Battle Log

Christchurch (NZ) Team

Friday, 11 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 12 June 2021, 7:47 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

My brain is overloaded with interesting things to write about the last two days of outreach, I hope I’ll be able to get to them all and describe them well.  Eight hours of outreach per day, made up of online work, as well as a first venture to the local university campus on Thursday and our usual city outreach on Friday.

Firstly, an amazing conversation occurred online.  Once the rest of the team had joined me, I was first up for the live stream.  I got into a conversation with a construction worker from Utah, USA.  I was able to explain how we know God exists, and I had taken him through the law.  I was just about to move into the good news when he disconnected!  I was really disappointed to have him leave with just the bad news.  Yet God is sovereign.  While on live stream, I prayed that he would have an opportunity to hear the gospel, and then went to start my next conversation.

At that moment, I glanced at the rest of the team, and I noticed that Ryan had a re-connect.  This doesn’t happen very often, so I looked deeper.  It was a reconnect with someone I had talked with before, and then I was stunned.  It said I had talked to this person 38 seconds ago.  The guy I had been talking to had disconnected from me, and had immediately connected with Ryan.  I told Ryan to unmute, which he did, and the live stream was able to listen to Ryan continue the conversation with him!  God answered my prayer!  GOD IS SOVEREIGN!  Sadly, the guy didn’t stay with Ryan for long, but he was able to start hearing the gospel, and it was super encouraging for me.  If you would like to watch this unique encounter, you can watch it here.  But be warned the guy I was talking to uses some bad language.

After I had finished my stint of live streaming, I headed to Canterbury University to join Andy and a student, Ezra, for a few hours of outreach there.  As this is the first time I’ve done outreach there, and wanting to be respectful of etiquette, I put my tracts in my back pocket.  I approached people respectfully, was very open about who I was and what I was doing, and gave them lots of opportunity to get out of the conversation if they wanted to (many of whom took that opportunity).  But in spite of this, I had a wonderful time discussing the gospel with people.

The first guy was a fourth year civil engineering student - I didn’t get past the discussion of how we know God exists.  He fought against it.  He finished his lunch and said he had to get back to his studies.

I then approached two guys who came from Ethiopia.  One was a Christian and was keen for me to share the gospel with his friend, which I did.  It was a great chat.

After a few false starts, I then fell into the highlight conversation of the outreach.  Three students walked past and one of them said something interesting, so I commented, this caused them to come over to me and we naturally fell into a gospel conversation.  It started with me asking if they ever think about what happens after they die.  To my amazement, one of them said, “yes, all the time, we were just talking about it”.  So I asked what they thought.  “Well, there are three options: 1) nothing, 2) reincarnation, 3) heaven or hell”.  It turned into a very long chat.  Two of their friends joined in early on too.  It was me against five.  They asked good, challenging questions.  I even touched on some presuppositional apologetics, giving one of the best summaries of it I’ve ever heard come from my mouth (where did that come from!?).  The gospel was clearly explained, and checking questions were employed.  The two that joined left (the girl was deeply resistant to the gospel), so I was back down to the original three.  They lingered, and I was able to continue exhorting them to respond to the gospel.  I was exhausted after that chat - very draining, but so wonderful.  Thank you Lord for the opportunity to represent you to them.

I woke up on Friday feeling very tired from the previous day's outreach.  But God used that.  I was online in the morning (with Andy).  I connected with an older guy called Jimmy from Ireland.  He was deeply resistant: “There is nothing after you die”.  I was too tired to engage in my usual way, and I got the impression this guy was lonely.  I let him talk and just listened.  From time to time he would slow down and leave a gap for me to interact, and, as appropriate I would gently respond to what he was saying, and do my best to beeline for the gospel (he heard it multiple times), before he would re-engage and talk while I listened.  As the conversation progressed, I watched something interesting happen: he started to soften.  We ended up talking for thirty five minutes, and he seemed really grateful for it.  He mentioned that he used Facebook a few times, so I asked if he would check out needGod.net on Facebook.  He said he would.  This conversation was a real reminder to treat people like people when sharing the gospel.  We are not there to just convince people intellectually (although we do want to reason with them).  And as great as methods and scripts are, and as much as we want to avoid rabbit trails and stick to sharing the gospel - there is a time to just go with the flow.  God is in control.

The outreach in the city went really well.  I ended up sharing the gospel with a guy who turned out to be a kid I taught in Sunday school years ago!  I only recognised him (just) when he told me his name, which was unique.

I’m out of time to write any more, so I’ll leave it at that.  Thank you so much for your support of this ministry.  All glory to God alone.
 


Online Evangelism

Wednesday, 9 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 9 June 2021, 5:28 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

With our online outreach, we are able to easily keep track of many details of the conversations we have with people.

