Sunday, June 13, 2010

Giants are Killed!

Right now I am sitting in my room listening to the thunder rumbling outside, with the screams and shouts of our new neighbors mixed in. It's peaceful, but at the same time a reminder of what we are being called to do this summer. These seniors are drunk already and they just moved in this afternoon! The smell of pot,beer and cigarette smoke are all around us. The foul language and taunting are also a part of this summer. Each week we will get a new group of high school seniors who come and party...and not just one party...everyday, all day. I seriously don't know when they sleep! They are awake when I go to bed and awake when I leave for work (at 8 in the morning). It's so sad to see what they are living for right now. One of my teammates told me that one of the kids said that his mom told him that he would be disowned from the family if he came here. Can you imagine?! A mom trying to keep her son and not even the threat of disowning stops these kids!
This last week we had a week called "Killing the Giants". I think I mentioned it in my last blog, but it is when we conquer some of our fears with evangelism. We had to make goals for how many times we initiated conversations. Like asking someone to go through a survey with us. Our goal was 2,582 initiated conversations with 91 people sharing for 5 days. Our final count was 2,677!!! We talked with 2,677 people in 5 days! Crazy. Our other goal was gospel conversations and that was 550 or something like that. We had 627 gospel conversations out of the 2,677 initiated!!! AND the awesome thing 101 people came to know Jesus Christ as their Savior!
This last week wasn't easy at all. I really was excited to go out sharing, but after working an 8 hour day, and on my feet for those 8 hours. I didn't want to go out and talk with people, I wanted to spend the one hour I had at home to myself! I had some hard days of being exhausted and not having any strength in me. I was disappointed because most of the conversations I had, the people were already believers. I was able to get more comfortable with going up to strangers and asking them about death and Jesus! The night before the final count I wanted to go out sharing and there was only one other person who wanted to (where I was hanging out). So Dan and I went out Friday night to talk with people on Main Street and on the beach. We talked with a few people but nothing much resulted from those conversations. We went on the beach hoping to find more people to talk to, we talked with this one girl named Paige. She is 19 and working on the fast track to prosperity. I asked her a couple questions from the survey and then Dan shared the Gospel with her. I was praying for Dan the whole time, but I just felt like she didn't really care and wasn't listening. He really pushed the point of how important the decision to let Jesus Christ be Lord of your life is! He also said that we didn't want her to pray the prayer just because it's the right thing to do...it has to be something that she desired. After thinking about it she decided that it was a decision she wanted to make!!!! I know have a new sister in Christ! It was just a sweet ending to a frustrating week.
Tonight I really wanted to go to bed because of the stressful week I had, but I felt that the Lord wanted me to go out sharing. I decided to go out and share. I knew that a lot of the students had just moved in so they hadn't heard about us:D I went with Diego this time. We went in the Carnival, but there was no one really to talk to. Then we went down Main Street and after a bit we went up to this young couple. We asked them what they thought happens after death, their answer was reincarnation. We then asked them what would you tell your friend if he came up to you and asked you to help him become a Christian. They said "just find out for yourself. We don't know anything about it". Our last question (s) was How would you rate your desire to know God on a scale from 1-10 (high-low)? They both said a 10. Usually when people say 10, they are just saying it because we're Campus Crusade people. BUT we were telling them how we really enjoyed that they were being real with us, so I knew that's what they meant. We then switched the question around. "how would you rate God's desire to know you?" They both said 1! My heart just broke! This whole time the storm that I talked about at the beginning of the blog was coming closer...and right at that point it started raining. It's not a nice Minnesota rain, it's HUGE drops of rain. We ended up giving them the booklet with Diego's email address on it and thanked them for doing the survey with us. I know that we talked with them for a reason, but MAN the timing of the rain was frustrating. I felt like the Lord was opening their hearts. I'm praying that I run into them again (and recognize them!) so I can go through the booklet with them. Please keep Joe and Cathryn in your prayers. They need to hear how much Jesus Christ wants a relationship with them!!!
Well this is just a quick update on my week! I'll write a little bit more on Tuesday:) Thank you all for keeping me in your prayers! I really could use prayer for energy and endurance...my body is not used to this kind of schedule!

God Bless

1 comment:

  1. Liz! I'm so proud of you for all that you did this week! Killing the Giants week was one of the hardest weeks for me for ALL the reasons you described! I'm proud of you for allowing God to be your strength and your energy!!! I miss you so much!

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