Battle Log
Sunday, 12 April, 2020
Posted 13 April 2020, 5:48 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink
The weekend online outreaches were wonderful. We had more people joining us to pair up.
On Saturday, I paired up with Craig from the Hutt Valley (south end of the north island of NZ). And on Sunday I paired up with Graeme who is part of the Christchurch (NZ) street team.
But on Saturday morning, as I was on my own, I decided to see what was happening on the IRC, Freenode, Truth channel. Sadly, I walked into a discussion about suicide. I’m often encountering this subject in my online outreach. I was able to chime into the conversation and start providing some hope, having personal experience with this subject (in my own life). I was also able to point people to the basis of my hope: Jesus. At the end of my time there, I left a link to needGod.net.
I then moved to Omegle, I had a text chat with a guy who was quite engaged (sadly he had forgotten it was even Easter weekend!), he heard the law, admitted he would be guilty, answered Limbo to whether he would be going to heaven or hell, and then when I explained why there is no middle ground, he bailed - sadly, no chance to explain the good news, or share a link to more information - that’s one of the down sides to online evangelism, it’s so easy for the person to disconnect, and that’s it - gone forever.
I followed that up with a wonderful video chat with a girl who was open, and came to grasp the gospel - but was counting the cost. Sadly, she was keen for the conversation to end - but at least I was able to leave her a gospel link with follow up information.
In the afternoon, with Craig observing, I ended up being connected with a guy who it turned out was smoking a drug (after sharing the law and the gospel with him). He admitted he probably would never remember talking to me. Which is sadly probably true (but God). I told him to write down needGod.net and look it up in the morning.
On Sunday afternoon, with Graeme observing, I had two wonderful longish gospel video chats with young men, both from New York! One had a Christian background, the other was Jewish. Both were very intellectually engaged and came to grasp the good news of Jesus, and the cost (in this life) of trusting in Him. They were challenged to count that cost, and take it a step further than an intellectual exercise, and actually trust that Jesus had paid their fine. They are in His hands.
Graeme also watched me do a text chat. It was great because he was able to give me tips as to what the guy I was chatting with was meaning behind some of his cryptic sayings! Sadly, when I got to the point in the conversation where I said, “If you were to die today” - the guy freaked and disconnected.
To finish off the Sunday outreach I jumped on to IRC again, and I was able to reconnect with the Christian I had encountered the first time I signed on (about three weeks ago) - we are now Facebook friends.
Looking forward to another week of outreach. He is risen! :)