Gone Itinerant Preaching

The State of the Church

2007-10-08T23:53:00.001-07:00

I asked a few main leaders of the church in San Francisco if there were any mega churches in the city or any churches that were truly rocking sections of the city and saving souls. All of these people who I asked were born and raised in the Bay Area and most of them have been doing full time ministry here for several decades. If anyone knew the state of the church in San Francisco, they knew. They all told me that there are not any churches that are saving many souls. In fact, not many churches even evangelize. One man who has been preaching the Gospel in the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley for more than thirty years told me that he doesn't know of any churches who evangelize. The only churches who are preaching the Gospel are the Latino churches in the Mission District, but they mostly minister to other Latinos and not to the rest of the population. Another leader mentioned that the only church that she saw somewhat thriving was a Chinese church led by a Chinese woman. How could it be that in America's most spiritually needy metropolitan city (in my opinion) there are only a few churches preaching the Gospel? This is a modern day tragedy the church is allowing to take place by becoming occupied with countless church programs and neglecting the preaching of the Gospel.
In six months preaching the Gospel six days a week only twice did we see someone else preaching the Gospel. The only places where it seemed like there were some churches actively preaching in the streets was Atlanta and Southern California and even in those places there was still a desperate need for more laborers.
Many times I looked around at the crowds we were preaching to and thought to myself that 95% of these people have gone to church sometime or another in their lives, yet the vast majority of them are still not saved. How could it be that so many people could go to church for one, three, five, or twenty years and still not be saved? Is it really their fault? In the end, it is each individual’s responsibility to repent and give their lives to Jesus. However, I believe that the church is to blame for America's fallen state. For years Americans have gone to church to find God, but they haven't found Him there. Instead, they have found non-profit organizations that perform various activities, play live music, and have a charismatic motivational speaker who provides a refreshing word for the week. Even worse, they have encountered hypocrisy, judgment, gossip, competition, and heresies which are also done in the name of God. All this an unsaved person can find at a local YMCA, university, or Boy Scout group, so why would they commit so much time to a church if it's not feeding their spirits.
What I found as I spoke to Christians across the country is that Christians in America think that the Gospel is the most basic, elementary message in the Bible and if someone has heard it once and repeated the sinner's prayer they never need to hear it again. It is more spiritually edifying to speak about more mature subjects such as social justice, the gifts of the Spirit, prosperity, and other 'relevant' messages. In fact, I am a pastor's son and I have grown up my whole life in several different movements of Christianity including Presbyterian, Charismatic, Pentecostal, Emerging churches, and more, and I am ashamed to say that, to my recollection, I only remember one time in my life where I heard the Gospel message being preached from the pulpit on a normal Sunday service. One time!!! That is absurd! For six months I asked thousands of people this exact question as I looked them straight in the eyes: "Jesus came and died on the cross. But what does that mean? What the heck does some guy dying on a cross two thousand years ago have to do with you? What does Jesus dying on the cross mean to you?" About 80% of the people I spoke to would look me dead in the eyes and honestly tell me,"I don't know." Another 15% would respond by saying, "He died for us" or "He died for my sins." I would reply by saying, "Okay, but what does that mean? Everyone knows the cliché phrases 'Jesus loves you' or 'Jesus died for you', but what does that mean? What if Martin Luther King Jr. died for you or Gandhi? Would that mean anything? What makes Jesus death on the cross so special?" Those 15% percent would then say, "I don't know." Only about 5% actually knew the answer to the question I was asking them and not all of the people who knew the answer where even Christians, some were agnostics or atheists. This is not a statistic; it is a living experience that Alex and I encountered for six months from the east coast to the west coast as we spoke to several thousand people individually. This is purely the church's fault. The church has wrongfully assumed that everyone learned the Gospel in Sunday school and it is now a boring and unnecessary message to preach about, at least in church. In evangelistic outreaches you'll probably hear it, but once you're a church member you'll never hear it again unless you yourself preach it.
The horrific result of such deceptive thinking is that many church-goers have no clue what the Gospel is. It is no more than a bunch of cliché phrases that their Sunday school teacher taught them to spit out or that some great preacher told them to repeat after being pushed to the altar by their friends and relatives.
My conversation I had in Orlando with a man from Guyana accurately illustrates the crisis I am trying to address. His name is Milton, he is 77 years old, and he has always been faithful to church from childhood until now. He has always been Presbyterean or Lutheran. For a while we talked and it seemed like he was a somewhat strong Christian. He answered everything correctly and I was about to leave him alone when I felt the need to say one more statement.
I told him, "I was just asking you all these questions because more and more people in America are being decieved in believing that all religions lead to God."
"Of course all religions lead to God," he exclaimed.
I was shocked to see that he was also decieved. I explained the whole Gospel to him, but he tried to debate if the whole Gospel was true. What a shame to the church. Here is a man that is has been a faithful church-goer for 77 years in Guyana, Canada, Michigan, and Florida, and he still doesn't understand nor believe in the Gospel. In fact, he even debated it validity and power. That is depressing. What on Earth is the church preaching and teaching?! If they haven't clearly presented the Gospel in 77 years then something is desperately wrong.

