Battle Log

• Battle Log
• Page 39

Christchurch (NZ) Team

We ran another special outreach this week (Saturday): the Kaikoura A&P Show outreach.  And we had some special people join us for outreach this week (Friday): Kane & Damo all the way from Brisbane!  So good to have them with us!

But I’ll start the report with Tuesday afternoon’s outreach to Riccarton.  Roger was down sick, so I got to set up my flip chart on his side of the street.  :D  I had 3 significant chats.

The first was with a young man down from the Hawkes’ Bay.  He is starting university in Christchurch.  It was a good chat in the sense that he was open to hearing the law and the gospel and going through all the check questions.  He seemed to respond positively, but he hedged a bit when I got him to count the cost in this life of accepting the gift of eternal life.  I can’t save him, only God can!

Next I had a long chat with a streetie.  Sadly, she loved the sound of her own voice.  She talked a lot!  So self absorbed.  I didn’t give her the gospel, she was obviously not ready for it.  When I had opportunities to speak, I would gently but directly labour the law of God into her life, trying to reignite her conscience.  Eventually she got tired of being challenged, and decided to move on.  She did take a tract.  I saw her again on Friday in the city, but I was in a chat and wasn’t able to follow up with her.

The last chat was with 3 teen girls.  They accepted tracts on their initial pass, but my question of “what happens after life” was cheekily rebuffed!  Yet, a minute later, they came back, they wanted to talk, and they each had a machine gun of questions to fire at me.  It was a bit overwhelming!  But the questions were very good ones, showing they cared deeply about life, and what happens after life.  As the conversation progressed, I was of course sharing the law and the gospel.  But we finally hit the two hardest questions: 1) evil and suffering and 2) homosexuality.  I actually felt honoured that they trusted me enough to ask about what were obviously very sensitive questions for them.  I did my best to give them answers that were: compassionate, yet faithful to the truth.  It’s only the truth that sets us free!  Sadly, they weren’t able to give me the time to do the subjects justice - they had to leave; I did my best.  One of the girls had been twisting her tract as we were talking.  She accepted another that she could read.

Friday poured with rain!  Yet, we had a team of 6, and it was an awesome outreach in spite of the rain.  There were heaps of people out and about, and everyone was making the most of the sheltered spots where we were able to spark up chats.

I heard a wonderful report from Roger, who had a fantastic chat with a guy who’s flight had been delayed and was wandering the city aimlessly till he encountered Roger.  They guy was so impacted by the gospel conversation, that he headed back to his hotel room to start reading a Bible!

I was paired up with Damo, and he needed to go to the bathroom before we started, so I took him to where some were.  As he was going in, 2 guys passed and I asked them, “hey, what do you think happens after life?”  They were keen to chat, and stopped to engage.  But, as I was talking to them, a streetie who knew me passed, and wanted to talk.  He waited in line!  Damo came back, and I passed the 2 guys to him (pictured), while I addressed the streetie.

Damo’s chat was much longer than mine, and so I ended up going to Lichfield street to see if I could get into a chat there.  Four Catholic high school students went past, and I had a fantastic chat with them.

Damo and I then headed back to Cashel Mall and found a spot down by Ballantynes.  We had 2 outstanding chats.

One with a guy who knew all the Christian lingo, but was subtly missing the gospel.  After labouring with him, I could see a breakthrough starting.  At points he seemed to almost come to tears.  And he left saying we had given him something to consider.

The other was with a young couple (also going to a Catholic high school).  The guy looked so happy, he said, “I’ve seen others being asked that question, but no one has ever asked me”.  It turns out he was very familiar with Ryan via TikTok!  He was very deep in thought throughout the chat, often with a distant look, and often taking a long time to answer questions as he processed what he was learning.  It was so good.  By the end of the chat, I could tell they were taking what we were sharing seriously.