For a start, we know where in the world they are from (with some exceptions).  But after every conversation we can record extra information.

Firstly, we can record the progress of the chat: no progress, during God’s existence, during law, during false ways (working through the ways that won’t get us to heaven), during gospel, during checking questions, complete - not professing faith, complete - professing faith, already a believer.

Then we can capture their name, and leave a comment about the conversation.

This is very helpful in a few ways:

So, for yesterday and today, I spent all my outreach time online with the team.

For yesterday I can see that I had a total of fourteen conversations, it was a harder day, where I didn’t get to share the gospel as often - only six of those conversation was I able to completely share the gospel, and only once was I able to have a complete conversation (including the checking questions)! :O

But, that conversation was marvelous.  It was with a devout Muslim guy.  Initially he was quite resistant as I worked through the logic of the gospel presentation and various analogies.  But by the end of the conversation he had really opened up, dropping all defences and just wanting to understand my worldview, asking many questions.  At one point he said the battery in his phone was about to run out, but he took the effort to go get the charger so he could continue the chat.  He didn’t want to leave, and in the end, I felt like I’d exhausted all the lines of reasoning and needed to get to dinner with my family anyway.  He made it clear multiple times he wouldn’t be changing away from Islam to Christianity.  But the gospel is the power of God for salvation!  He has my contact details if he does decide to continue the conversation.  Pray for Yousef.

Today I had a total of eight conversations.  But Ryan must have been praying for me, because I was able to deliver the gospel in a greater percentage of those conversations compared to yesterday.  I had three complete conversations, one ended during the checking questions stage (he got the first one right), and three during the gospel sharing stage.  The other one I marked as no progress - the language barrier was too great (we used Google Translate for a while) - but they did receive a link to needGod.net.

The stand out conversation of the day was with a couple of late teen girls from Ecuador.  One of them did the talking while the other mainly listened.  She had a Catholic background, but believed deeply in reincarnation and karma.  I had to really labour against the concept of works for “salvation” with her.  Finally I had a breakthrough, and I think the gospel really started to sink in.  To end the conversation I asked if there were any questions.  To my surprise, the other girl chimed in and took over the conversation from their side.  She had a couple of very important questions.  (So, bad people could get to heaven? And, what about those that don’t hear about Jesus?)  The answers to these questions (esp. the first one) seemed to clear up her misunderstanding of the gospel.

Not only are we having many one to one conversations with people online, but we are streaming on YouTube and Facebook, with many regular followers who gather in the chat and also in Discord.  One to one training in evangelism is occurring.  Short videos are being posted on TikTok and other social media platforms that gather many views.  And finally team members are often dedicated just to responding to private messages on Instagram and TikTok.  It’s all very encouraging.  And all these people are being pointed to the Bible and local churches.  All glory to God.  Please pray for the ministry and all the hard working evangelists trying to serve the Lord and others in this way - so vital, thank you so much.
 


Toowong (QLD) Team

Tuesday, 8 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 8 June 2021, 7:54 PM by Hung Kwan. Permalink

Operation 513 Battle Log for Toowong on Tuesday June 8th, 2021 from 1330 - 1500

Today was a gloomy day but the three of us Johnny, Winnie and Hung by grace have a fruitful day. Johnny specially got a couple of long chat ending with a near conversion humble heart. Winnie as usual worked relentlessly catching 13 divine appointment opportunities as recap below despite she was once being swore at by a local Aussie. It was the grace of God and on the street experience that help Winnie to shake off this unfriendly insult to keep focusing on her work. As for me, God led many Christians from non-Christian country like Columbia, Syria. All of them do not have assurance of salvation that need clarification. We gave glory to God for using us to do this fruitful outreach.

1) Derick Pakistanis that I met for the 2nd time. He claimed him an atheist and non - religious who has no knowledge of afterlife. Before I had time to correct his mind, the bus came so will leave it to next time.

2) Irene a Kiwi from NZ and think it is possible for her to go to heaven but by good deeds. I could manage to give her the answer that no body unless we are perfect can go to heaven. Again the bus came so it has to wait till next time.

3) An Aussie guy just took the tract and managed to touch base on the nutshell of the gospel.

4) A Thailand young man also thought being a good person would earn him the ticket to Heaven but the Buddhist background. Again I said nobody can go until our sin is properly dealt with by accepting Jesus as our saviour. Could not have more time to dwell on the issue as the bus came.

5) Daphanie a protestant Christian from Columbia that used to be a Catholic country. Her family is catholic but she claimed herself a protestant. But she still carries the background of Catholic failing to have full assurance of salvation. Thanks God that I have enough time to clarify it before letting her go.