The Gospel message is not the most basic, easy-to-understand message in the Bible. It is the deepest, most powerful, life changing message the Bible contains and it is the principal message that Jesus commanded us to preach. I discovered that every time I preach the Gospel it is revealed to me in a more profound, personal, and real way. I sometimes get tired of hearing messages on prosperity, loving your neighbor, the gifts of the Spirit, and several other popular subjects we hear being preached about in church, but the one message I never have nor ever will get tired of is the Gospel message because it is the power of God unto salvation. It is the news that needs to be proclaimed to every person on this earth.

However, what grieved my spirit the most on this trip was meeting Christians who were against the very act of preaching the Gospel on the streets whether it be one-on-one or open air. Some people told us that America has already heard the Gospel message too many times to count and that the only way that they will come to Christ is if they have a revelation of God's love. They would tell us, "Don't preach to people. Just love them. Show them God's love and they'll come to Jesus." My response to that is that my greatest act of love is to preach the Gospel to someone because I believe it is far more important to satisfy someone's eternal and spiritual needs than to feed their temporal and bodily needs. If I give someone water to drink and food to eat they will be hungry the next day, but if I give them living water and the Bread of life they will never thirst nor hunger again. It's not one or the other, it's both.
Most churches have ruled out preaching the Gospel in the streets as ineffective and irrelevant in today's modern culture. They have concluded that there are far more intelligent, effective, and creative ways to reach people than to just approach them face-to-face or in front of a crowd and share the Gospel with them. So the American church spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year to put on theatrical plays, rockin' concerts, massive crusades, radio shows, build Christian cafe's, sell Christian clothing, and much more, all with the desire to present the Gospel in a relevant way that will effectively convert the sinner into a follower of Christ. Now, I am not opposed in any way to any of the above methods of preaching the Gospel. However, I do not believe it is right to say that street preaching is weak or irrelevant when that is how Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles all spread the Gospel message.
I would like to go further in my point. Greg, a man I stayed with in Orlando, put it best. He told me, “Joshua, imagine if the church in America stopped putting so much time, effort, and money into all these other methods of evangelism and just decided to preach the Gospel on the streets just like you're doing and like Jesus did. I wonder what would happen if every Christian just started preaching the Gospel." What a concept. Again, I am not against other forms of evangelism, but why is it that the church is multiplying exponentially in places like Africa, China, India, and Latin America? Is it because of Christian bands and churches with tons of community activities? No. It is because the Gospel is being preached by one person to another and not by a song, t-shirt, book, movie, play, or dance. Why are we spending millions of dollars to run programs instead of using it to send out missionaries to the spiritually lost places of the world to preach the Gospel, including parts of the United States? It doesn't make sense to me.
Many Christians have told me, "I admire you for preaching the Gospel, but that's not my calling." Many people believe that they are incapable of preaching the Gospel because they are shy, not very articulate, don't know the Scriptures well, and many other reasons. However, let me ask you a really serious question. When you die and stand before the judgment seat of Christ and He asks you why did you not preach the Gospel to the lost what will you say to Him? "I was too shy?" or "I didn't know how?" And after responding to His question He shows you the faces of all the people that could have been saved if you had preached to them, but they are now in Hell because you didn't. There is no excuse. Preaching the Gospel is not a calling, a gift, nor a nice suggestion. It is the GREAT COMMAND that Jesus gave us and if we love Him then we have no option, but to preach the Gospel.
Let me tell you how I began preaching the Gospel. I was thirteen years old and I had been on fire for Jesus for more than a year. God had completely changed my life and I was in love with Him. I would often spend three or four hours a day in His presence, but I never once preached the Gospel to one human soul, partly because I was in homeschooling at the time, but more so because I had never felt an need or burden to preach the Gospel. Then one day after spending over two hours in God's presence I came out of my prayer room and overheard my brother talking with my dad abou Hell. He was saying, "I don't understand dad, is this place really real? Where in the Bible does it clearly say that Hell is real and who goes to Hell?" My dad showed him the Scriptures and talked with him about several things that he didn't understand. My brother continued saying, "But dad, if this place is real then what the heck are we doing? What are all the churches doing? Why aren't we going out constantly and telling people about God so that they don't go to this horrible place? How could we just sit in church and let the world go to Hell?" These statements pierced my heart and convicted me deeply. What am I doing to save souls? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I felt so ashamed of myself and a burden for souls came upon me that I've never been able to shrug off since that day. The next day I began praying, but after a while I heard the Lord say to me, "How can you be so selfish? Here you are enjoying my presence and receiving from Me, but you're not giving anything away to anyone." I felt so, so convicted. All day long I dragged myself around the house whining that the world is going to Hell and I'm not doing anything about it. I wanted to preach the Gospel so badly, but I didn't have the guts or knowledge to do it. When my dad came home from work around 6 p.m. my mom told him, "Your son has been whining all day long that the world is going to Hell and he is not doing anything about it. Go and take him to preach the Gospel."
My dad complied and he took me out to the bar section of Oxnard, CA. We talked to many people and it was totally awesome. From that moment on I became an evangelist. For several months we went out every Friday night to preach the Gospel at the bars. Throughout all my high school years I preached the Gospel to at least one person almost every single day. Gos prepared me for all these years and now he called me to live out this mission of preaching the Gospel in America.
When people see me now they think I'm so smart and eloquent, but it's only because of years of preaching the Gospel. I had to start somewhere. We all have to start somewhere. Countless times I have been stumped by someone else's argument, I have not known what to say, I have not known enough Scripures, but I never let any of those mistakes stop me. We must preach the Gospel no matter how hard it might seem. If we are willing to study Mathematics for countless hours throughout our lives just so that we could get good grades how much more should we be willing to dedicate innumerous hours of our lives studying the Word of God, so that we could preach His Gospel effectively.
Throughout this trip, there were several times for both Alex and I where we were exhausted. Many times I wished I could just sit down, read a nice book, have some hot chocolate and rest for a week, but we couldn't because we were on a mission trip. Sometimes we even felt like quitting and going back home, but we persevered and continued until the end. Whenever we have to do something every day whether it be work, school, football practice, exercise, or even devotions there will be days where we will be so tired of it even if it is our greatest passion in life. However, if you desire to succeed you must persevere. It is the same with preaching the Gospel.