Kaikoura is two and a half hours north of Christchurch, so it was an early start for the team of 5.  It was so good to have Andy, Mike, Jerome and Elijah with me for the drive up.  We were joined by a team coming down from Blenheim, led by Scott.

It was raining when I left home, but, although the ground was very damp, the rain held off for the whole outreach at the Kaikoura A&P Show.

This show wasn’t as busy as some of the others we attend, and yet, there were still plenty of opportunities to engage people with the good news of Jesus.  I’m running out of time to talk about the details of some of those chats.  But the highlight for me was having opportunities with the type of people who wouldn’t normally give me the time of day.  One farmer stayed to hear the law before bailing on me (the fact that I got that far was amazing).  Another elderly couple stayed to hear the gospel, but there was such a hardness that my very first check was answered with “be good”.  Again, I was amazed they stayed as long as they did.  I hope I left a pebble in their shoe, and that God turns it into a rock!  While we have breath, there is hope, God can do what is impossible for us.  They left with tracts.

Susan joined me for the Sunday afternoon outreach in central Christchurch.  It was a busy outreach, and so the time went fast.  Some very encouraging chats with some High School kids, who were challenged to urgently trust Christ, yet left thinking deeply while counting the cost.  Also a great chat with a young man from Australia among other chats.  Out of time!

A small team from Australia and New Zealand is heading to the Philippines to hopefully be an encouragement to the church there in evangelism.  We leave on Tuesday for just under 2 weeks of outreach.  Please keep us in prayer!  I intend to keep writing reports, keep your eye out for them here or on Facebook.

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Battle Log of Operation 513 at Sunnybank on Wednesday 22/2/2023 from 1300-1500

I had to go solo again as no other gospel co-workers was available today. In Sunnybank the usual reject rate was high. I could manage to have a few chats and I had to move around to the other side to look for gospel targets. I also took pictures of all those possible evangelism sharing points to be shown to a God raised mission oriented Chinese Church for their Street outreach evening scheduled on March 17 Friday evening 7-9pm.

One encouraging divine encounter was with Ms King from Hong Kong that we have met two times before. It was really not by coincident that God let us meet to follow up on her inner faith journey transiting toward the eventually salvation faith.

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Toowong (QLD) Team

Battle Log of Operation 513 for Toowong on Tuesday Feb 21st, 2023 from 1330 – 1500

Battle Log of Operation 513 for Toowong on Tuesday Feb 21st, 2023 from 1330 – 1500

The long queue at the Toowong Bus station appeared again today. It was both a good and bad things for our outreach. It was good we could randomly pick anyone in the queue, but the conversation could not guarantee to last long as once an empty bus came, everybody will be taken away quickly. But even if the bus did not come quick, it was less focus for both the gospel targets and people around as out gospel sharing will be under the scrutiny of a wider public not giving them more privacy to ponder the message. Nevertheless, both Winnie and Hung had a good handful chance to share, though not without exception that some rejection with a cold shoulder were faced. It anyway did not deter our spirit and boldness to keep proclaim good news for Christ. Again, a good mixed of people groups were outreached i.e., Indonesia, Chinese, Scottish, Mexico, Aussie, Korean etc. Recap below is the Battle Log of Hung. queue at the Toowong Bus station appeared again today. It was both a good and bad things for our outreach. It was good we could randomly pick anyone in the queue, but the conversation could not guarantee to last long as once an empty bus came, everybody will be taken away quickly. But even if the bus did not come quick, it was less focus for both the gospel targets and people around as out gospel sharing will be under the scrutiny of a wider public not giving them more privacy to ponder the message. Nevertheless, both Winnie and Hung had a good handful chance to share, though not without exception that some rejection with a cold shoulder were faced. It anyway did not deter our spirit and boldness to keep proclaim good news for Christ. Again, a good mixed of people groups were outreached i.e., Indonesia, Chinese, Scottish, Mexico, Aussie, Korean etc. Recap below is the Battle Log of Hung.

