Friday, August 17, 2012

Make a Joyful Noise

Every Thursday evening, our whole base does city wide evangelism.  We get into groups of 6-8 people and pray about where and what God would like us to do.  We meet at 4:30pm and we head back to base at around 7pm.  This is how I met Anthony and sang with him on the street.  I also was invited to join a group from a burger joint at their BBQ.  Two weeks ago, I went into a frame shop, an Asian grocer, and a book store.  I had two good conversations about religion in general and what I (an American) am doing in Australia.  Every time I was not the one to lead the conversation, my partner was, and I was really down on myself about this.  What am I afraid of? These people I will most likely never see them again, so why not be bold?  They don't know me, so what does it matter what they think of me? This week my group prayed and we felt called to go into the city and sing worship songs in front of a coffee shop (Gloria Jeans actually).  We had two guitar players in our group, a few great singers, some cheesy dance moves, and a joyous spirit.  As we were performing, I saw one guy sitting on the bench playing close attention to us.  I felt like I should go talk with him, but once again I got nervous.  My friend Arielle gave me a kick that I needed and just told me to go talk to him.  So I grabbed my buddy Walker and we went over and introduced ourselves.  His name is Fransisco and he is from Colombia.  This was at 5 something and we ended up talking with him until well after 7.  He was really drawn to us because of our guitars, he is looking for a teacher.  He also said that we had a joy about us that many of the other street performers did not have.  A girl from a second level school named Addie and I talked to him that whole time (Walker went to sing to other people on the street).  We got into a pretty deep conversation about world religions and why Addie and I chose to follow Christ.  He has chosen to have a view where he takes the best of all different religions and make them into what he believes.  It was also so clear that God is pursuing him.  He even said that anytime he is runs into difficulties, there are a group of Christians there to either help or pray for him. I asked him if he thought that that could be God reaching out to him.  He said God wouldn't do that.  I then got to share about how God wants to have a personal relationship with us through Christ and talk about my own faith.  There was never a moment where I did not feel a leading of what to do or what to say.  It was amazing.  I even used the tattoo on my wrist to talk about my dedication to the Lord, see Dad God has a plan for my tattoos :)  He exchanged numbers with a Music DTS student to get guitar lessons and he had a lot of questions.  Afterwards I was filled with energy and excitement.  It was great to be bold about my faith and ask him questions about why he believed what he believes.  It was really exciting.  I am really looking forward to next Thursday!

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