I had a sobering conversation with a great man of God named Larry Rosenbaum. Larry was raised Jewish and was a hippie as a youth in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. He got saved during the Jesus Movement in the seventies and in 1980 he founded his evangelistic ministry. Every single week for nearly thirty years now Larry, with a city permit, sets up a sound system in a main section of the city for hours at a time and preaches the Gospel. He always has a worship team with him who sings worship songs and after about thirty or forty minutes of music he will grab the microphone and preach the Gospel to the hearers on the street. It's totally awesome! The day we were with him he was at the United Nations Plaza on Market St. in downtown San Francisco from noon to 5 p.m. While the worship team sang he, along with a few others, would pass out tracks and witness to people individually. I admire and respect Larry so deeply because he has faithfully done his every week for nearly thirty years. However, Larry Rosenbaum is one of the most ostracized Christians in San Francisco. What's shocking is that it's not really the world that criticizes him, although they definitely do, it is the church who disapproves of him because he preaches the Gospel instead of preaching the Gospel merely through his lifestyle.
He explained to me how many ministries come to San Francisco and say that they are going to do great things there, but after a short time give up and leave. Then he voiced a deep concern of his to me. He told me how he was worried about the next generation of Christians. "I'm tired," he told me, “I’m in my late 50's. I'm old. I'm ready to retire and pass on the baton to the next generation, but I don't see any young people willing to take the baton. There's lots of young people in love with Jesus, but I don't see any of them preaching the Gospel. I don't see what these ministries are trying to accomplish if they don't want to preach the Gospel."
Where is the next generation of preachers? Where are the John the Baptist's preparing the way of the Lord? When will the church stop riding on the newest church trend and just live out the Gospel? When will get sick and tired of being a bench warmer in church letting the world go to Hell while we complacently sit there and listen to the preacher? When will we get into the game and win? When will we fight in the war against Satan's kingdom?
God is looking for men, women, and youth of all ages to live radically for God, but who will hear His call and actually do it?!