1) Two Chinese guys pretending they do not speak Chinese but still were not that mean to reject my sharing, so I share them the full gospel as the bus was late and people around all heard the good news. They tried to shut their ears but eventually, the facial expression told me that they heard and understood the gospel and have not reason to reject it.

2) Then I went to the end of the queue to pick up an Indonesia girl. She obviously is a Muslim, but still was open enough for the gospel.

3) Then after the long waiting queue was cleared up by two pick up bus, a Scottish woman was left behind. She actually is from a Christian family originally lived in Namibia. She has now just come to join her son living in St Lucia. We had a long chat and her faith was pure with assurance of salivation.

4) An Aussie girl just only had minimum tine for the nutshell of the gospel and the conclusion for the "Good Person" question.

5) Then I was led to connect with Milani a Mexico Catholic girl. We had a not long but not short conversation as I could identify with her that my father was born in Mexico and in the middle age era, he worked in El Salvador for 10 years. Basically, she is of Catholic background so she did not have much objection apart from the concept of assurance of salvation. Our conversation got cut short when her friends came to reunite with her for shopping.

6) Then I shared with a Korean man and he seemed to be a non-believer as he did not show great empathy with the gospel message. He anyway took a tract when his bus came.

7) Yvonne a CCCCB members recognized us for the consecutive week and kept apologising for not being able to enrol in the Kairos Online Class.

8 ) Jack seemed to be a Christian showing no sign of rejection of the gospel. Just no time to clarify his Christian status as the bus came a bit earlier.

9) Then I caught up with a young from Cairn. He was also very receptive to the gospel as such he voluntarily took a picture with his own camera and then my turn to take a selfie one.

10) Last but not the least, I was moved to approach a funky girl with a nose ring. She showed no objection for me to share but showing me a face of indifference.

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Christchurch (NZ) Team

A wonderful week of gospel outreach. (But then, every week is a wonderful week of gospel outreach!)  It wasn’t a usual week, because on Saturday I ran some evangelism training sessions and, from my perspective, it went really well!  Thank you for praying for this.

But before mentioning how that went, I want to talk about Tuesday’s outreach in Riccarton.  Roger was with me, as usual.  It was an incredibly busy outreach.  Pretty much non stop gospel conversations for over 2 hours.  I set up my flip chart, and prayed, and before long I had 7 university students go past and I was into my first chat.  The larger the group, the harder it can be to hold all their attention.  And this was certainly true for this group.  They were all in different places.  Some of the guys were quite interested in the conversation, but one of the girls, in particular, was quite resistant.  She ended up leaving, which caused some of the others to leave, and then the guys had to go too.  They left with tracts.

But as soon as they walked off, a guy went past who I was able to stop and engage in conversation.  And it was like that for the rest of the outreach.

A lady went past and she said, “Are you Mormon?”  No.  “JW?”  No.  “Oh” she says, “then what are you?”.  We fell into a good conversation.  But it was a difficult one, because I had to be gentle in trying to untie some of the really bad theology she was holding on to.  It was an extreme form of pentecostalism / charasmania.  Where she believed God was giving her and her husband visions that clearly contradicted scripture.  And, unfortunately, this was impacting her soteriology in a subtle way: she was trusting in her ability to deal with generational sin and ask for forgiveness.  She talked about having “enough” faith for salvation: that’s works in disguise!  Anyway, her husband had had visions of a military build up in NZ, and that there would be some kind of coup and all Christians would be rounded up and killed.  And so her husband was preparing to flee to the bush.  I was able to gently work with her to the point where she understood that these “visions” might not be from God.  But unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make much progress in working on her soteriology.  There were other issues as well, and I would have loved to have more time with her.

While I was talking to her, I had 2 groups of people go to the flip chart and start looking at it.  With the 2nd group, she encouraged me to go and talk to them.  I thought I would do that, hoping she would stay and listen too, and get a chance to hear the gospel.  She stayed for a while, but then had to go before I got to the gospel.

