Hey fellow servants of Christ and prayer partners, 03-13-2008
What a joy it is to walk in the light of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! These past two weeks have been busy, and have included new ministry experiences, which is really good. :)
We are planning to join everyone at the Graham's house ~ we're looking forward to it! :) And then hitting the streets!
Several announcements before some interesting 'fishing stories':
What: 'Way of the Master' ~ 'Transformed Conference'
When: April 19th 2008
Where: near St. Louis, MO
First Baptist Church of Arnold
2012 Missouri State Rd.
Arnold, MO 63010
What time: (2 sessions)
8:30 AM to 12:00 PM
1:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Cost: FREE
To sign up, click here: http://www.wayofthemasterradio.com/transformed_signup_stlouis.shtml
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What: 'Evangelism Conference'
~ with Gabe Graham, Mark, Cahill, and Darrel Rundus
When: April 25th and 26th 2008
Where: St. Pete, FL
Calvary Chapel
8900 US HWY 19 N.
Pinellas Park, FL
General plan: Friday evening - 6:30-9:30PM
> ~ prayer, praise, and some food for thought
Saturday conference ~ 8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
> ~ worship, evangelism training, lunch, more training, then 'fishing'! ~ :)
Cost: FREE
For more info, check out: http://www.team-hope.org or you can contact Gabe @ ~ neosurf(@)hotmail.com
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Expelled the movie is scheduled to come out April 18th. It comes from a secular point of view, but apparently asks good questions and has some very interesting interviews. Ray Comfort (of 'Way of the Master') highly recommends it. You can find Ray's review of the movie here: http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/2008/03/expelled-review.html. Our family is really looking forward to it!
Also, to all those who pray for us, we would like you to pray for us this Saturday afternoon/evening as we are planning to go to Daytona Beach for 'Black College Reunion'. We've never done this before, but we are definitely looking forward to it!
Now, we had the wonderful opportunity of meeting two fellow evangelists (and our new friends) ~ Deanna and Bryan, and their stories are below.
(Steven's update)
This past week was very cool. Meeting two new friends, talking with an 'apathetic question guy' as Bryan called him, and then getting to talk to 2 friends - one was Hindu and the other Muslim. Those were some very fun conversations, and I'll let Bryan tell you those. Two weeks ago, I joined Rich, Jackie and Tramicqua as they talked with a Muslim man named Omar. It was quite an interesting conversation and I think God used us to plant some good seeds. Omar had some painful memories from his past, and he was also trying to rationalize his sin and how it really wasn't that important. We got to encourage him some about his past and apologize and show him that we care. Rich got him thinking about eternity and how important it was, and I was able to remind him that according to the Bible, we are rebels, going our own way - making ourselves enemies of God, but that even though we rebelled, God died for us - while we were still His enemies. And that He then rose again and was seen by 500 witnesses. And we did our best to remind him of Jesus' words in John 14:6 ~ "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by Me." At the end of the conversation, Omar was back-peddling, and it was clear that God was working on his conscience. Please join me in praying for him that He will realize that he needs to give complete control of his life to Jesus and accept Him as his Savior - no matter the cost. (Very often, when someone with a Muslim background turns from Islam to Jesus, they are disowned, lose everything they have, and sometimes are hunted down and murdered for their faith in Jesus. ~ Please pray for Omar.)
