Dear praying friends,
As many of you might know, my daughter, Vivienne, is a student at Word of Life Bible Institute in Up-State New York.
Word of Life wanted to do something brand new this year. They were going to bring the whole Freshman class of over 200 students to New York City for a few days of Street Evangelism. And they invited me to lead one of the Evangelism Groups!
I said YES of course, but I had one condition – I wanted my daughter Vivi on my Evangelism team. Hey, I am her Daddy after all, and she lives 5 hours from me, and this would be a chance to hang out with her and serve Jesus with her.
I was a bit nervous though. I mean, I have plenty of experience leading Evangelism Teams, but not in New York City, and that place is CRAZY BIG! The subway system was engineered by inmates from an insane asylum! The buses and trains make no sense. And it’s easy to get lost, ripped off, or just plain robbed. But God was good! It ended up being an amazing time!
My favorite part was that ALL the students discovered the hidden secret of evangelism… Want to know what it is? The hidden secret of evangelism is that most people are very open to talk about eternity, and evangelism isn’t as hard as you fear it is.
The plan was for our group to be out for two solid days of Evangelism in the city, plus one day of “sightseeing.”
The students did most of the Open Air Preaching, but I got to preach a couple of messages too. If you’d like to see them, they are below.
The Titanic in Times Square
This message is one of my favorites to preach, but I got an unexpected surprise. A very precocious kid (about 8-9 years-old) engaged with me throughout the message. He had a BIG personality!
Who Do You Say He Is?
This message was well-attended and lead to fruitful one-on-one conversations afterward. This message is shorter and gets right to the point.
Before I jump to the photos, I should say something that’s sensitive. Many people know that I’ve had an Anxiety Disorder since I was around 12-years-old. It was at its worst about a year and a half ago, and I’ve been getting better ever since. (If you didn’t know about this, or want to read about my anxiety issue, I wrote about it here: http://luke-15.org/2018/09/on-being-a-christian-25-years/)
New York City would be a BIG TEST of how well I was doing. Just about every anxiety trigger you could think of in one place! Long days. Exhaustion. Spiritual Warfare. Overloaded with audio and visual stimulation. Different foods. Being gone all day. Being in charge of people who depended on me. No bathrooms handy. Long drives. Not being able to get away if I had to. All triggers. But I give glory to God that despite all that, I had nearly 0% anxiety. None! Zip. I praise God for that!
As for the rest of the trip, here are some photos that tell the amazing stories of what Jesus orchestrated…
The students getting a goodbye talk and prayer from the Word of Life President.
Five buses like this headed 4.5 hours down to New York City!
Sam found a fun car to ride during our bathroom break on the bus ride down. Crazy college students!
These guys! This was the AMAZING team of Open Air Evangelists I got to lead. They were absolutely terrific and I pray that each of them will share their faith wherever they go, because from the largest city to the smallest town, everyone needs Jesus for forgiveness.
Vivienne leading a "numbers game" to draw a crowd for a gospel message.
Vivienne chatting with a family that listened to an Open Air Message.
You don't see this everyday. Ben is preaching the gospel in Times Square, and 2 Mini Mouses and 1 Deadpool is listening (and a bunch of regular humans too).
This is too awesome! Kairo, who is from Brazil, is translating Joshua's open-air message into Spanish for this stranger. Praise God!
This is exciting! Hannah, RJ, and Joshua got to share the gospel message with three Muslim women. Hannah said that there was a point in the conversation where the three ladies realized that they had no certainty and no hope in Islam because they believe that Allah receives you based on 'what you do.' These ladies understood that Biblical Christianity reveals that God accepts us by grace through faith 100% in what Jesus has done. They said, 'Yeah, that is different than Islam.' Please pray for these three women.
Noah and Sam working together on preparing a paint message.
I met some friends in NYC.
Kairo sharing Jesus in Spanish again.
Adam and Maddie praying with a family.
Emily sharing Christ with a man who was listening to the message.
This was Noah's first open-air message and he did great!
After his message, Noah got to talk to a man who was in the crowd.
This friendly-neighborhood Spiderman actually WAS really friendly!
Ew, Yankees stuff! Gross.
Ben found a high school group (and their teachers) in Central Park and turned the Open Air Campaigners famous 'rope trick' into an impromptu open air gospel message!
Ben's message from a different angle. Lots of people stopped to listen to him. Praise God!
Natalie and RJ spoke to a man selling newspapers on the street. Bold as 2 lionesses!
When it began raining, we headed down into the subway. God gave us a terrific ministry spot down there. We were able to do a dozen or so open-air messages, like this one Ben is doing.
Josh spoke with this young man who heard the open-air message and was open.
This is Ed, and he really appreciated my open-air message on the subway platform. He's a Christian and he encouraged me a ton. This photo demonstrates the power of God to bridge divides. You see, I'm the World's craziest New England Patriots fan, and Ed here is wearing a New York Giants jacket. Yuck! Yet in Christ we can be friends and brothers. (But I really can't stand the Giants - but I like Ed.)
RJ here was a tract-handing machine! I think she's part octopus, with 8 arms! She was handing out gospel booklets like crazy and people were taking them. Woo hoo!
Me and my team of hooligans in Times Square on Sightseeing Day.
On our 'Free Day' the students wanted to go to the Nintendo Store in Rockefeller Center, and I found Pikachu.
Me and my Vivi in front of the Lego Store. I realized after the picture was taken that it looks like Darth Vader is killing me with his lightsaber. The good news is that I was just fine. :)
A lot of us thought that Christina here looks like Violet from 'The Incredibles.' So we found a Violet doll. Do you see a resemblance?
My hooligans at the end of Sightseeing Day. We're in Central Park. We had walked miles, taken a bunch of buses and trains, got lost a few times, and were all fairly exhausted. Good times!
I thank Jesus for an excellent few days of evangelism with these outstanding College Students.
Please pray that these students live a life of sharing Jesus with others. Praise God!
We love you and thank God for you! Please contact us anytime and let us know how we can pray for you!
Thank you so much for your prayers, financial support, and notes of encouragement, without which we would not be able to reach the Lost for Jesus Christ!
And please feel free to forward this to anyone you think would be blessed by it!
All for Jesus,
Mark, Shelby, Vivienne, Juliana, Caleb, and Gabriella
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