So many other interesting gospel interactions throughout the outreach.  And I just don’t have time to talk about them.  But I will mention that a young lady, who I have shared the gospel with before, came over to say hi.  Sadly, she didn’t remember the gospel (to my grief), and the guy that was with her hadn’t heard it.  So I shared it.  And I got a touch emotional.  I was pleading with them to respond to the gospel today.  I’ve talked to people on the streets who I now know have died.  We don’t know when we will die.  There is urgency!

I’m heading to the Philippines for an evangelism trip very soon.  And in last week's report I mentioned a conversation I was able to have with a young Filipino girl.  Well, what’s interesting was that exactly one week later, on Friday, I was able to have another great gospel chat with a young Filipino guy!  It just goes to prove that we don’t need to travel on expensive trips to bring the gospel to the nations these days!  And yet, I want to take every opportunity to encourage the church, worldwide, to rise up where they are at and bring the gospel to their community!  May God bless our (feeble) efforts for his glory.

Like the girl from the previous week, the guy was a church goer.  He said he needs to 'follow the word of God' to get to heaven.  So, I took him through the law. When I asked how he could remove his hell punishment, he said 'repent'.  I asked him what that meant, and he said, "ask for forgiveness".  I explained why that wouldn't help him and proceeded to share the gospel - finally he started mentioning Jesus as the reason for salvation. He agreed that if he had died before our conversation he would go to hell.  And so I called him to repent!  Trust only in Christ as the reason he is saved.  His 2 mates didn't want to talk to me, they were waiting down a bit.  So I gave him 3 tracts.

Please be praying for this young man, and for the young lady from the previous week.  And please be praying for the upcoming evangelism trip to the Philippines (28th Feb till 10th Mar): That the church will be encouraged.  That the church would have a backbone, and stand up and proclaim the gospel.  In the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.  Pray for the team, that there would be no sickness that would hinder us; that we would be able to resist the many opportunities that there will be for unnecessary division among us.  Pray that this trip would have a lasting effect on the lives of many.  That we would be like fearless warriors, our swords reflecting the glory of God!

So, the evangelism training seemed to go well.  A week ago, there was only 1 person registered, and I was going to cancel it, but we ended up with about 15 people there!  ‘We’ being Andy and I.  It was wonderful being able to take them through the biblical basis for how to do evangelism, deal with too difficult, but common issues: evil and suffering, and sexuality and then finally go over the specifics of the evangelism method we use.

Many of the attendees came to the optional street outreach afterwards.  I had a great flipchart conversation with 3 young ladies while many of the attendees were watching, it was almost a mirror conversation to the role play I had done earlier, and so it was encouraging that they could see the theory being put into action!

It was a very busy outreach as well (cruise ship was in port).  I had so many gospel opportunities.  For the next training, I need to arrange to have more experienced Christians with me to pair up with the trainees.  A good problem to have!

I had opportunities to continue getting to know some of the Hara Khrisian’s that I interact with, which was a great encouragement to me.  (I’m out of time to give details.)

Finally, Sunday’s outreach proceeded as normal.  It was hot, and there were not as many people out.  I had 2 great conversations.  The first was with some climate change activists.  And then lastly, with a guy who identified as trans - this was a long chat.  Initially, he cut to the chase, and wanted to know what I thought of trans people.  I refused to answer without giving context to my answer: how do we know what is right and wrong?  He was deeply resistant, but I was able to show how we know God is real, who God is, what God’s law is, and about the incredible mercy of God.  I was then able to cycle back and explain why homosexuality is a sin: because God makes the rules.  He said the Bible was wrong.  So I asked him on what basis he was judging the Bible.  His answer: himself.  That’s shorthand for, I love my sin, and I want to be god and make my own rules.  Idolatry.  He was really unhappy with me by this point, he wouldn’t shake my hand.  But I made it clear that I cared for him, and that I wanted him to know God’s mercy before he walked off.  We can’t compromise the truth, but we need to do that with gentleness and respect.  I’m making enemies.  But if I’m trying to please man, I’m not a servant of Christ (see Galatians 1:10)
 