6) Philipus from Greek originally had no interest, but the Spirit softened his heart and we could carry on with gospel chat which however did not last long but still it was a good effort to turn his cold heart around to listen to the gospel.

7) A girl from Jei Jiang Hangzhou浙江杭州 who work at a Chinese Restaurant of Xian Cuisine.餐廳西安,Initially she reject to chat but because I can associate with his work and life background so the Spirit again softened her heart to take a tract at the end.不要聊天後,拿單張

😎 Indian father whom I met a year ago with here daughter who now has graduated and started looking for job. So we kept a friendly chat to build a relationship for next chat.

9) An Aussie big girl getting off from the bus who had no time to chat but still got my tract with a few words of the core contents of the Gospel.

10) Donpia a Syria Christian who has no assurance. He was humble and glad for my clarification.

Recap below is the Battle Log of Winnie:

感謝主的带领,讓我遇到十三人傳福音的機會。聖靈引導,五人願意信靠祂。

第一位 Christine, 澳洲女士,基督徒,不明白救恩,我解释给她。

第二位,Jean 澳洲婦女,願意信靠主,找教會,接受免费禮物。

第三位,印尼來的少女,Emmy. 聽完福音,巴士到來。

第四位,澳洲少女,Alice願意信靠主,到教會 尋求更多真理。

第五位,Bella, 來自馬來西亞,穆斯林。我講及基督信仰,三一神。

第六位 印度少女,Melisa, 講完福音,巴士到達。

第七位 Allison, 澳洲少女,願意信靠主,找教會。

第八位,Angela, 相片中。來自南非。基督徒,經過我解释救恩,她願意接受我给她的單張 傳福音给其他人。

第九位,中國少女,不願意聽福音,我只講簡短重要的福音给她。

第十位,Erin, 澳洲少女,天主教徒,我講及天主教與基督教的分别。

第十一位,Bill, 中國來的 UQ 學生,初時不願意聽,但聖靈臨到,我用不流利的普通话傳福音给他,他聽後,願意信靠主,找教會。

第十二位是澳洲女士,Linda, 非常留心我講的福音及見証,願意信靠主。

第十三位,Mel, 中國男士 來自新加坡,基督徒。我測示他得救的確據,他講了很多確據,最後都能講出重點來。

願主帶领 今天願意信靠主的人士,找到適合教會,永遠跟隨主。而其他的人士,想清楚,盡快悔改歸向 神。感謝讚美主!

 


Christchurch (NZ) Team

Sunday, 6 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 6 June 2021, 4:32 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

There was some rain about today, but it was clear enough to head on the streets after lunch.  A team of three.  A bit of a slow start, but it became quite a busy outreach.

I had some great opportunities to talk to groups of kids in one go - 3 groups in fact.

Interestingly, one of those groups was made of some young Muslim guys.  I wasn’t able to hold all their attention, and so they started peeling off and leaving.  I ended up with two of them, only one seemed interested - and then they had to go.  They were trusting in their good deeds for salvation.

Well, the next group was made of some young Christian guys.  Sadly, they were trusting in their good deeds for salvation (“don’t sin”).  They stayed to hear the gospel - which is great.

The third group was a mix of non-religious guys and girls.  The conversation started with only two stopping, then it was only one, but then the other guy came back, and all the girls joined in as well.  It was a wonderful gospel conversation.  Praise God.

I had some other encouragement today as well.  In my last report I mentioned a guy who heard the open air preaching on Friday, and then I was able to follow up with a one to one gospel conversation.  Well, he turned up at church today!  It was wonderful to be able to welcome him into the meeting, and sit with him.  He joined the discussion afterwards too and was invited to a weekly Bible study.  Praise God!  May he continue to respond to discipleship and bring much glory to God.

Later I was online with the team.  Here is a remembered transcript from one of those conversations:

Me: What do you think happens after you die?
Them: You really want to know what I think?
Me: Of course.
Them: (laughing) Good people become goldfish, and bad people become dogs. [!?]
Me: Ok, where do goldfish come from?
Them: Pet Shops
Me: Where do pet shops come from?
Them: Well, God made the pet shops...
Me: So you believe in God then?
Them: No!
Me: Well, you said God made pet shops.
Them: Are you trying to convert me to Christianity?
Me: Yes.
Them: Well, I’m gay.
Me: Well, there is hope for you.
Disconnect.

So it was an odd conversation, I admit.  But my heart goes out to this person.  I hope they will get to hear the gospel.  Maybe from you?  Are you ready to share the gospel?  Get equipped!  Talk to your Pastors to learn more, or get in touch.

