Greetings and Merry Christmas to our prayer partners and fellow evangelists! : )
Our family had a wonderful time caroling with our friends from Metro Life ~ thank you all!
It was a great Friday night! There were about 40 people sent in two groups. We had a guitar, a trumpet, a violin, and a flute to start us on key and accompany us! : ) We sent the little ones with a goody bag to greet the people, and we all sang. As we were singing, we had quite a few times where the next-door neighbors would come out to hear us too! It was very special to our family because we got to go Christmas caroling with a group of Christians that we know love God and they only sang songs that would glorify God!
Steven and Katie Eisenberg are planning a caroling event in their neighborhood next Friday – December 21st ~ and we are really looking forward to joining them! So, here is your invite to join us for a time of worshipping our Savior ~ we posted the link to the e-vite at the end of this update. There are 28 of their friends so far, who have said that they are planning to come. Should be fun!
(David’s update)
There is so much to celebrate! Yes the Majestic visitation of our Savior and also how He uses all of us to be His messengers, caroling, sharing thousands of tracts at Christmas Parades, praying for and sharing the gospel with the downtown crowd.
Does prayer change things? Yes! And it is always encouraging to see answers to our prayers! I (David) don't normally read the local paper, but I saw an interesting front page article in last Saturday's paper ‘Drop In Murders Perplexes Police' about the surprising drop in the murder rate for Orlando and Orange County for October and November. The police have made almost 6000 arrests. We know that prayer is a part of the picture. We know some of the ministries praying for and evangelizing Orlando, including YWAM, Operation 180, Bible Baptist and we have even heard of a group of Churches recently that had a 40 days prayer emphasis. What an incredible privilege to work as a team serving Christ!
This is the first year that we have ever passed out tracts at parades and WOW is that a blessing! We have seen the wide range of expressions including respect and appreciation as the recipients recognize it as a gospel tract and quickly agree that we are an important reminder for them. It is a little surprising and encouraging to hear people requesting a tract and to hear words of appreciation later on after they had a chance to look at it. Please pray for those tracts because God answers our prayers! We would appreciate a few more players for the big Orlando parade this Saturday and either way we would treasure your prayers, because it is real spiritual warfare.
After caroling, we went downtown, and had some interesting conversations, including meeting Joseph Cephas – a native Sioux Indian that has been saved for 7 years and was struggling with his walk. Please pray for him.
(Paul’s update)
I have one story to share with you all that shows the influence of the Holy Spirit through us even on people who would normally try to ignore us. There were two ladies coming through our corner, and I handed them a couple of tracts and told them it asked a simple question and has a simple answer. The tract is the one with the little man on the front that says ‘Are you a good person'. They seemed like they were going to keep walking but they stopped there and talked to each other about something else, I couldn't tell what. But I knew one thing - that meant they were still there for me to talk to, so I went back over to them. I can't remember all of the things that I told them, but they listened. I asked them questions, and they would answer me with the shortest answers possible. After going through the Ten Commandments, I did find out that they really didn't think they had done anything particularly wrong, and they had very little understanding of why Jesus came to the earth to live among us and then to die and rise again. It had very little meaning to them before I explained it. And I told them that if you haven't done anything particularly wrong, then God is not very intelligent to send His own Son to the earth to die, when it wasn't really needed. They were still taking it a bit casually and lightheartedly, so I explained God's perfect character more thoroughly. And I warned them to really repent and turn away from all of their sin. God isn't wanting to save us from lying so frequently, He wants to save us from lying at all. And He doesn't want save to us from just some of our sexual immorality, He wants to save us from all of it. And not just some of our false ideas of gods, but all of them. And not just some of our discontentment and covetousness, but all of it. And not just some of our irreverence to God, but all of it, and so on. I noticed that they didn't really want to say much lest they incriminate themselves, so that gave me a chance to describe a lot of things for them. I must have given them like five opportunities to leave the conversation, but they kept giving short responses and then just standing there waiting for whatever was next. I eventually ran out of things to say, and so I just very plainly warned them not to ignore God, so they don't end up finding themselves to be an enemy of God. And I warned them to repent of all of their sin and give their life entirely to follow Christ. And I pointed out that until I explained all of that, they really weren't taking it very seriously and weren't very appreciative of Christ's sacrifice for us, and actually really didn't even understand the point of it. And they agreed! And that was all the response I got to it, so I wished them a nice evening. I believe that was just the beginning of what God is trying to say to them, but it seems like they might have heard God's Word for the first time in a while. I pray and trust that they will decide to listen and stop ignoring Him.
(Steven’s update)
We are just a few weeks away from one of our favorite celebrations of the year ~ celebrating the wonderful, amazing story of how God put on human flesh, lived among us, suffered, was crucified by His own creation – died to pay for our sins, and then rose again so we can have an actively daily relationship with Him and the wonderful privilege of being able to walk in His victory!
The four of us had the opportunity to go downtown and interact with some of the downtown crowd sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. I (Steven) had a very interesting conversation with a sort-of traveling entertainer, named Forest but who goes by the nickname of Woody, and as I asked God for wisdom on what to say, God used me to remind him of verses that challenged him to think on things in Heaven and His eternity, and the spiritual condition of the hearts of the people he entertains. He agreed to read the book of John and to work on his relationship with Christ, and I’m praying for him.
Thank you for your part in this team and for your prayers!
Your friends and fellow laborers in the harvest,
David, Barbara, Steven, and Paul
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Below is the e-vite from the Eisenbergs:
You are invited to Christmas Caroling by Steven and Katie Eisenberg...
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