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Battle Log of Operation 513 at Sunnybank on Wednesday 15/2/2023 from 1300-1500

It was a hot sunny day after the afternoon thunderstorm good for outreach. Amy was able to join me as Joshua was sent to kindergarten every fortnightly. We teamed up at the same northbound bus stop but Amy later moved onto the other side of the street across the bridge. She got many great conversations with non-believers as well as Christians. The people group she reached including Cambodia, Myanmar Indian Sikh Vietnamese and of course Chinese from Taiwan and the Mainland China. As for me, I had a balance ratio of Chinese from Taiwan and China as well as non-Chinese people group including, Local Aussie, Japanese, Filipino, Bangladesh. Recap below is my Battle log.

1) Rohan is a local Aussie of middle age involving in China trade as such he greeted me in Mandarin, we spent time to exchange info about our China experience and barely have time to touch on the gospel. Anyway, the rapport built was good enough to warrant a willing acceptance of a tract and trust God may have His follow up work.

2) A Bangladesh guy coming for study showing no interest in religious issue at all initially. But I was moved to keep the chat on persistently and the Spirit softened his heart to still listening on and took a tract at the end.

3) The I was moved to connect with Marina a Filipino lady of catholic background. She was not interested but still remain interreacting with me in a polite manner. At the end, again it was the work of the Sprit to change her attitude to become a willing listener.

4) Then I caught up with a tom boy look woman possibly of 30 years old. She is from Beijing but has already migrated to Australia. In contrast to the image of a historic Beijing resident, she got tattoo to show her openness to the western pop culture Yet after listening half way my Gospel sharing, she still chose to decline conversation on religious matter. And her bus arrival naturally ended this divine appointment.

5) Then two Japanese got off from the bus yet did not leave seemingly waiting for a transit bus. So I started building rapport by Japanese greeting. The sharing was brief only the nutshell of the Gospel as their transiting bus came very quick.

6) God remunerated me by leading me to meet a Hong Kong young lady by the name Kong. She recognized me up right and I reminded me of our conversation two week ago went very well leaving her a very solid new life view that she would like to ponder. . . Anyway, her bus also came very quick and I convey to her my wish that next time if we meet again, there will be good news about her decision making the last step of faith to receive Christ.

7) Then I was led to connect with a lady from Hubei Wuhan. She has just arrived in Brisbane 3 days ago for UQ study on Applied Linguistic. While I could connect with her about my Wuhan experience, full gospel was also shared to her with good receptiveness.

8 ) Finally I approached a Taiwanese young guy whose heart was so cold rejecting the gospel flatly. It was a sign for me to call for the day to go home earlier to fix the storm damage to the roof of my house.

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Toowong (QLD) Team

Battle Log of Operation 513 for Toowong on Tuesday Feb 14th 2023 from 1330 – 1500

It was yet another evidence of God's providence and protection when we serve Him in Street outreach. Storm warning was forecasted in the afternoon, but we normally do not pay much attention to it as the forecast normally is not specific enough and we always could avoid the adverse weather which usually happens after we finished. Today the big storm did come a bit earlier. Winnie and I teamed up to serve at Toowong bus stop. The dark thunderstorm cloud was advancing suddenly in quicker speed, but we both sensed the looming danger of the storm and left the Toowong Bus stop just in time back to the Toowong shopping Village. I left immediately driving home and the storm did come down battering everything and with Hail. Visibility was down to near zero because of heavy rain that kept pounding on the car not just vertically but from all direction because of the strong wind. Branches of trees fell off everywhere. But God's sure protection was with me guiding me to get off from the freeway to the suburban roads with less traffic and drove home safe at slow speed with hails pounding on the car yet I arrived home with car and person unscathed. Winnie also went home safe though taking a much longer time. Our shortened street outreach was also fruitful as recap below: -

1) I first approached Austin a young man with T shirt full of Japan's element. He was opened to the gospel and clicked with me through same favouritism for Japan Culture. It was a pity the bus came too quick to cut short our conversation.

