Battle Log
Sunday, 26 March, 2023
Posted 26 March 2023, 1:54 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink
Well, it wasn’t a standard week this week. Heavy rain on Tuesday and so I decided to stay online rather than head to Riccarton. And on Saturday we were at the Malvern A&P Show (Sheffield, just past Darfield - inland from Christchurch). But I was able to do my regular city outreaches on Friday and Sunday afternoon.
The main event of the week was the Malvern A&P Show outreach - so I’ll start with that.
I was wondering if I wouldn’t have enough Christians to run the site earlier in the week. But it turns out we had more than enough! Sadly, the foot traffic was a lot lower than previous years. I wonder if this had something to do with us being right down the far end of where all the trade sites were situated. Oh well, at least there was some foot traffic, and so everyone on the team had an opportunity to get involved. And still managed to keep myself very busy. I had many gospel conversations. Yet, my focus was in trying to encourage the other Christians.
I was super proud of my youngest daughter Daniella, who was often busy in gospel conversations. Well done Dani! She started the last conversation of the day, with an older Hindu couple. I could tell it was a harder conversation, but I wanted her to have the experience of having to deal with it. She did well! But eventually she called me over for help. The couple were engaged, so I just rolled back to the start to recover the ground Dani had already covered, but I slowed down to address their objections as they came up. I got them all the way to assenting to a just universe maker and heaven and hell, an admission that ‘good deeds’ were the way to heaven. I took them through the law, where they resisted hard. They had never stolen anything! I gave examples of when I had stolen as a child, and they laughed along and then agreed they had done similar with their parents. And so, I asked, “so, you’ve disobeyed your parents too?”. They got the point. Suddenly, the lady started resisting the idea of a universe maker again, and so I had to roll back again. Eventually, I realised that I wasn’t making progress. They had heard the law (which brings knowledge of sin), so I decided to cut to the gospel - which is the power of God for salvation. The man now started trying to include Jesus into Hinduism!
The chat ended with the lady becoming offended. I challenged her to change her mind about her worldview. That was offensive to her, “you don’t challenge people like that”. The man smiled, he understood that I was coming from a place of love and concern. I changed the word to ‘plead’. “I’m pleading with you: the issue of the afterlife is too important”. One of the pictures shows Dani talking with this couple.
I’m going to let the pictures do the talking for the rest of the outreach, which ran from 9am till 4pm. It was so awesome seeing everyone in the team giving it ago! I was super encouraged.
On Friday, I was on my own initially, so I decided to wander around the inner city to see what gospel opportunity I could find. I ended up in Cathedral Square where a group of construction workers working on the Cathedral repair were taking a break. I approached 2 of them and started a conversation. Soon after I was interrupted by one of the other workers across the way who was listening - she had a few things to say on the matter. I engaged her till she said she didn’t want to talk about it any more. So, I went back to the original 2. But, not long after, the lady across the way decided to interject again! Quite a few of the workers got involved in the conversation - it was quite funny, but a bit disjoined. In the end I decided to hand them all tracts and move along - their break was about to end anyway. But I was encouraged, I hope I’ll have an opportunity to engage with some of them again.
Later, I was back at the Bridge of Remembrance, and John was with me. I spotted 3 Filipino kids right in front of the JW stand. Having recently been to the Philippines, I was eager to engage them. They stayed to hear the whole gospel presentation - which was so good. And I hope the couple of JWs I was standing in front of were listening too!
Sunday’s outreach was busy. I was feeling quite tired from the Malvern A&P Show outreach the day before, so I set up my flip chart and focused on tract distribution. Susan and Binu were with me.
I ended up getting into some good gospel conversations. 2 young ladies heard the gospel (one had a Christian background, but they were both agnostic). Sadly they both rejected it (for now).
And I had a great chat with another group of 5 or 6 young people. It was a difficult chat in the sense that they were all easily distracted. But one of them in particular was audibly understanding each point of the presentation. It was making so much sense to him. So I focused my attention on him and got him to the point of hearing the gospel. I decided to leave it with that, and handed them all tracts. I hope the logic of what I was explaining: the seriousness of sin, and the amazing grace of Jesus will stick with them. May God, in his timing, save them for his glory!
