Soul Food

Clementine waited on Tina and I at the local soul food kitchen near campus. The pulled pork sandwich looked so good! (OK, I am coming clean when I say I got the mac n' cheese to go with it!) I gave her an icebreaker and she smiled.

When I asked her what she thought would happen to us after we die, she told me that we will go to Heaven. After discussing the afterlife in a little more detail I gave her the GP Test. She failed, as we all do. She listened intently as we continued. After talking about Hell, Clementine understood the ramifications of her sin.

As she gave me my change we talked about God's extraordinary grace in allowing a way for us to go to Heaven. I asked her to think about what we discussed and walked over to our table. Tina and I prayed for her immediately.

The soul food was everything advertised and more. I hoped Clementine was chewing on her 'soul food'.

A couple of minutes later she called out, "Nice to meet you." as she went out the door to catch her ride.

Tina is going to drop in and visit our new friend, and probably have some more of that delicious pulled pork along with conversation.

Hoping to see you in Heaven, Clementine...

Team Yale: Mission Accomplished

To give you a quick overview, I got this from Wikipedia:
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five U.S. presidents, nineteen U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and several foreign heads of state.

Incorporated as the Collegiate School, the institution traces its roots to 17th-century clergymen who sought to establish a college to train clergy and political leaders for the colony. In 1718, the College was renamed Yale College to honor a gift from Elihu Yale, a governor of the British East India Company. In 1861, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences became the first U.S. school to award the Ph.D.

Yale College was transformed beginning in the 1930s through the establishment of residential colleges, 12 of which now exist (but with two more planned). Almost all tenured professors teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually.

The University's assets include a US $16.3 billion endowment, the second largest of any academic institution, and more than two dozen libraries that hold a total of 12.5 million volumes (making it one of the world's largest library systems). Yale and Harvard have been rivals in academics, athletics, and other activities for most of their history, competing annually in The Game and the Harvard-Yale Regatta.

When I first heard of the opportunity to lead the team at Yale University I was a bit anxious. I didn’t know what to expect since I hadn’t seen anyone in that area for 25 years.

I prayed as the Lord formed the team. One by one they came…but not as many as I’d hoped. Since I live in Florida and the event was in Connecticut, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and was dependent on the Lord each day for the details. He brought Stan Gucwa and his wife, Donna along. They kindly took delivery of the boxes and moved their cars over. My old friend, Pastor Steve Baker and his wife Colleen joined the group and even dragged their nephew, Wayon to the event. Stan spoke to his home group and Chand and Roberta Ahuja got excited and involved-they were also kind enough to invite me to 'Hotel Ahuja". Tina Carlson was all about this project and was able to provide details about the campus we desperately needed. Then LW sent me an email from some guy named James Harriott. After giving him a hard time and making sure he was who he said he was, he joined the group. We are so thankful that he did.

We had our lone meeting Monday and put our heads together over a campus map. Then we did some role-playing. We had a great time and as the Lord saw fit, a bond formed between family. Donna made sure no one went away hungry!

We used the folding crates from Staples as suggested and they were fabulous. Just what we needed since we didn’t have a very large group. We needed to get in there and get those books out since we didn’t have an official invitation onto the campus. There is no free speech area either at Yale. This is probably a requirement for a censored education.

On the recon trip that Tina and I took 2 days before the big event, we spotted an area rather like a quadrangle. We hung out and saw that it had the best traffic of any area.

Wednesday 8:30 am: We met in the parking lot and drove to New Haven to the street we had agreed upon. Stan had organized everything and even pre-packed the folding crates before loading the cars. All we had to do was take them out and GO!

We spread out to different points. Students trickled by this morning. The books went pretty easily and after we had about half of them distributed, Stan walked in and told me he had just run into a guy who ‘wigged out’ when he saw what Stan was passing out. He said, “Hey, you’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow!” The student had jumped off of his skateboard and was now making phone calls furiously. Within minutes, he was joined by two other people. The young man, named Ashok was almost embarrassed to be surprised by us. One of the other young men had a box with papers, which he was furiously stapling together. He would staple some together and then try to distribute them along side of us. But he had to continually run back and staple some more together. Seems they were not prepared-even though they thought the event was less than 24 hours away.