2) Then I was moved to pick up Ahmet from Dubai as I could share with him my experience transiting Dubai to Turkey. He was amazingly opened to the gospel and could identify with the reflection brought by the Turkey earthquake that, human beings are too limited and vulnerable to face unpredictable natural disaster. We should not le t slip the Chance for recognizing the real important life issue on addressing sin and judgment after death. He showed full endorsement to the gospel I shared and happily took a selfie with me. I prayed that I could meet him again later to follow up on his decision on making the last step of faith.

3) Then I was led to approach two girls, one from Hong Kong and another from Singapore. Both were also very open despite they don’t not have religious adherence.

4) Then I joined the conversation that Winnie had with three young men from China two are from Jiangso, Nanjin and Sozhou. Winnie kept sharing in English with the third guy while I chatted with the other two in Mandarin. They were exceptionally opened and appeared receptive to the Gospel especially can identify with the desperate status if the victim in the Turkey earthquake and acknowledged it should be a soul searching moment for people facing the challenges of life and death.

5) Then I connected with an arrogant ABC from USA who initially just wanted to brush me off. But I was moved to share the nutshell of the Gospel and he failed to find words or logic to reject the sensible message of salvation. He found refuge when the bus came to bring him away.

6) I was moved to catch up with a girl from Norway. She was indifferent to the issue of faith thought remained friendly to allow me to keep sharing the whole Gospel message.

7) Finally, I connected with Jack a fair dinkum Aussie with generation dated back to the first fleet as the descendant of the convict. Again, he was very opened to the gospel and had sensible interaction showing good reception of the Christian faith. I pray also to be able to meet him again in future.

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Christchurch (NZ) Team

Just a short report to cover last week, as I took the weekend off to be involved with my church camp - which was awesome!  Roger joined me on Tuesday in Riccarton, and John was with me in the city on Friday.

Tuesday’s outreach felt special, as I had a couple of memorable gospel chats with people, as well as follow-up opportunities with some high school students.

But firstly, I want to mention that I had 4 university aged kids go past, they saw my flip chart, and joked with me as they went past.

Then I fell into a chat with a young lady who seemed to have an understanding of the gospel, but not precisely.  It turns out she had an ‘Orthodox’ and ‘Latin’ background.  So I focused on being precise in how salvation doesn't involve works (something the Orthodox sadly teaches).

As she moved on, I noticed some people sitting in the seats behind me.  It was the 4 university students!  They came back and wanted to talk.  I think they were curious as to why I was on the street corner.  We fell into a gospel conversation (1 was a Christian, 2 were atheists, and 1 didn’t want to think about it).  And after sharing the gospel with them, it turned into a bit of a Father speaking to his children kind of discussion.  I remembered when I was their age, at a crossroads - I took the wrong path.  And I wanted to save them some pain.  I pleaded with them to trust in Christ today, and not follow the path I took.

On Friday I was handing out tracts when a young lady went past and took one.  She said she thinks about the afterlife all the time.  She believed in God and heaven & hell - so I asked her what she had to do to get to heaven.  She immediately pointed to her works: bible, prayer, church.  I gently tried again, and so she went to the greatest commandments (the law) as the reason she’ll get to heaven.  I prompted again, and she finally swung to the right answer: Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.  It was very concerning.  What concerned me more is that she was on her way to the library to prepare a talk for a church group she is involved with.  Without asking her to respond to me, I pleaded with her to examine herself and check if she was really still trusting in her works for salvation, or in Jesus' sacrifice alone.  Strangely, she started talking about how many think they are Christians and are not.  I don’t know if she realised that this was my concern for her!  She left with a tract “Who Made It”, and I asked her to review it carefully, and get in touch if she had any questions.