Other online conversations of the weekend included:

A conversation with some young guys obviously up to no good.  As soon as the one holding the phone heard my question he was instantly engaged.  But another of the kids was saying, “skip him” and trying to snatch the phone so he could do so.  But the kid with the phone wouldn’t let it go, and I was able to share most of the gospel with them.  I made it up to the way we accept the gift: trust when the skip finally occurred.  But I was able to inform them of needGod.net before it occurred.

A wonderful chat with a kid from the Philippines.  He said he was going to skip me as soon as he saw me, but my question made him pause.  He is now professing faith in Christ.  I was able to help him download a Bible app on his phone and get him set for reading John.  He is in touch via Instagram.

A chat with a kid who obviously had a Christian background (Walk by Faith sign on his wall).  But who thought going to church many times would get you to heaven.  He came to grasp the gospel.  I pointed him to his parents to discuss further.

Thank you Lord for giving us another weekend of your patience to proclaim your mercy.  Glory to you alone.


Christchurch (NZ) Team

Saturday, 5 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 5 June 2021, 7:05 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

Today saw another calm gospel + abortion outreach outside Christchurch hospital.  Not many conversations, but tracts were received.  We had a guy walk down the line and shake all our hands.  I was at the end of the line, and I asked him what he thought happened after life.  It turns out he is Mormon, so I challenged him with the gospel.  I knew I wouldn’t have much time, because his wife had kept walking - so I was direct to try to shock him into thought.  He didn’t like it - but I love him too much not to confront him.  We parted on friendly terms, and he left with both a “Life is Precious” tract and a “Who Made It?” tract.

Moving into the city, I hung around Speakers Corner while eating lunch.  A real little community is there now.  One side has Christians wanting to engage people with the gospel, and the other side has hecklers.  In the recent past I’ve felt like it was a bit of a circus, and didn’t want anything to do with it.  But today I was struck with the civility shown.  Both sides extend much respect to the other, in spite of strong disagreement.  Long may this continue.

Steve was preaching for evolution and against creation, when a guy I’ve never seen walked into the middle of speakers corner and started getting really angry with Steve.  “These people are good, stop speaking against them!”  Sadly he was out of control, and both sides told him to calm down.

Steve finished speaking, and so I decided I would preach - it’s been a while.  I really enjoyed it.  Proclaiming the law and the glorious gospel as loudly as I could.  Embarrassingly, my voice squeaked quite a few times.  Oh well.  The hecklers interjected quite a bit, I did my best to answer when the questions were good.  When they were silly, I ignored them and just kept preaching.

There was a guy there who listened intently, he had been interacting with some of the Christians before I turned up.  Well, I went to the Bridge of Remembrance to meet Roger and do some one to one outreach there.  Low and behold, this guy turns up not too much longer, and starts begging on the corner - while doing this he was reading a copy of the gospel of John.

I went over and sat next to him, it turns out someone had led him in a sinners prayer!  He was excited and keen, and looking forward to going to church on Sunday.  I had a wonderful opportunity to make sure he understood the gospel.  We chatted for about fifteen minutes where I slowly worked him through the law and the gospel, and then started walking him through checking questions (it was at this point that I realised how intently he had been listening to my preaching - he had remembered many of the analogies I had used).

My final checking question came from a different angle, and it caught him off guard.  He thought for a second and then subtly fell back into salvation by works: “Well, I try, I’ve started the steps (he meant that he has “prayed the prayer”), and I am more humble now”.  It was a great teaching opportunity to show him how all those things are pointing to himself and what he has done to be “saved”, rather than looking to Jesus as the only reason he is saved.  I think it really started to sink in at that point.

After our chat, I went on to have many opportunities to share the gospel with people throughout the outreach.  Lots of high school kids were out and about - I think there must have been a teacher only day.  I had an opportunity to share the gospel with a group of eight of them at one point.  Glory to God.

As Roger and I wrapped up the outreach, the guy I had talked to at the start was still there (he had been reading the gospel of John the whole time).  So I went over to check that he still knew why anyone would get to heaven.  He got the answer right the first time!  Praise God.  I’m confident he knows the gospel, I leave him in God’s hands.  He has my contact details, and I know which church he intends to attend on Sunday.  Lord, change his heart - for your glory, Lord, show him your mercy and grace.

Thursday is a big day of online outreach for the team.  I had twenty five chats for the day.

I had a fascinating chat with a kid and his sister.  He seemed to know the gospel already, giving great answers to the checking questions.  But his sister wanted nothing to do with Christianity, and moaned in the background as I talked to her brother.  To end the conversation she called out that “I want to go to hell where the gays are”.  Sadly, she wouldn’t engage in dialogue.

My next chat was with a guy from Kenya.  I talked, he typed.  By the end of the conversation he was professing faith!  Glory to God alone.  His background is protestant.  I pointed him to his Bible and a good local church.

