Meet some of our new friends...

We wanted to introduce you to some new friends the Father has placed in our path. The first we’ll call Jenny (not her real name). We met Jenny at a local shop a few weeks ago. She is full of energy and excitement and loves meeting new people. She is however very lonely as she lives alone and does not have many close friends. Another teammate and I (Kasey) were able to go out to dinner this week and love on her a bit. We were also able to talk about the difference between her beliefs and ours. She was Hindu as a child, attended a Christian school and “converted”, and now she says she has “converted” to Islam because that is her fiancé’s religion. What she believes is essentially a combination of all three religions. Like all of us, she longs for love and acceptance yet she doesn’t realize that the Father offers her just that. We had great discussions about the fact that Jesus was much more than a messenger, he is God incarnate. We also talked a lot about the fact that our God loves us regardless of our actions. We explained to her that our God isn’t interested in us following a bunch of rules to earn his approval, He wants to have a relationship with us. Please pray for Jenny, that she would see the vast differences between Islam and Christianity and that she would go to the Father for love and not the approval of man.

Kasey, Jess, and a new friend

Our other friend is Art (again, not his actual name). We met him at a bakery on the other side of the city. We noticed something about him the moment we saw him. He was dressed in a maroon robe, people would come up to him and just sit next to him without saying a word and then leave. Kasey tried repeatedly to smile at him, but he would not return the smile. However, as he was walking out, he made it a point to smile and wave at us. Kasey felt like we should talk to him, so we ran out the door to introduce ourselves. He said he had noticed something about us as well, that there was like a spirit around us (which is REALLY cool, because as we were sitting in the coffee shop, we prayed that he would be able to see God in us!). We talked for a bit, got his phone number, and met for coffee a few days later. We found out that he is “enlightened”, that is he is totally separate from this world. He basically believes that he is his own god and that we are all our own gods. We stated that we weren’t gods, but that there is one true God and that He will speak to anyone who calls out to Him. He isn’t a Hindu or a Buddhist, sort of a combination of the two. We had a great conversation, discussing truth, what it means to be holy, and that there is more to the world than seeking pleasure. He had some very interesting ideas about Jesus. Rather than just engage him in intellectual or theological debate (which he loves to do), we stressed the importance of relationships. We explained that there is one God who desires a relationship with all of us. As we were leaving, we challenged Art to talk to our God and to ask Him to reveal Himself to him.

We are hoping to meet with him one more time this weekend. Please pray for that time, that we can share the Fathers love for him, that Art would be bold enough to call out to our Father, that God would speak to Art in a bold and clear way and that he would want to know more about the Spirit that he has seen in us.