The real reason why the church is not preaching the Gospel is not because there is a greater way to communicate the Gospel. Frankly, we are not preaching the Gospel because we are cowards. We tried to preach the Gospel to a few people, but after being rejected or cussed out a few times we got scared and intimidated and concluded that their must be a better way. We have the mentality that if someone is offended and angry by what we are preaching it must be because we are saying it wrong, but Jesus had the mentality that if people are getting enraged and hostile it is because we are preaching the Gospel correctly. In fact, He went so far as to say that we are blessed if we are persecuted, insulted, and ridiculed for preaching the Gospel.
Christians in America think that there isn't really any persecution towards Christians. However, Alex and I were often yelled at, insulted, cussed out, almost arrested, kicked out of places, and even threatened to be killed throughout our mission trip. I believe that the main reason why Christians are not being persecuted in America is because we are too wimpy to preach the Gospel.
Even if we do preach the Gospel we don't preach the full Gospel. Most Christians that share their faith NEVER say words like 'repent', 'hell', or 'judgment' because they are too afraid to offend anybody. I am not a hell fire preacher, but telling someone that Jesus died for them without telling them about the penalty of their sins, which is Hell, is like telling someone that they found the cure for AIDS when the person doesn't even know they're infected with the HIV virus. We must explain to people that they will one day be judged by God, be found guilty of sin, and be condemned to Hell. Then we share that this is the reason Christ came, to take the penalty of our sin upon Himself, so that we don't have to pay the penalty anymore. However, if we don't definitely prove to the person that they have a disease why would they care if you offered them the cure for a disease they don't believe they even have. So people in the world hear Christians saying things like "Jesus loves you", "Jesus died for you", "come to Jesus and you'll be filled with love, joy, and peace", but they just think, "That's nice for you, but I don't need that in my life." Then we wonder why we don't see anyone crying out to God in repentance anymore when they respond to the altar call at church.

We are in a state of emergency, not in a state of victory. Our nation is more lost than ever in its history and we're spending most of our time trying to get spiritually obese while the world starves for the Gospel. WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!!
We think that our nation is lost because of divorce, abortion, drugs, homosexuality, suicide, and violence, but our nation is lost because the church has stopped preaching the Gospel. The Gospel is the cure for the sinful nature of man. If the sinful nature of man is destroyed then sin ceases to prevail. If we spend our main efforts in cutting off branches of immorality instead of cutting the problem from its root, which is the sinful nature of man, than we are wasting our time because the branches will continue to grow if the root is still in place. It is no use to tell a sinner to stop sinning if his nature is sinful. We must convert sinners into sons of God and then sin will decrease immensely in America and in the world and righteousness will reign. This is when we could truly say that "the gates of Hell will not prevail against us" because presently the gates of Hell are prevailing against the church.
The church must return to the basics. We must return to the Gospel. If we do not return to preaching the Gospel than our candle will be removed, we will no longer shine in the midst of darkness, and we will become marginalized and irrelevant in our world. It's already happened in most of Europe. If the church of America does not change it will be only a matter of time before the same atrocity takes place here.
Time is ticking. What will you do about it? Will you wait another year, another five years, another twenty years? Or will you act now? ACT NOW!!!!!!

UC Berkeley

2007-09-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

I thought that UC Berkeley would be a totally hippie, pothead university full of the world's future leading ultra liberals. I was wrong. Perhaps the faculty are ultra liberal, but the student body is just as typical as any average student body in any other upper class university in the United States. Tons of Asians and White Americans. Very few blacks and Latinos and a good handful of Arabs and Indians. There are geeks, preppy kids, jocks, hippies, and just average people. They come from all walks of life and have many different beliefs. I only spoke to seven students there today, but they were almost all very deep-thinking, extensive conversations that lasted me the whole day. They were awesome. I would love to sit down with college students like these and have conversations all day long although I confess that I would most likely get tired of it eventually.