Later in the day I had a long chat with a Catholic guy who seemed to work in academia (economics).  He engaged early, and asked lots of good questions.  I kept bringing the conversation back to the law and the gospel, multiple times.  He had been raised thinking he had to be good to go to heaven, and I could see he was challenged by my precise explanations of the reality of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.  He was understanding, but he didn’t want to completely let go of his work for salvation (pride?) and he latched on to my explanation of the reality of repentance in the life of a believer - skewing it.  Once again I challenged him, but sadly his countenance hardened and he left the conversation.

My last two chats of the day were very refreshing, both with young men from the US who were open to the logic of the gospel.

With the last chat, the video froze right at the end of the conversation, so we finished by switching to text chat.  I asked him if the conversation had helped.  “Yes actually thank you, I really appreciate this, I never caught your name sir”.  We exchanged names, and I gave him a way of getting in touch if he desired.  I’m confident he came to understand the gospel.

Lord, we leave all these people in your hands.  Save your elect, in your timing, and knit them into your church.  Be glorified.


 


Christchurch (NZ) Team

Wednesday, 2 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 2 June 2021, 7:05 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

On Tuesday, late afternoon / early evening, I was in Riccarton with Roger for a couple of hours of street outreach.  We were both flat out in conversations for the first hour and a half - praise God.

My first chat was with a guy who was interested in my question: “What happens after you die?”, but said he hadn’t come to a conclusion yet.  He said he had looked into Bahai and Christianity.  I asked him what he thought a Christian had to do to get to heaven.  Answer: “be as good as you can be”.  Going from there, I explained the gospel.  He seemed intrigued.  He opened up a bit, and seemed to appreciate the chat.  He left with a tract.

During the outreach, I interacted with three “regulars”.  One of them couldn’t believe one of the others was still living on the street, in spite of all the recent rain.  We had a long chat, where I played that thinking back on him in not understanding why he was willingly rejecting the gospel.  He made it clear he would rather go to hell, than turn from his sin (he understood that salvation was a gift, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay in his sin, which he loves).

An old workmate passed by!  We had a good catch up.  I was able to swing the conversation to the “Ontological argument” - as he put it.  Which we discussed for a few minutes, but by this point he had to go.  He accepted a tract.

To finish off, I had an epic chat with a young man who said, “I think about it all the time” - when I asked him what he thinks happens after he dies.  I could tell he couldn’t stay long, so I quickly took him though the law and the gospel.  He seemed impressed, and wanted to stay to chat, but couldn’t.  He left with a tract, and one for the person who was waiting for him.

Roger was having a wonderful time too, at one stage he had a long chat with a large group of kids - pictured.

Wonderful opportunities.  Glory to God alone.

I was online, with the team,  for four hours each day: Tuesday and Wednesday for a total of twenty four conversations.

Two highlight chats from Tuesday.  The first was an apologetics battle, which was enjoyable for me - within that discussion, the gospel was heard, although the guy seemed closed to it.

The second was a long chat (43 mins) with a guy from South Dakota (first time I’ve reached someone in that state).  The guy was talking about levels of heaven, and my initial thought was that he was Mormon.  When I asked he responded by saying he was Lutheran.  But he didn’t know the gospel, and clearly stated that his good deeds would get him to heaven.  I laboured on the law & the gospel and showing him that his only hope was Jesus, and not his own righteousness.  I’m confident that he came to understand this.  But there was zero spark to the wonder of God’s grace.  Finally he asked me about Freemasonry.  It turns out his Dad is high up in that hierarchy.  Please pray for Jordan.

From Wednesday, the highlight was a thirty minute conversation with a young man from India.  The idea of someone else taking his hell punishment for him was so foreign to his understanding of good deeds for salvation, it took a lot of labouring, and patient explaining before understanding of the gospel finally started to take hold.  Yet once it did, it seemed to have a deep impact: (in an Indian accent) “Sir, you have totally changed my mind”.  And yet, it was clear from the checking questions that he was still struggling to grasp this new concept of grace, trying to mix it with works.  I continued to labour until his video froze up.  We were still able to communicate via text, and, apart from the Bible and a local church, I pointed him to an easy way to get in touch and continue the conversation if he wanted to.  Praise God.

The final conversation of the day was relatively short (11 mins) the kid grew a smile as understanding of the gospel sunk in, at the end of the conversation he said, “thanks, I really needed this”.


 


Sunnybank (QLD) Team

Wednesday, 2 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 2 June 2021, 6:33 PM by Hung Kwan. Permalink

Battle Log of Operation 513 for Sunnybank on Wednesday June 2nd, 2021 from 1300 to 1500.

