Glory Stories...downtown evangelism...

Stories..Stories..Stories!

The Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to be able to share and go downtown 2 Fridays in a row..because of schedules our group went this week and the last. And to top it off more and more labors are being added to the harvest field..which is wonderful! (But makes it difficult to share stories- what a wonderful blessing technology is!) So to catch up..I will share alittle of the people the Lord gave me an opportunity to meet and then I want to hear from YOU! So definitely if you went downtown (or if you didn't) and the Lord led you to a person, or your prayed for a person (or 2 or 3 or 4...:) or got in a conversation or gave someone a trac or the Lord did something amazing then I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT the work the Lord is doing!

To start off with..last week was a very interesting night. It had almost been a month since the previous evangelism excursion that I had gone on. Rich sent out an email stating to read over and mediate on Psalm 126. His main question was "what makes you weep?" Are we really weeping for and having compassion for the lost? Are our hearts groaning for the saved? Do we even wish for ourselves to be "cut off" from Christ to bring others to him? It was a very really sense of grief that seemed to accompany me that night- a grief of seeing these people and their futures in Hell. The thoughts of the reality of death seemed to be weighing on me that week and when Psalm 126 came to view I couldn't help but to see the unsaved cascading themselves in the pits of hell. What a sorrowful and grieving thought! This weighed heavily on me, even while we were downtown. After we broke up into teams Ben, Alex and I began to walk near the Lake (Lake Eola) and walked and walked and walked. We walked for about 45 minutes trying to start conversations here or there but they didn't get anywhere. We realized that we had skipped the most important aspect- talking to God our Savior to lead and guide us..we had sought God at the grahams but once we were on the streets didn't bother to ask him to lead and guide us- and yet we were His work! After 45 minutes we stopped to pray...asking God to move and guide us. There was a sense we were going to only be talking to one (possibly 2 ) person and perhaps they would be sitting down. We continued to walk around the lake and soon caught up with Daniel, Becka and Taylor. Daniel was engaged in a conversation so we just talked with Becka. Alex and Taylor continued to walk on, and Ben Becak and I stood there and passed out a few tracks.
Just then a gentlemen came down some steps that led to the pathway around the lake. It was his getup that caught my attention. He was a tall thin gentlemen with a "cowboy outfit" and a black cowboy hat. His hair was tied back, he had a bluetooth in his ear and was sipping a starbucks coffee. I looked over at becka and said "tell him how much you like his hat..." she said "No, you tell him how much you like his hat"- "Okay" I looked over at the gentlemen who was by this time sitting on a park bench directly facing him and said "I like your hat!" After that point we were able to get into a conversation with him. Soon we were to find out that his name was Marshall and that he was a Cherokee Jew and had some very interesting takes on who God was, who man was and who "white eagle" (Jesus) was. A lot of what he believe about God came because of his past where he would say "Well my Cherokee side believes this" or "My Jewish side believes this" or "a friend of mine says this.." To which we would reply "But what do YOU think?" He also thought that perhaps we were all apart of "God's Imagination" in which we replied "So you mean, were not real?" Daniel also joined into the conversation. We challenged Marshall on who Christ was, - "Is Christ who he says he is?- He only leaves us 3 options..he's either a liar and we don't take him for face value, he's a lunatic and should be locked away or HE IS WHO HE SAYS HE IS: THE SON OF GOD...and if your're right in saying he's a liar and a lunatic then we've wasted our life's but if you're wrong..you've not only lost heaven, but youre now going to spend eternity in Hell..that's a huge risk to take...so what's YOUR DECISION?" We thanked him for talking with us and left with that question hanging over his head. That was the person God had prepared for us to talk to.

The next week (this past Friday) we discussed Matthew 28:1-10. This time we were challenged to read over the scripture and to think of our own questions such as "Why did the woman go to the tomb first and not the men?" "What did the angel look like and why was he so frightening?" "Why did the woman not become like dead men like the soldiers?" " Why did the angel send the woman to go tell the men when Jesus was going to show up anyway in Galilee?" "Why Galilee?"

Then downtown, Jordan, Trameka and I were in a group. We walked only a little ways down the street and then began to talk with a homeless lady name Chrissy. We noticed her standing on the side of the rode with her head in her hands, looking like she was crying or just not feeling well. We stopped to ask her if she was okay and she said she was fine but was trying to get some money for some beer. As we tried to converse with her, we could defiantly tell she did not want to talk about the gospel..she wanted to stay in her life of sin and continue drinking and smoking. She didn't want a life of anything else. We asked if there was anything we could pray with her for and prayed to God just thanking him for allowing us to be able to speak with her. Then we left.

