Here's a story about a kiwi named Darrell.
I had an amazing experience on Thursday afternoon. Our school went into town to do street evangelism. We split into teams of two and we called it "gathering the brothers," instead of evangelism, because evangelism has such negative feelings and fear associated with it. :) So we practiced with each other as we drove there. Most of us planned on walking up to people and asking "Did you know Jesus loves you?" or "Do you know about Jesus?"
When we arrived I paired off with a German girl Tabea. She and I encountered some people in the grocery store, on the street, and a few of them knew Jesus, a few of them brushed us off, and some of them consented to prayer. All in all the time was challenging and fruitful. Tabea had just finished sharing the gospel with an older farmer and we basically ran beside him to keep up and he completely brushed tabea off as she shared the whole gospel in two minutes. She was so bold! I was speaking to her about her boldness as we started the two block walk to the van, and said "Man, i am so impressed with your boldness! I could never just talk to a hard looking man, that day will come, but not now!" HA! About 30 seconds later a young construction worker turns down the sidewalk towards us and I knew Holy Spirit was telling me to talk to him. So! That day came immediately!:)
I asked him, as he walked passed me, if he had a second and if I could ask him a question. So I asked him if he knew about Jesus. He said no. So I went off! I rambled off for about 90 seconds about the perfect world God had made, the perfect humans he created and how humans rebelled against God. Because of that Satan and Sin came into the world, as well as Hell. And hell was not made for us, and so Jesus had to come and pay for all the bad things we do so we could be without penalty and not have to go to hell. And if we give our lives to Jesus and call him Lord we are saved from hell and can be made whole with God.
I then asked him what he thought and he said "Well, thats a pretty gold story. That's good news, my buddy just died today." Tabea and I almost cried! You could tell he was trying to keep his emotions in check and so we quickly prayed for him and his family and friends. While praying for him i felt like i should offer him a Bible. So I told him how the Bible is the most precious of my possessions and its filled with adventure, and poetry and history and the story of Jesus and he can reread it over and over again, and its so powerful. He clutched it so close to him. He had tears in his eyes.
Tabea asked if he wanted to ask Jesus into his life and make Him lord. at that moment he saw a buddy of his so he said Yes, and I said would you like to repeat after us? He said "no, can i do it at home?" To which I replied " well, now is better! Seize the day!" but he wasnt persuaded and we felt pretty sure that his buddy made him uncomfortable. Anyway! The power of Jesus' story, His name, is so great! It came at the perfect time for this guy struggling with grief and we prayed so much for his heart. I gave him my bible and told him to email me if he ever had any questions.
I was so humbled. if only I would ask that simple question more often. "Do you know about Jesus?" If only I could shed this fear of man. It's a matter of ignoring the voice of the enemy saying "nope, its not the day to talk to them, they're too busy and you dont need to interrupt them." What a lie. No one is ever too busy for ETERNAL SALVATION.
Anyway! That was something so amazing and we are continuing to pray for Darrell! You should too.