I woke up today at 6 a.m. and spent a good solid four hours in prayer, worship, and Bible reading. It was so intense and glorious! This was truly one of the most glorious prayer times I've had with God in this entire trip. It really renewed me completely.

On the way to the Metro while I was still in downtown San Francisco I saw a girl who seemed to be somewhat of a gutter punk and perhaps a lesbian. I felt the Lord pressing on me to talk to her, so I did. As soon as I mentioned Jesus she said she was Jewish, she already had her set of beliefs, and didn't want to hear any of mine. I talked to her for a little bit and then Alex came and talked a little, but she was extremely irritated with us even though we were totally kind and cool with her. It was sad, but we soon let her be and went on our way. Alex had a bunch of little errands to do still, so I left to UC Berkeley to talk with people and he would meet me up later on.

When I arrived there I was fearful and somewhat intimidated for a bit because UC Berkeley is infamous for its anti-God nature and it is also the best public university in the nation, so it can almost be compared to Harvard or Yale. But my brother's in Yale so hey. After about half an hour in prayer I walked up to a guy named Jim. He was a white American from Northern California who was raised in a Presbyterean and Congregational background. His grandfather was a Presbyterean minister and his mother at one time was a nun. He said that around the age of thirteen he pretty much stopped going to church and his parents now no longer attend church. We talked for a good while and then I explained the Gospel to him. Surprisingly, he really knew the Gospel, but he didn't follow God at all. I could see that there was a deeper reason for why he wasn't following God, so I asked him if he actually believed in God. He confessed to me that he is not sure of God's existence. I gave him some reasons for why I believe in God and I told him to seek God humbly because God rejects the proud, but draws near to the humble. After talking for about thirty minutes his class was about to begin and he had to leave. He sincerely thanked me and told me that I opened his eyes a bit. That makes it all worth it. Even if I came to Berkeley just to have God open Jim's eyes a bit through me it would all be worth it. I wrote down the title of More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell for him to read, so I pray that he reads it.

I walked around the campus for a while trying to find where the main hang out area of the school was at and I soon found it. Right off of Telegraph road swarms of students were walking, talking, sitting, eating, playing music, kissing and studying. Jackpot!

I sat down for a little bit to pray and then I walked up to an Asian guy who had the build of a football player. We began talking and he was very friendly with me. He told me that he was Buddhist and that he strongly believes in his Buddhist heritage and religion. He was from China, but lived in the United States his whole life. We then proceeded to have the greatest conversation I have ever had with a Buddhist in my life. It was awesome. When he told me about his strong belief in Buddhism I didn't know what to say because it is very rare that I ever encounter a true Buddhist and thus I am somewhat ignorant concerning how to speak to them. Therefore, I asked him about his religion. Did he believe in God? Who or what is God to him? Is the man Buddha God? He explained to me that the man Buddha is God and he does worship him, pray to him, and try to emulate him. I asked him if he there was any God who created Buddha and created us all. He said there wasn't. Then I asked him something that really struck me and surprised him. I asked him if he had a personal, genuine, deep relationship with his God. He said that he didn't at all. The concept of a personal relationship with God seemed foreign to him. He explained to me that the only relation between him and Buddha is that he seeks to emulate him. That blew me away. How can a man live for someone he doesn't know, doesn't understand, cannot experience, and cannot truly love. The only thing that connects him to his God is a deep respect for his heritage and his God's teachings. How empty! I didn't say any of those things to him, but I began to describe to him my relationship with God and how gloriously real He is to me. And he really seemed to be truly impressed and I noticed that he was perplexed as to why he didn't have the same relationship with his God. This naturally led into the Gospel because I then explained why we can't have a relationship with God because our sins separate us from Him. I then went on to tell him about the judgement, the cross, repentance, and the after life. He understood and he was seriously impacted. I asked him what he believed about life after death and he acknowledged that he wholeheartedly believed in reincarnation. So we began talking about reincarnation. Why do we reincarnate? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? How can someone reach Nirvana? Basically, he eventually confessed that reincarnation is more of a bad thing than a good thing and that we reach Nirvana by our own efforts and conscience. I explained to him that I believe that anything that says that the answer is in our own selves is totally false because man is flawed and sinful and no man can earn his way to Heaven or Nirvana. I told him that the only way for a man to be transformed and go to Heaven is if he looks to, loves, and finds God because we all come from Him and the essence of all things is in Him. Therefore, all answers, purpose, and identity are found only when we find God. I asked him if he ever read the Bible and I challenged him to read the Gospels. He said that he never had and he will read the Gospels. I asked him if he wanted to follow Jesus, but he said that he will always stay a firm Buddhist, but he was very grateful for all that I said. He said that some people have shared the Gospel to him before, but never had it ever been with such passion, conviction, and intelligence as it was when I explained it to him. I prayed for him, he thanked me, and he left. What an amazing conversation. Praise God! I had no clue how to talk effectively with a Buddhist, but God enabled me to do it and flowed through me with wisdom. Hallelujah!