(Paul's update)Friday night, we had two new friends from http://www.adventuresinchristianity.com/ (an evangelism connection), Deanna (from Deltona) and Bryan (from Apopka), join us on the streets of Downtown Orlando! It was funny that they both decided to come the same night. It was an amazing night of fellowship and fishing! I think we were all hugely looking forward to Friday night all day long! Our fellowship was so sweet! I think we all had way too much fun Friday night, but we also really strengthened each other in the work of building God's kingdom! There is just nothing in this world like meeting a fellow brother and sister in the Lord who have the fear of the Lord in them and have God's love for all of the people and are not tied down to the love of this world, so we can all fellowship in the pure grace of God and the wonderful work that he's doing in our hearts and our lives and the lives of those we love and of those he leads us to meet and minister to! It is so out of this world. We also really challenged each other to remember that we are pilgrims passing through this world, and we must have all of our focus and attention on declaring and praying for and looking for the glory of God to be revealed in this wicked world we live in until he returns! Now to the stories! Three stories that stand out - a conversation with Alex who listens to way too many voices, and that about summarizes that one! Then there was Jay - while my mom and Deanna were into a great conversation at one point, I decided to stop and pray. So I'm just standing there, kind of with my head down and eyes open just talking to God not really paying attention to what was going on around me. All of a sudden Jay walks up. We talked only a few minutes - long enough to find out that he knows all of the truth he needs, and he didn't say it but he seemed to really be doing some rethinking and knows he needs to change something in a big way. About twenty minutes later, he walked into 'Club Tabu', but then five minutes later I saw him just standing all the way across the street, just watching us talking with people! I really think he's looking for new life, I hope! Then there was Mike. We talked for about five minutes and really encouraged him to read God's Word more to really be clearer on things, but he definitely seemed to be a disciple. He really talked like God is building in him a new life, and he seemed like a new man! Now it's time to pray that he really takes it seriously to enter that narrow gate and stay on that path and never look back again!
This last week at Orlando Children's Church was so good that I had to tell you all about it. Orlando Children's Church, for those who aren't familiar with it, sends out eight school buses Saturday mornings across Central Florida and picks up about 300 children from five years old up through high school and even a few out of high school. They bring them to FBC Maitland where they get breakfast donated by McDonalds every week and play some games and hang out and talk and then we do a lot of Bible study. Steven and I work with the middle school/high school, and I lead the sixth grade small group and Steven has seventh and eighth grade. The large group session this week was about Moses life. The main point was not accurate, but their point was that Moses tried to use his own wisdom at first (killing an Egyptian), but later in his life when God was the One guiding the situation it worked out to release the Israelites and God used Moses as a wise and strong leader.So in my small group, I carried the point about not making your own decisions but letting God be in control of your life and your decisions. I told them that was one of the greatest truths that I have ever heard in my life, and described what happened when I repented and gave complete control of my life over to God and about why God must be God in our life instead of us. They were more attentive for those ten minutes than I've seen eleven sixth grade guys in a while. Even Justin who wasn't supposed to be in my small group and is often causing trouble but he sat right in front of me and listened to every word. Then they had a lot of questions. Then I had three specific conversations after our group that were just out of this world great! Noah had a very serious question, so we talked about that! Then Alex wanted to talk about how there are so many confusing things in the world! (One of my points was about all the lies they're getting at school that are going to be so complicating for them to sort through.) And then I went and talked to Edwin and his friend (I forget his name) came over to join the conversation and another friend was listening in. Edwin's friend commented also about how many confusing questions there are and concluded out loud that we've got to just toughen up and just do the best we can. So, I took Edwin's friend through the intelligence test: 1> How many of each animal did Moses take on the ark? 2> What is the name of the raised print that deaf people use 3> Is it possible to end a sentence with the word 'the'? 4> Spell shop out loud... then what do you do when you come to a green light? 5> Spell silk out loud... what do cows drink? As he was getting them wrong, he slowly felt more dumb, then when he got them all wrong he was like, "Wow, I must be really dumb." My response was no, but you can see how easily we can be tricked. The point is not to rely on our own wisdom for all of the confusing questions in life, but to look to God for the truth! He got that! There was so much more; you can ask me if you want to hear the rest!
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(Bryan's update)
http://www.adventuresinchristianity.com/?L=blogs.blog&article=2861
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(Deanna's update)
http://www.adventuresinchristianity.com/?L=blogs.blog&article=2858
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Your friends and co-laborers,
David, Barbara, Steven and Paul
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