When Girl Meets a 12ft Giant, a Buddhist, and Donuts
YAS ^^^ Those babes are the Ambassadors from Miami University (of Ohio...)
In other news -->>>
There’s something so satisfying about you and your friends being really destructive to a 12 foot wooden Giant.
Saturday night (the 20th) marked the end of the famous Killing the Giants week for us here on the Ocean City summer mission.
And while we actually did take down a wooden replica of a devilish giant to celebrate, there were other much larger and much more intangible giants throughout the week.
The goal of Killing the Giants week is to confront every fear of evangelism and make a goal of how many spiritual conversations we wanted to have with strangers within a week.
I chose 30 conversations. But the whole project’s goal was 4,293.
Could 140 of us give that many people the chance to hear the Gospel in just a week??
And could we meanwhile take down our personal Giants??
No. Not without the Lord.
My personal giants were to share the Gospel with a long time friend and to learn how to handle my desire to teach without it being saturated with pride and lack of compassion in the face of a lost stranger.
As I’ve been beginning spiritual conversations and Gospel conversations with strangers, the majority of the feedback my sharing partners give me has been along the lines of, “Let them respond. Listen. Let it be more of a conversation than them listening to you preach.”
This week definitely stretched my patience and calmed my pride.
Two stories are particularly noteworthy from this week: The Buddhist and Dunkin Donuts.
The Buddhist
Maybe I didn’t feel challenged enough in sharing my faith or maybe God wanted to challenge me Himself, but, either way I found myself praying that God would give me a hard conversation; that someone would fight back. I prayed for friction.
So God let me talk with a Buddhist girl.
Her friend agreed to listen to the Gospel but had to leave almost immediately after he had agreed. So there I was with my partner trying to explain the Gospel to a girl who looked absolutely dead and uninterested because of her dedication to Buddhism.
Her pale face and listless eyes wandered everywhere but towards me, her monotone voice seemed strained to respond to my questions, and her lack of interest provided the friction I had prayed for.
A friction I couldn’t move through.
The conversation ended with me saying I hoped she would investigate Jesus more and her politely thanking my partner and I.
“God, that’s not the friction I wanted. I wanted to argue, to convince, to find the chasms in her belief system, to teach, to bring them to the light…”
Basically I wanted to flaunt my own knowledge and persuasion abilities.
A channel to be prideful.
So of course God gave me a battle I couldn’t win. He showed me He was with me through the answered prayer but that He didn’t support my pride.
“Thank You, God.”
To quell my pride and truly understand my position without the aid of the Lord, I’m memorizing Scripture.
Ephesians 1: 15-22
Psalm 11
I Timothy 1:12-14
Lamentations 3:25-27
Pray for me. Not sure if I remember how to memorize things.
Dunkin Donuts
Last Saturday, project organized a public beach tug-o-war match. We were supposed to invite basically anyone we saw on the boardwalk to come.
The idea was that people would be immersed in the body of Christ and be influenced by how we treat one another and we could start spiritual conversations with them there.
I met Alysha and Andrew: a college age couple vacationing with some friends.
As we talked new groups began to form. Andrew talked with some guys and one of the staff members here, Josh, joined Alysha and I. I left as more people joined our group to welcome others. I came back to find Josh sharing the Gospel with Alysha. I smiled and prayed and struck up conversation again with Andrew.
In short, my dear boy joined us and after Alysha came back over, we planned a double date at the nearby (and incredibly fancy) Dunkin Donuts.
Before that day came, I saw Andrew and Alysha again walking on the boardwalk. My evangelism partner and I stopped to chat and Andrew asked if he could take the survey that project uses to start up spiritual conversations.
After the survey we always ask if they want to hear more about the Gospel, Andrew agreed so my partner and I went through it with him with Alysha close by. We prayed for Andrew as he considered accepting Jesus…
The Dunkin Day came and the boy and I found that Andrew was still searching but Alysha had come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior on the tug-o-war day!
It was such a sweet time for the Jimmy and I to minister to this couple together and to provide Alysha with some next steps for her new relationship with God and to reveal more truth about God to Andrew.
In the days following, Jimmy and I both received such sweet texts from each of them. They were so grateful for the love our group had shown them this week.
By the way, the project exceeded the goal of 4,293 conversations. We ended up giving over 4,700 people the chance to hear about the love of Jesus. Awesome.
More importantly, 128 people came to Christ this week. Praise Jesus tonight folks.
Less importantly, but also stirring around in my heart, has been how involved I want to be with Cru throughout the rest of college.
For some people, it’s their life. Their friends, their passions, and their goals are all wrapped up in Cru. Which I think is fine for some people. But, maybe not for me.
I love the community, I love the teachings, I love the drive for evangelism. But I don’t love that level of involvement with Cru = level of involvement with Jesus.
Don’t get me wrong, I know without a doubt I’m supposed to be immersed with Cru people and activities this summer in Ocean City, but, when Miami campus had a time to discuss evangelism back at school, I realized I was one of the few who didn’t have a leadership role yet and was kind of ok with that.
Is it ok that I’m ok with that?
I’m definitely discovering my niche in God’s Kingdom and don’t really know what it will look like. Not sure it will be full time ministry, but, God has a funny sense of humor so who really knows.
While deep conversations and heart changes abounded this week, the lighthearted fun is just as mentionable.
My Impact Group won the project wide scavenger hunt (featuring me winning Dance Dance Revolution in an arcade against another Impact Group for some extra points), friends took some great pics at the beach, the guys singing Ho Hey at the top of their lungs downstairs lulled me to sleep, I’m a cleaning lady on Saturdays rakin' it in, and I planned a date for the boy and I at 5am for the sunrise which I ended up oversleeping by an hour so that was great...sort of.
Also, here are some of the faces who have become dear to me over this month in case you're wondering:
Two of my four roommates!! Carlie on the left, Bri on the right!
Oh look! it's Bri again! She's a good one ^_^ Also, check out my toothgap. And Andre who has affectionately nicknamed me "paper hands." It's a good story.
This is the sunshine of the project: Erin Crumley. A fellow Redhawk *hawk noise*
Big Joshy. My first asian guy friend. He's nice to me. Also a mentionable is Jack Kelley in the back left...featuring his back.
Meghan! She's on staff with Miami and her smile gives me life. #blackandwhite
Katy :))))) Also a fellow Redhawk who's voice sounds like music and her laugh could be a lullaby.
Also this one. He's important.
More pics to come...unless I can't make anymore friends. #cliffhanger