I approached another Asian guy with excitement and he responded with excitement. He asked me where I was from and what I was doing. I explained to him my mission trip and he was so blown away. I quickly assumed he was a Christian because of his exuberance towards my mission trip, so I asked him if he was a Christian. Surprisingly, he said that he wasn't. So I began to encourage him to follow Jesus. He was very attentive, but then a friend approached him and reminded him that they had a Student Government meeting that was about to start. He apologized and left with his friend. But I quickly told him to seek God and read the Bible and he nodded his head with excitement. I have no idea what took place in those few minutes, but I know that a great seed was planted in that young man's heart. Even short encounters such as these are never in vain.

I became so excited by the positive response I was recieving from Asians that I went to talk to another Asian about Christ. The guy looked at me coldly and said, "I don't want to talk about this," immediately standing up and walking away. Ouch.

I prayed for a bit to recover from the blow and to ask God for direction concerning who I should speak to. I soon approached another Asian guy named Jim. Yeah! Today was Asian evangelism day for me. I love Asians! He was also pretty cold when I approached him, but he was finishing eating a sandwich. So he just sat their and listened instead of walking away. He quickly told that he was an athiest and I quickly encouraged him to seek God because He is real. I began to explain why I believed God was real, yet I could tell he was getting board. He began to excuse himself and was about to get up and leave when I asked him, "So why don't you believe in God?"