By the grace of God, Johnny, Gary and Hung turned up for this regular Street Evangelism ministry at Sunnybank. Gary moved around between the two sides of Sunnybank while Johnny and Hung stayed mainly on the West side of the Sunnybank Plaza front. Again, it was a fruitful day with almost non-stop gospel conversations to people of all nations. God used us to reach out to people of both same culture Chinese from Taiwan, Mainland China and Hong Kong and cross-cultural people group from Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Philippine, Ireland, UEA etc. I was most impressed to see Gary stopped a group of 5 Chinese ladies possibly from mainland China to listen to his gospel sharing. I bet they would not stop for me a Chinese looking man but would react to feeling obliged to stop to listen to a Western person with an earnest expression. God is really the one who is in control of all the divine appointments assignment entrusted to us as His servant and messenger to convey good news to people of all nations.

Recap below were the 8 conversations given to me by God: -

1) Johnny first chatted with Madam Changå¼µ from Fuzhou 福州China. She is attending Logos Christian Church 恩道but with incomplete understanding of faith. Since she claimed she chatted with me before so Johnny just let me take over the chat. It was lucky that her bus took long time to come so I can kept sharing till the bus came. Pray that she will humble herself to really join the church’s Bible study to get all her query about the Christian faith clear.

2) Then I approached an English-speaking Indonesia lady and shared the gospel just before the bus arrived.

3) Eason a Vietnamese middle age man who claimed to be a Christian after I shared him the gospel for a while. But his response to my question at the beginning did not show he has assurance of salvation but it was a pity I had no time to correct him because the bus just arrived then.

4) I approached another Muslim Girl who was very responsive to my questions but again it was a pity the bus came two quick.

5) A Filipino Christian but has no knowledge of salvation, she claimed to be very busy and I volunteered to walk across the bridge with her but she seemed to be very scare of exposing her ignorance about Christianity despite claiming herself a long time Christian.

6) Vienna an Australian Born Filipino (ABF) still doing High school whom I met few weeks ago on April 28. Actually Vienna remembered exactly it was four weeks ago that we met. She said she had read the tract at home but still not ready to ponder for a commitment to accept Jesus. I went over the gospel again helping her to realize she is not perfect and does need Jesus to take her place to receive the punishment of her sins. She appeared really receptive and promised to have a good thought about it.

7) Margo an Irish did not mind to be disturbed by me while he was playing with his iPone. Overall speaking he was receptive to the message and willing to ponder to accept Christ.

(8 ) Elaine a joyous Christian from China but has no assurance of salvation thinking she only has 60% chance to Heaven. It was a pity I had no chance to help clarifying for her as the bus came. Pray for a reunion in the near future.


Toowong (QLD) Team

Tuesday, 1 June, 2021

Posted by Posted 1 June 2021, 8:58 PM by Hung Kwan. Permalink

Battle Log of Operation 513 for Toowong on Tuesday June 1st, 2021 from 1330 to 1500

Praise and thanks God calling and raising up a new street Gospel team member Hai Yue to join us the three regular team mates, Johnny, Winnie and Hung. Hai Yue is a current 5th Online Kairos student. But God has touched and moved her enough to give it a go joining us today during her rest day of her scheduled job rooster duty as an Intern doctor at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

I gave her very limited 15 minutes briefing / demonstration how to share the nutshell of the gospel before we prayed and set off with the other two team mates. In flesh, she still felt lacking of confidence even though her English is good enough to conduct casual chat. All I can advice her is to let go of all your fear and burden but trusted in God alone to guide you to make the first approach. Ask God to guide you to open your mouth for the first word then the Spirit will be with you all the way to guide you to organize your speech.

Miracle did have happened and she could quickly found the strength and spiritual courage from God to make her first approach after watching as an observer just for one person.

So I basically gave all the chance to both Hai Yue and Winnie with Johnny and Hung taking care of the rest when more people had come to the bus stop. In between of chat/ arrival & departure of bus, Johnny and I held very short debriefing with Hai Yue answering her queries how to address a certain issue if it happens again. As a result, Johnny and I got less time for our own outreach. It of course was a worthwhile exercise to help Hai Yue to get integrated into the street evangelism which aftercall is the work of God taking charge of all situations.

Hai Yue was able to catch the urge of the Spirit to make approach at the right time. One example was with my first conversation with a Chinese couple from Tasmania migrating to Qld for a better living climate. The wife was more receptive and a willing gospel listener but the husband seemed to be not paying attention or even unconsciously interrupting our conversation. At the very moment, Hai Yue suddenly turned up to join our conversation. My reaction in flesh was: go away, find someone else, I äm managing to share with this couples. But the Spirit immediately corrected me to see that the husband was attracted to chat with Hai Yue without further interrupting my conversation with Lily the wife who appeared very attentive and interested in what I shared. So this is that sort of things that keep enabling us to see how God makes all thing work together for he goodness sake of those who loved God and being called to serve Him.

