Battle Log
Sunday, 8 October, 2023
Posted 8 October 2023, 2:00 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink
It’s been a while since I’ve written a report. I didn’t write any while I was in the Philippines, as Bekk was doing video summaries of our outreach there.
I’ve been home for a week now. Still struggling a little with a bit of jet lag. I was back into outreach on Tuesday, but I didn’t do my first street outreach until Friday (in the city). I ran some evangelism training on Saturday morning. And I was back in the city for outreach on Sunday afternoon.
Before I report on these outreaches, I just want to mention a surprising encouragement. In this report the first gospel conversation I described was with a Muslim lady and her daughter. When I have chats with people who seem very engaged or who respond positively, I hand out a contact card for my church and write my name, #, and email address so they can follow up if they want to - and I did that with this lady. Sadly, from time to time, I might find these contact cards discarded, and rain stained. But, on Friday, I received a phone call from her! (Almost 1 month later.) I didn’t initially remember her, but as we got talking I was able to remember the conversation. I was able to check her gospel understanding, and then ask how I could help further. I guess I was caught a bit flat footed, because I don’t usually get follow up calls, but I’m more prepared now. I might follow up with her later next week.
So, it was good to see Roger again on Friday for outreach. The OAC boys were out as well. Steve even preached open air. I was fairly busy in conversations, I’m just struggling to remember any of the details (I blame the jet lag!). The conversation that stands out in my mind is the last one. I had a man and his daughter stop. He was curious about what I was handing out (gospel tracts), and so that led straight into a conversation about deeper things. He seemed agnostic, but he involved his daughter in the conversation show said, “I think about what happens after we die all the time”, and then listed the various things she thought might happen (the common answers: heaven / hell, nothing, reincarnation - actually he brought that one up). Yet, unlike her Dad, she did believe in God. I could sense that they wouldn’t be staying around for a long chat, and so I was able to share a brief law / gospel summary, and they left with a tract. What struck me most about the conversation was that they felt safe to approach me and talk to me. The word ‘evangelist’ often provokes thoughts of the stereotype of a mean guy holding a bull horn screaming at people about hell. No, I’m just a normal, logical, friendly person (I hope) with an amazing message, not only of hell (justice), but hope of eternal life (mercy).
Saturday’s training went well (as far as I could tell). I had 9 people attend. 6 of them from my church. We covered the biblical basis for the evangelism method I was going to teach, how to deal with 2 difficult subjects: 1) evil and suffering & 2) sexuality, general tips for street evangelism and evangelism in our everyday lives, and then finally the nitty gritty of the evangelism method. It was raining, and no one was able to join Andy or I for the optional street outreach afterwards. And so I joined the online training outreach on Saturday afternoon instead.
Sunday’s outreach provided nice weather. Mike, Susan, and Binu joined me. It was so nice seeing the new green leaves on the trees down Cashel Mall. The outreach started out a bit slow, but then got very busy. The stand out conversation was with two young ladies. They were attracted by the flip chart I had up. One had been in a cult, and the other was an atheist. Sadly, I didn’t get to share the gospel, because even though they professed to be ‘open’, they really weren’t. I don’t mean that in a bad way, because they were lovely to talk to, but whenever I would make progress on sharing the simplicity of the message, they would deflect in various ways. So even though we focused on ‘how we know God is real’, and ‘how we know what is right and wrong’, much progress was made in those areas. We talked about homosexuality a bit. And the atheist trusted me enough to open up about some very hurtful things that had been said to her in regards to this. It brought tears to her eyes as she explained (but she was quick to suppress them.) And yet, she said to me, without me even prompting: “you think homosexuality is wrong, and yet you don’t hate homosexuals”. She was right. This led into a discussion about justice and mercy and eventually to the issue of why God allows evil and suffering. It was a great chat. I hope it paves the way for some other Christian to be able to clearly communicate the gospel. Or even, it would be great to see them again myself!
Thanks for praying for us, without God, our feeble efforts are in vain.
