Study. We’d be grateful for your prayers for that.

Thanks again.

In Him,

Bob