While we were praying for Chrissy, 4-5 guys were standing off on a corner smoking pot. They were yelling loudly "You guys are bringing that religious stuff" or something to that effect. They were very high on drugs, but after we were down praying for Chrissy we moved down the street alittle and prayed for them, that God would break the bonds of slavery to pot and it would not longer become desirous for them anymore.

After that we began to talk with another homeless lady named Wendy. She was definitely under the influence of alcohol but was sober enough to talk with us sensibly. She wanted to know if we were catholic, or if we were apart of a college..both answers we no. We talked with her alittle while and she told us that she was not feeling well, had been having the flu and was suffering for breast cancer. When we offered to pray with her she said, "No I'm going to pray for you" and wanted all of us to hold hands in a circle while she prayed for us. . She told she loved God and asked him everyday to help her and we gave her the gospel of John. "Oh I love John" she said and then kissed the trac. She said she loved the Lord and wanted to do what he wanted everyday. Then we prayed for her and thanked her, as we could not get gospel with her..she was very distracted by the amounts of people going passed us with Mardi Gras beads ..she would stop looking at us, look at the people and shout "Hey Jingles Bells..Hey YOU..where did you get all the jingle bells" - it was God's providence that most of the people ignored her, because then she would turn her attention to us. After we started to walk away she noticed the million dollar tracs in Jordan's hand. She said.."Does that have a prayer on it?" Jordan said "No..it has the million dollar question...are you good enough to get to Heaven?" " Well..I'm not sure. I don't think you can be sure you can get to heaven.." "Wait a minute" said Jordan "I thought you said you believe in God and were a Christian?" " Yes but I don't think I can know for sure that you can get to heaven,,,I hope so" "well wouldn't you like to know for sure?" " I don't think you can..." After that point we converse with her for a while about how we can never ever be good enough to be sent to heaven. Wendy mentioned many remarkable and kind things she had done for other homeless people downtown, but we explained even our best acts are like filthy rags. Only Jesus can remove our guilt and pardon our sin and set us right before the father. We cannot make up for all of our sins by doing good works. We could tell this hit a cord but she did not want to believe it. We went on the explain that only God can give us a regenerate heart and our lives are changed then. She was looking at us and seemed like she was listening but then went up to all three of us in the group and started giving us "prophetic words" that we very interesting... we sensed she might have been some sort of psychic. After that we thanked her and walked way. Continue to pray that Wendy's heart and eyes will be open up to the gospel and she may experience God's wonderful and redeeming grace.

Then later our group ran into Chris, rebeka and cynthia. Awe were all standing on the street corner sharing stories when a man named William walked up. He was a christian that was on the streets. He had worked for a company that had issued him a forged check and he cashed it, then left the florida. They put a warrant out for him for trying to cash a forged check so he had come back to Florida and turned himself in. In doing so he didn't have anything on him. He had been on the streets for a day and a half and was afraid to fall asleep on the streets that he had stayed up the entire time. He had been trying to get work but people were turning him down and the shelters were turning them down. He had eaten anything and didn't have any money on him. We prayed that God would provide for him, not just money but a means to make money and a place to sleep.. Chris bought him a hotdog and we gave him the info for the church. Please continue to pray for William. It broke our hearts to see william and many others on the streets- pray God would open up means and give us wisdom on how to continue to help those in need downtown. Meeting these people challenges my faith, challenges me and convicts me of taking advantage of the blessings I have received from the Lord. How I want the Lord to work in this area in my life...how do we help the poor? Not only bringing the gospel - but also helping them financially/materially? In James it says that faith without works is dead...What can I do, Oh Lord? Am I willing to give it all?


Thank you for continuing to pray for us as the Lord has called us to continue to minister to those in downtown Orlando. There is So MUCH NEED! Not only for walls of resistence to be broken down, but chains of sin to be released, families and relationship put back together, broken hearts mended, the poor to be taken care of, purity to sweep among the streets and ultimately the Gospel's mighty power to ring true! We have faith the Lord can and will do above and beyond all of these things!! He is so very very good..is he not?

In Christ,

Kayla