I pray that this divine encounter experience for Hai Yue’s debut Street Evangelism ministry will help her to apply it on to the other parts of her life including the profession as an Intern doctor. She can try to let go of all her fear and worry but enjoy the promise of God to be presence with us whenever we do everything for glorifying Him.

Because of irregular rooster duty job scheduling. Hai Yue may not be able to join us every week on Tuesday at Toowong or Wednesday at Sunnybank. But I am quite confidence that this first divine experience will attract her to come again whenever she gets a rest day on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Recap below are the Battle Log of both Hung and Winnie: -

(1) A Chinese Couples from Shangdong, Yin Tai山東煙台are new interstate migrant from Tasmania. I approached both of them for a chat. The wife Lily was more receptive and willing to engage in two-way communication. The husband was however not paying real attention but kept doing something else such as making phone call trying to interrupt the conversation. Yet God suddenly took action to move Hai Yue to join our conversation. As mentioned, my initial reaction in flesh was trying to tell Hai Yue to leave us alone, but the strong sense of the Holy Spirit told me otherwise to let Hai Yue keep talking to the husband so I could concentrate sharing the full gospel to the wife Lily. Thing did develop along this line and Lily appeared very touched and willing to seek God by going to church. They live actually In St Lucia so CCCB is the natural choice I recommended to her and hopefully her husband will follow suit. Praise for the almighty work of God allowing us to team up with Him to do His Will.

(2) Vistella is a girl whose name is of Canadian origin and means "Life of star". She was very welcoming for my approach and gladly accepted the tract. When I knew I only have 1 minute to share, I quickly utter to her the very brief nutshell of the gospel emphasizing that we are all imperfect though good person that have sinned against God and each other’s. We all need a saviour who himself is prefect person as such He can take our place to receive the punishment of sin due on us. Pray that this short but divine encounter still will be pursuit by god for bearing spiritual fruit in His time.

(3) Then I bugged in to chat with a Couple from Quanzhou廣州. The wife was listening to Hai Yue but the husband was keeping a distance not paying attention. So I was playing a reverse supportive role to catch the attention of the indifferent husband or boyfriend to get a taste of the word of God’s good news.

(4) An UQ student from Sudan , Africa with an indigenous name of Allor politely told me he had got a tract entitled “What is Next” from one of us which should be Johnny as I so far seldom hand out this new tract. I asked him anyway how did he find the tract and if he understood the message. He said he is a religious person believing in God but has not time to fulfil the religious ceremonial obligation, meaning he is not a church goer and seldom read Bible. With is information, it warranted me to share the gospel all over to him again. He was very polite and willing to chat but our further conversation was interrupted by a phone call then the bus came. We bid farewell and both looking forwards for another encounter in the near future to continue with our unfinished story about God and His salvation.

感謝 神的带领,讓我今天遇到八人傳福音的機會。

第一位 澳洲人,他説是基督徒,但經過我查問他,他不能回答,不願傳福音给其他人,也不願意聽我講,我只好講簡單的福音给他。

第二位是印度來澳洲的穆斯林,我講述福音,基督信仰的三一神。

第三位 是中國來的女學生,因為她不太明白英語,我便用不流利的普通话及英语傳福音给她。

第四位是澳洲少女,講了一半福音,巴士來到。

第五位是中國男士,不願意聽,我只好講重要的福音给他,便離開。

第六位是印度來的穆斯林,我也是講基督信仰,三一神。

第七位 Mary 印尼來的穆斯林。她很專心聽我講耶穌基督的福音,三一神的大能,及我的見証。

第八位是澳洲少女,Emmy, 她很留心聽我講的福音及見証,願意信靠主,找教會,尋求更多真理。

感謝主。 願主帶領今天聽到福音的人士,回轉歸向 神。阿們!感謝讚美主!


Online Evangelism

Sunday, 30 May, 2021

Posted by Posted 1 June 2021, 8:40 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

The weekend in Christchurch was very wet.  They are saying two to three months worth of rain fell in the Canterbury area in just a few days.  Due to this I didn’t venture out - instead I fell back to online outreach.

An interesting note, as a team, we have now passed 5000 chats with people online (over a 2 month, 15 day period).  That is incredible; glory to God.

On Saturday morning I had the following chats:

In the afternoon, the team had a training outreach where we paired up for mutual feedback and encouragement.  It’s so good being able to listen to the nuance of another person sharing the gospel and learning from it.