I’m moving into a busy period of special outreaches.  And I’d appreciate you keeping the team in prayer:
Sat, 18th Feb - Training + Training Outreach: https://tellmeconference.org.nz/training/
Sat, 25th Feb - Kaikoura A&P Show (in conjunction with Christians coming down from Blenhiem).
Tue, 28th Feb till Fri, 10th Mar - Philippines Trip
Sat, 25th Mar - Malvern A&P Show
Sat, 1st Apr - Oxford A&P Show
Sat, 8th Apr - Easter Outreach
Mon, 10th Apr - Easter Outreach

Thanks and God bless! :)
 

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Battle Log of Operation 513 at Sunnybank on Wednesday 8/2/2023 from 1300-1500

Today, Amy could not join me to do street outreach at Sunnybank because her son Joshua does not have time slot for kindy. But instead, she invited one of her Hong Kong non-Christian couples to have lunch. I took use of this chance of course also to share about my witness of salvation so as to preach to them the gospel in an indirect way.

Thanks God that Gary could join me for a while so we served as a team and he took a couples of good photos for me. Today God let me meet several Christian of different back ground and status that not all of them have clear understanding of salvation that needed much clarification. Recap below is my Battle Log.

1) "Samuel" is from the Kenya. He let me share him with the whole gospel before disclosing he is readily a Christian. I of course proceeded to test for his assurance of salvation and he is al good having clear and correct understanding of salvation by faith through grace of Jesus as such we should have 100% assurance of salvation. He is happy to take a selfie with me.

2) Then I was rejected consecutively by Two women despite I suggested to have merely a friendly chat with them.

3) Then I approached three Chinese young persons, two man and lady each from and one from Shang Dong. The girl was most bossing trying to dismiss me with many excuses from the beginning, but the two boys were indifferent. I anyway still managed to share the nutshell of the gospel to them. Then the girl simply pulled off leaving the Bus Station for the shopping mall.

4) A radical Christian from local having good faith in Christ but also has a lot of narrow-minded view leading his faith to trail on the wrong track. For instance, he thought the OT Bible was made up by the Romans and the Jews to prove Jesus was not the Messiah. So obviously he does not have good bible study effort spent. So, He is Jews hater anyway thinking that it was right for Hairy to regard Jewish as evil people but wrong to trigger genocide. I tried my best to clarify all his misimpression and misinformation about church and about the Bible, but it seemed his mind is strictly set that it may take unknown amount of time to change. And the arrival of his bus just ended or medium long conversation.

5) Maru, a Filipino Christian but has no assurance of salvation. I clarified it with her and she was thankful to me to have changed her incomplete mind set about salvation

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Toowong (QLD) Team

Battle Log of Operation 513 for Toowong on Tuesday Feb 7th 2023 from 1330 – 1500

Today the Toowong outreach team of two returned to normal though still waiting for Johnny to come back in March. There were practically more Chinese student and some of them were more approachable than usual. Also we met a couple of people who met the OPN 513 guys in the city. So, the collective work of OPN 513 team is really serving as a net to catch all the lost soul and made them a fish for God in Christ.

Recap below is the Battle Log of Hung: -

1) An exchange student from Nanning was moving house and her go card was out of money as such she was blogged down at the bus stop waiting for Go card be charged up as well as friend to come. I made use of this gap to have a good chat with her though with intermittent interruption by Phone and finally by the arrival of her friend. I still managed to share the full gospel to her and partially to her friend who came for her rescue.

2) Then came across a Chinese male student who appeared open for gospel sharing. He anyhow shared that he heard the gospel already in the city and before I want to follow up how clear did he know about it, the bus came.

3) A beard man appeared also friendly for a chat but his accent is too heavy I could get what he said. I just managed to share him the nutshell of the gospel before he had to rush away for the bus.