Among the comments heard were:

-One professionally dressed woman (50’s) hugged it, raised her fist and said, “I’m with you-the gospel of Charles Darwin!”
-some said-”This is deceitful!”
-most people said, “Thanks!”
-after a quick review of intro, one very angry atheist said to me, “You are a transitional form-when you’re dead!!”
-another disturbed man brought it back and opened the book pushing it towards me and said, “How could you write this garbage?”
-Yale has many old churches and I was stationed outside one. A woman staffer came out and I offered her a book. She refused. When she returned I offered it again. She told me that she believed in God. I told her we did, too and asked her to read the intro. She gave me an odd look and took the book. In a few minutes her co-workers began to come out and ask for their own copy.

-Comments from SSA representatives:
- “Oh man, you’re supposed to come tomorrow!”
-“I wish I could get Ray to sign mine. This is going to be a family heirloom!”
-Stan told Mike from SSA that when Mike was judged on that day, he could not blame Stan for not telling him the truth. Mike replied with a laugh, “Yeah, that’s the one bad thing about being an atheist, we won’t get to say, “I told you so!”

-I did not have anyone profess to be a Christian

Tina found this article today.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/crosscampus/2009/11/18/creationism-vs-secularism-showdown-cross-campus/


FOX Reports:
Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.



I am so grateful to the Lord for putting together such a wonderful team of people-right where He wants them.

Continuing down the narrow path-

November Friday Fest

Friday the 13th and another Street Party in Melbourne FL. At the monthly street party we have a Good Person tent that asks the question “Are you a Good Person?” This Friday was great, 12 evangelists were there preaching God’s Word. Many great stories and many heart breaking ones where people are hardened against His Word.
Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

I was able to speak to a Muslim while his friend was talking to Dave. We both were able to give them the Gospel and thought they argued, they heard John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

I also gave them a DVD we have a Muslim who converted to Christianity.
The picture is Steve talking to a couple of kids. Remember this is a street party and people walking around drinking beer and wine, yet they bring their kids.


Pray for those who heard the Word!

Trunks of treats....

Halloween always gives us an opportunity to witness to all kinds of people. Seems lately the most difficult to witness to are those who say they are Christians. I am not judging because I don’t know if they are or are not followers of Jesus Christ, only He knows. However their attitudes seem to be not one of joy and appreciation and humbleness but one of “don’t challenge me on my belief”.

So at our Good Person tent setup a local church "Trunks of Treats" event, a mom and her 3 kids came over to see if they were indeed “A Good Person”. The boy, about 7 years old said he wanted to take the test. I explained it is using the Ten Commandments as the guide.

Me “Do you think you are a good person?”

Boy “Yes” and Mom “oh-oh”

Me “In your whole life, as short as it’s been so far, have you ever told a lie?”

Boy “yes” and Mom “But you told Jesus you were sorry”
BTW, I did my best to completely ignore any of mom’s comments.

Me “But you did lie, right?”
Mom tried to interject but the Boy said “yes”.

Me “Is this your mom?” and he shook his head yes. “Have you always obeyed your mom and done everything she asked you to do?” Again Mom answered for him and I repeated it to the boy and he said “no”.

I explained now that he has broken of two of the Ten Commandments and as I paused a second Mom interjects “but you told Jesus you were sorry – remember? And you asked Jesus into your heart”.
I ignored her and asked if he were to stand in front of God right now would he be guilty or innocent, then I realized he may not understand that so I re-phrased to “if you stood in front of God now that you have said you have broken 2 of the Commandments, would you tell God that you have lied and not obeyed your parents?” He looked down for a moment and before he could reply Mom said “but you have said you were sorry and remember when you got saved?”

Finally the boy said he would have to tell God he broke the commandments and as I started to tell him he would not be going to heaven, I could see Mom having real problems. So I quickly asked the boy if he knew what Jesus did for him so he could go to heaven.

He said he had no idea. Mom quickly jumped in again and said “don’t you remember when you got saved?”
I explained how Jesus made the payment for his sin and that he could not make the payment on his own. He needed to repent meaning to admit he sinned and turn away from sinning. He must then put his faith and trust in Jesus.

Mom said something again and this too was ignored by me. Not that I know the boy’s heart but there is definitely a difference between what this boy knows and believes and what his mother says he believes.

Please pray for this boy to understand that he must come to Jesus, not by proxy through his mother. It is a relationship between him and God, not his mother’s desire that will lead him to salvation. The big problem here is that Mom’s insistence that her son is saved will lead to a false convert, even at 7 years old.