I was paired up with Abraham in Melbourne - a recent training grad (I think).  It was so good watching him confidently and clearly communicating - well done Abraham!

One of my conversations went long, it was a rare reconnect.  One of the team had talked to this guy for 5 minutes 2 months prior.  He was combative initially, and it turned into an apologetics battle.  But as his questions were addressed, he calmed down and opened up to hearing the law and the gospel.  It was a great chat, glory to God.

Sunday afternoon and I was feeling more tired than usual.

By God’s grace, I was given the opportunity to share the gospel with a very open hearted young lady (pictured) who said there was nothing stopping her from believing that Jesus died on the cross for her today!  I pointed her to a local church and the Bible.  May the gospel seed take root and flourish, I leave her in God’s hands.

I then had a couple of very intense conversations.  One of those was about forty minutes long.  It was with a young couple who were Agnostic / Atheist - from the UK.  An extreme apologetics battle.  By the end of it they were curious; why am I on Omegle, of all places, talking about this stuff?  The door was now open for me to clearly articulate the gospel to them, and to plead with them to respond, because life is very short.

The final conversation of the weekend was with a guy with a Hindu background (pictured), from India (although the IP location placed him in Canada).  It was another long one - about twenty minutes.  He came to grasp the gospel, but he didn’t like the idea that he had to give up his Hinduism.  I became quite forthright with him, I told him he’d be going to hell - and given the context, I thought that was fair.  Well, he didn’t like that at all.  I made it clear that I said it because I loved him.  I don’t want him to go to hell, and I pleaded with him to trust in Christ alone for salvation.  The conversation was coming to a natural end, but amazingly he didn’t want it to end, we continued chatting for another five minutes or so.  I told him I hope we can play cricket together one day in heaven!
 


Christchurch (NZ) Team

Friday, 28 May, 2021

Posted by Posted 29 May 2021, 7:09 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

Having had a break, my legs were really sore today after doing five hours of street outreach.  Hopefully I’ll get used to it again quickly! :)

The day started with the gospel + abortion outreach outside the hospital.  I was first there, and didn’t have any signs.  So I pulled out some “Life is Precious” tracts and started to give them away to passers by.  Before long I had three ladies stop and engage.  Two of them seemed to have Christian backgrounds, but the third was younger and wasn’t sure if there was a God or not.  Going from there, I was able to share the law and the gospel with her.  The other two listened intently too.  The young lady seemed impressed, “that makes sense - thank you”.  I left them all with “Life is Precious” tracts, and I fished out copies of “Who Made It?” for them all too.  By the end of the conversation, Andy had arrived, and one of the ladies recognised him!  He had already spoken to her at the Eastgate bus stops.

There ended up being a team of five for the gospel + abortion outreach.  It was a calm outreach, with mostly a lot of support and encouragement for what we are doing.

Part way through, a young man walked past, I offered him a “Life is Precious” tract, but he smiled, tapped his pockets and said they were full!  I laughed to myself as he headed away.

Well, in God’s providence, later in the day, as I was just arriving at the spot where I was going to set up in Cashel Mall, I looked up and saw the very same young man walking towards me.  As he went past I said, “Your pockets may be full, but can I ask you a question?  What do you think happens after life?”  To my amazement, he stopped and said he thinks about it.  He was full of questions.  Starting from there I was able to explain how we know God exists, how we know we have sinned against God, and the hope of forgiveness only found in the sacrifice of Jesus.  He seemed a bit overwhelmed, I could tell he needed time to process what he was learning.  He took a “Who Made It?” tract (his pockets weren't too full now!), and I pointed him to needGod.net on TikTok, where many questions are answered in 1 minute videos, that he can process in his own time.  What a wonderful follow up opportunity!  All glory to God.  I leave him in His hands - who is the only one who can save him, through the gospel message he heard.

Once I had my flip chart up, I flipped it to the “What happens after life?” page.  Most people are put off by this page - it’s the last thing they want to think about.  But I had a lady come over, take a tract, and hesitate - she wanted to talk about it.  I asked her what she thought and we went from there.  She said she was a Christian, but didn’t go to church.  I was able to clarify with her exactly what gets us to heaven, and then I encouraged her to find a good local church to be a part of.  It was a short gospel opportunity, but a very important one as well.

There ended up being a team of five in Cashel Mall as well, including another newbie, Daniel, someone Roger or John had encouraged to come along.  I ended up pairing up with him.  We ended up having a “Christian” guy come and sit next to us for most of the outreach (pictured).  He denied justification by faith alone.  And I ended up being pretty direct with him in conversation.  I gave up, and John ended up continuing the conversation.

To end the day, I spent a couple of hours online.

Glory to God for the day of gospel outreach we were able to engage in!
 


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