4) Then I caught up with a girl from Sichuan so I could identify with her about the 2008 earthquake. She used to live in the Chengdu city where the damage by the earthquake was minimal. . With this rapport built, she appeared as a good listener and show good receptiveness to the gospel message.

5) Another guy by the name of Wong also claimed he heard the gospel at the city and was even being brought to attend a church. . I thanked God and asked to take a picture for Ryan's name to check if you guy recognize him.

6) Sam yet another good listener who is an Australian Born British whose parents were from Bristol UK. He was reading a book but willingly allowed me to interrupt him and shared him the full gospel message.

7) Finally, the first non-Chinese target form Malaysian of Muslim background. She has all the biased ideas a about Jesus but at least I told her who Jesus really is and it was Him not Mohamad to die for our sin. Yet her mind was deeply poisoned to insist that Jesus was born by Mary as an ordinary human being. This biased thought never appeared in any gospel conversation I had in Turkey. So the religious theology about Muslim and the wrong teaching on Jesus are more serious in Malaysia and Indonesia.

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Christchurch (NZ) Team

What a surprise!  I invite a lot of people to church, but not many of them accept the offer.  Well, today at church I had a double surprise!

On Friday, Roger fell into a conversation with a young man at the end of the outreach, a Christian struggling with assurance.  To me, he seemed to be overthinking it, and so I tried to reiterate the gospel, with an emphasis on its simplicity.  He’s on holiday, and was looking for a reformed church in Christchurch to attend.  I invited him along to the church I attend.  It was wonderful to have him turn up and be able sit with me through the meeting.  Our church is working through Romans and today we were up to Romans 6:1-2 learning about the transition between justification and sanctification.  It’s just what this young man needed to hear!  After the meeting ended, he said he felt a bit overwhelmed with all the information, but that didn’t surprise me with what I know of his personality.  He is keen to go and listen to last week's sermon (a recap of Romans 1 - 5) now.  Please pray that he would be able to digest the rich truths taught and that he would come to an assurance of his salvation.

But, also, on Saturday, I was in my usual spot in Riccarton, when a couple of ladies from Zimbabwe came past and we fell into a good gospel chat.  One of the ladies seemed to have a good grasp of the gospel, the other said some questionable things but didn’t resist correction.  They are new to Christchurch and looking for a church.  They have a pentecostal background, but that’s not a problem. I invited them along to my church, as they live close by.  Well, low and behold, this morning as I was walking towards the hall where our church meets, these 2 ladies were coming up the path and I was able to be the first to greet them and welcome them!

And so, the guy from Friday sat on one side of me, and the two ladies sat on the other side through the meeting.

And wow, how wonderful was that church meeting!  The singing, the Bible reading, communion, fellowship, but the teaching was phenomenal.  I felt like we were all pieces of meat marinating in a rich and spicy curry (the depths of the word of God).  After the teaching, I felt like if anyone took a bite of me, their head would explode with the heat!  I unashamedly wept as we sung the final song of praise and glory to God.

And I took that teaching to the streets today, directly applying what I had been marinating in this morning into the conversations I was having this afternoon.  Applied theology at its best! :)  God is so good!

I was also on the streets on Tuesday, with Roger.  I love the picture’s I have for this report, smiles all round!  The one with Andy was from Friday’s outreach.  The guy Andy was talking to got a double dose.  Andy talked to him near the start of the outreach, but near the end of the outreach, I approached him at the other end of the mall.

I’ve forgotten to mention how hot it’s been.  On Friday and Saturday it hit around 33 degree Celsius.  We had a reprieve on Sunday, with rain coming during the outreach.

The online outreach is going as well as ever.  Some of the video’s on social media must have gone viral, because the amount of direct messages coming through on Instagram has spiked, keeping us busy sharing and clarifying the gospel.  Also, I had a great online chat yesterday, with a young man who lives near me, you can check that out here.

Many other conversations, and tracts were distributed this week too.  Keep up the good work in sharing the gospel in your contexts.  All glory to God alone.
 

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