Battle Log

Friday dawned nice and clear.  The day started with our, now regular, Gospel + abortion outreach outside the hospital.  There was a team of six.

And, again, the Lord encouraged us.  Before the outreach had even started, and as I was waiting for the others in the team to arrive, I was handing out “Life is Precious” tracts.  I noticed two of the team approaching, but out of the corner of my eye a skateboard was coming my way.  He went right past, so I handed him a tract.  He stopped and wanted to know what it was.  I had a decision to make: do I talk about abortion, or do I talk about the Gospel?  I went with the Gospel.  It’s only the Gospel that can change hearts (and remove blindness), and changed hearts will led to an end of the genocide of abortion.

And it was a wonderful Gospel conversation with a young man at a crossroads in his life and who needed a Gospel wake up call.  He seemed deeply challenged and impacted.

And then the subject moved to abortion.  And I was floored when he said his partner was considering an abortion at the moment!  I handed him another tract and pleaded with him to give it to her, and that we would do anything to help, if it would mean they wouldn’t kill the child.  I even offered to adopt.

I give glory to God for this wonderful opportunity and the encouragement it was.  What we are doing seems so useless, and yet we are getting clear opportunities to not only reach people with the Gospel, but also reach people considering abortion and counselling them to not.

A wonderful photo of me shaking hands with this young man was taken.

And yet, there was much opposition during the outreach.  One lady angrily “told me off” for giving a “Life is Precious” tract to a “pre teen”.  Her concern for children was very ironic.

I was told, by a passerby, that what we were doing was harassment.  Protesting with signs, politely handing out tracts, and dialoguing with people is not harassment.

We had a jogger go past and scream “my body, my choice”.  Our bodies were given to us, by the God we know exists (yet suppress), and we know murder is wrong by our conscience (which means “with knowledge”).

The outreach ended with more encouragement.  We had three very passionate girls approach the team to dialogue.  Yes, it was a dialogue (two way) - even though there was much passion, and even tears, there was no shouting (see picture).

As hard as this outreach is, it must continue.  We must do something.  Praying for labourers to join us.  Will you come and hold a sign and stand up for those that can’t?

As usual, we moved to Cathedral Square.  We again had a wonderful opportunity for open air Gospel preaching.  We then moved to Cashel Mall for our regular Friday afternoon outreach with a team of five.

On the previous day (Thursday), our first outreach started in the afternoon.  But the weather was not cooperating.  It was cold, windy and threatening rain while we were in the city, so we decided to head out to our new outreach location: Northlands Mall in Papanui.

We had good opportunities for Gospel conversations, that were started with tracts around the bus stops.

A highlight for me was a conversation that led into another conversation: I got chatting with an older man, who turned out to have a Roman Catholic background.  I went through the law and Gospel with him, and then continued to chat until his friends arrived and they moved on down the road.

While I was talking with him, a younger lady had been listening, and when I approached her, she was keen to chat.  And so I had the opportunity to go through the law and the Gospel with her also, until her bus came.

By this stage, the rain was coming down hard.  Our fall back, in weather like this, is to go to the central bus exchange, which has a large roof that protects the side walk from rain.

But the weather was so terrible, we even abandoned that idea, and I went to my last resort in bad weather: letterbox dropping.  I rugged up warm, and had no problem walking the pavements sowing seeds (see picture).
 

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