Saturday, July 3, 2010

Evangelism Adventures in Helena July 2, 2010

Friday I decided to go out and do some evangelism. I asked a few people if they wanted to come but they were busy so I went by myself for a few hrs. During that time many seeds were planted. I was able to talk to many different people. There was one man named Nathan who was in front of a bar and when I gave him and his buddy a tract they wanted to talk to me. So they asked me to sit with them in front of the bar. His buddy was all over the place talking about different things and wouldn’t let me talk or let me explain the gospel. Nathan told him to shutup several times but he wouldn’t listen. Nathan’s buddy said that he could show me a passage that said that it was alright to drink. He took me to Proverbs 31. This guy was drunk and he was quoting to me Proverbs 31 in the KJV. I was startled that he would be able to do that. Right after he quoted it he asked a guy passing by if he wanted a beer and so he took him in to get a beer. That left me with Nathan. He asked me why God would take his mother away from him when she was only 56 yrs old. He said that his mother was the only person he had in his life. He said that He knew his mother was in heaven because she always told them that Jesus died on the cross for their sins and that if they believed in Him they would have eternal life. He knew the gospel but he said that he couldn’t stop blaming God for taking his mother. I told him that God has a plan for him that there was a reason I was here talking to him. I told him that his mother was in heaven if she believed that and that if he believed that he would see her again someday. I told him that he needed to trust in Jesus and that He would help him through all the pain of losing his mother. He was near tears. He kept saying I know. I asked him if I could pray for him and right there in front of that bar I prayed for him. He appreciated that I prayed for him right there. He said that he needed to think about trusting Christ more. Please pray for Nathan. He is so very close to coming to Christ and he is trying to forget the pain by drinking.
I talk with a bunch of people and most of them were trying to deal with the death of someone.
There was a group of three kids that I stopped and I thought I had talked to them before because they looked familiar but I had not. So I was able to explain the gospel to them and when asked where they were going when they died, they had a scared look in their eyes. They promised to read the tracts and to think about what I said.
I met several kids that were telling me to get off the streets and stop trying to push my religion on them. One guy told me that the Bible was full of errors and flaws and when asked to name one he said the whole thing. I told him to prove it he said that I should prove that it is accurate because I was the one that approached him. All he wanted to do was argue so I moved on. Later on when talking to another group of kids he came past and told them I was lying and to get away from me. They left quickly. I thought that he was going to follow me around but he left quickly also.
I met some ladies sitting on a bench and when I gave them tracts they said they were Christians. I asked them what the gospel was and they gave it to me and then encouraged me to keep handing out tracts.
I was about ready to meet up with some other guys for evangelism.(Kenny, Mike P. and Brent) I was standing in front of my car and this guy comes down the sidewalk and so I decide to give him a tract. He turns out to be a mystic, reincarnated and a Jew. Don’t ask me how those go together but he also said that there is no such thing as a Messiah even in the future. He says that reincarnation will happen until everyone becomes a cow. He says that only the Hebrew writings are true. The Protestants have flawed the OT scriptures. The servant or messiah is never mentioned in Isaiah in the Hebrew. He wouldn’t listen to me because I was using an English Bible. He said that I could not disprove it because I didn’t have any proof and that he had studied it for years in this life and other lives. Yeah kind of crazy. I broke off the conversation because all he wanted to do was argue. As a parting gift he plucked a rose from a nearby bush and gave it to me as a sign of the Messiah. The guys left me and went down the walking mall. I went after them handing out tracts along the way. I met a guy from Senegal along the way. Then I finally caught up with the guys from there we went back down the walking mall handing out tracts along the way. I stopped at a table of kids outside one of the ice cream shops and asked if they had gotten one of these. They all said no but one. One of them said Yes, I have gotten so many that I don’t need any more. Just leave me alone. It turned out to be one of my co-workers (she was kidding) and I had shared the gospel with her at work. We had given her tracts last summer and a couple weeks ago I gave her a tract. You can call her B. God is after her. He wants her that’s why I keep running into her on the street. Pray for her that she will give her life to Christ.
We got to the library and decided to go back down to the movie theater so we walked there on the way we stopped at hill park and Brent and Kenny had a long conversation with two girls and a guy that had told me to stop pushing my religion on him. Mike and I went on to the movie theater. They were right in the middle of movies so there was no one around. We decided to go back to Hill park. Mike was able to give the gospel to a few kids.
We went down the hill to another park called Women’s park. There was something going on under the band canopy. As we got closer we saw it was tango dancers. Not wanting to get rope in anything like that we decided to go see some people sitting at a table. We approached them and asked them if they wanted something to read. Two of them told us to go away and one of them started cussing us and telling us that he was going to beat us up if we didn’t leave his table alone. We said we would leave. Then one of them told us to never bring that “stuff” back to the park. (That’s politely put compared to what he really said.) He said He would punch me and beat me if I showed him that gospel tract again. HE asked me if I wanted to fight him. I said “You can punch me but I won’t fight you.” Mike and I were both scared. I told the guy that these tracts are not just “stuff”. Suddenly he took a step toward me. I took a step back and said that we were going. He said “no wait. Your right it’s not ‘stuff’.” He told us that he couldn’t hurt us if he wanted to. We were under God’s protection and there was no way he could even touch us to hurt us. He told us he was Ed Hume. He told us that he was a Marine Chaplin and that he had been wounded in battle. He showed us his license and then told us his story. His wife had died and so he had taken up vodka to forget it. When he was 16 he had been shot in a bar fight and while in the hospital Nicky Cruz and David Wilkerson came to him and told him he needed to go to teen challenge and so that is where he went and when he gave up his life for Christ. He told us that he loved Jesus and he believed with all his heart that Jesus died on the cross for his sins and rose again but he couldn’t stop blaming God for taking his wife. He was crying at the end. He knew his Bible. Brent and Kenny joined us and he tried to run them off but he wanted gospel tracts so we called them back. We gave him gospel tracts. He wanted to read them. We gave him a New Testament. He told us to keep passing out tracts and that if anyone gave us a hard time them to tell him and he would take care of them. Then he gave us all hugs. Praise the Lord for an opportunity to talk to him. Pray for Ed. Pray that God would comfort him and that he would give all his anger to the Lord to take care of. Praise the Lord for protecting us.
We went back to the cars and handed tracts out on the way back. On the way salvaging gospel tracts from nearby garbage cans. :D
Praise the Lord for seeds planted and pray for all of these people in Helena. They need salvation.