All of a sudden, Jim became fully engaged into the conversation. We ended up having a two and a half hour conversation about the existence of God and I must confess that it was one of the most amazing conversations I ever had. I loved it! He was an extremely intelligent young man and I could tell that he was most likely majoring in some tough science because he constantly spoke about new theories, a few of which I had never heard of. It was so much fun because he truly believed that believing in God was the most ignorant, foolish thing to believe and I thought that not believing in God was the most idiotic, arrogant assumption a human could ever cojure up. And the great thing is that we were kindly, yet brutally honest in communicating such thoughts to each other. I would make his athiesm look absolutely stupid, but then he would respond with some philosophical theory that would nuetralize my argument at least in his own eyes. Then he would attempt to make Christianity appear absurd and I would reply with a wise answer from Scripture and he would be stumped, yet he still refused to doubt his athiestic beliefs. I would tell him about miracles I have witnessed, lives that have been changed through Jesus, and the fact of Christ's ressurection, but he would come up with some totally obnoxious new scientific theory. One might think that this was a pointless debate. However, I beg to differ. Throughout the entire convesation I was never in doubt nor ever stumped by one argument that was posed. Although Jim seemed not to flinch one bit from his faith in athiesm, he was very frustrated that all of his arguments were being nullified by a Christian and he was incapable of truly disproving anything that this Christian guy was telling him. Then he began to say something that was so awesome. He stated, "I don't believe in God at all, but I am absolutely amazed by how religion spreads. It's absolutely genius! You help people in times of need. You pray for the sick and do miracles. You have spiritual answers to all of life's questions. You have profound stories that teach life lessons and characters that people can relate with. You help the poor, the rejected, and the weak. And I know that you don't do it out of any evil intention. You truly do this out of good intent, but it ends up bringing converts into your religion. It's absolutely genius! I wish we had things like that in our world to attract people to do other things." I laughed as he said all this because he was so amazed and frustrated at the same time that he was turning red and breaking out in a sweat as he said it all. "It's not fair, "he cried out in frustration,"Like you for example. You've been on this trip for six months having several conversations every day, yet I can only fend for myself in this one conversation."
I started telling him about how God speaks to me and gave him a few specific examples. I explained to him that these occasions are too amazing to be diregarded as mere coincidences.
"Of course it's coincidence," he shot back,"Do you know that you are the fourth person this week with a Bible that has come up to talk to me? But I didn't talk much with the other three. You're the only one I've really talked to. And it always seems to happen when I'm sitting by myself too. That's not a sign from God, it's just coincidence."
Utterly in amazement by what I was hearing I said,"Really? I have never in my life heard of someone being preached to four times in the same week. It sounds like God is trying to speak to you dude."
"Yeah right man. It's all coincidence," he declared.
"Well let me ask you this," I inquired,"has anyone with a Bible ever come up to talk to you at any other time in your life?"
He stopped to think for a second and with a surprised face he said,"No. No one ever has."
"See," I laughed,"God is really trying to speak to you man."
He tried to shrug it off, but I'm sure that messed with him.
He asked me a question later on. He proposed, "What if science in the next century develops a way to literally heal every disease and disability just as fast as faith healers do? Would that convince you that miracles are scientific?"
I responded, "That wouldn't surprise me at all because the Bible says that in the last days false prophets will arise and do great miracles, signs, and wonders in order to decieve the masses. That might be the way in which they do it."
"See," Jim exclaimed,"that's genius! How does religion come up with this stuff?"
"No," I said,"it's supernatural. That was prophesied two thousand years ago and God knew that it would all happen one day."
"This sucks man!," he complained,"see I don't believe in religion, but someday when I get depressed I am going to remember what you said to me today! Ahh!"
I just laughed with joy because I could see that this cold heart was being touched.
"I challenge you to read the Bible dude," I began,"After all how could you ever truly call yourself a scholar if you haven't read the most read and most significant book of all time."
"AHH! See, that's what I mean," he protested,"that's so not fair. The Bible is so entrenched in all of Western Civilization that one day I'm going to have to read it just so that I could have a deeper understanding of history, literature, and art."
I wrote down the title and authors of Mere Christianity and More Than A Carpenter and gave it to him. I encouraged him to read it and he said that he might check it out.
I asked him if I could pray for him and he responded, "Sure. If it makes you feel better."
So I did and it did made me feel a lot better because I knew that God was not only touching Him through my words, but through my prayers also.
"This really was a great conversation man," Jim reflected,"Thanks. I really enjoyed it."
"Man if I lived here I would really love to hang out with you," I told Jim.
"Yeah," he said quietly.
Then we departed. This was truly one of the richest conversations I've ever had with a human being. It lasted two and a half hours, but I wish it could become a friendship that ends in salvation, yet I know that God is soveriegn and He will be faithful in guiding Jim.
In the cities I go to I sometimes say to myself, "Man, I wish I lived here." This makes me all the more excited to return to Miami and preach the Gospel there. Preach the Gospel in your own hometown. Stop taking it for granted.
I took a half hour break after talking with Jim. After having such a long, intense conversation like that one I just had to take breather.

I eventually spotted a very intellectual individual named Shawn who seemed to be waiting for someone. I approached him, introduced myself, and began by asking him, "So do you follow God? Do you follow Jesus?"
"Well do you believe that everyone who follows God must follow Jesus?", he inquired surprised by my statement.
"Eventually."
"What do you mean, eventually?"
"Well, if someone is honestly seeking God they will eventually see that Jesus is the only way to God and they will follow Him."
"That is where I can't agree."
"Are you Jewish?" I asked this because I have many Jewish friends in Miami and usually only a Jewish person would make such a statement like that.
"Yes, I am, but I do not hold on to Judaism as my religion."
"Do you seek God?"
"Of course I seek God, he politely replied," doesn't everybody?" He spoke as if he were the narrator of some fantastic story.
"No. unfortunately not everybody does," I laughed.
And from there our conversation flowed.
Shawn is able to read, write, and speak Hebrew fluently and is very knowleadgable about the Scriptures. He even had read the Gospels. He is a very intelligent and seeking man.
I discussed the Messianic prophecies with him and I was amazed that he actually knew a few of the prophecies, though not most of them. I explained some of them to him and he listened respectfully. He tried to refute my interpretations of some of them, but I ended up proving him wrong of his interpretation and he conceded that I could be right.
I shared the Gospel with him, but he couldn't accept the fact that another man would pay for the actions that he was justly responsible for. He insisted that we should take responsibility for our own actions.
"I agreed with you wholeheartedly," I answered to his declaration,"We all should take responsibility for our own actions, but if we did then we would all be guilty of sin and we would all be justly condemned. But God is merciful and He doesn't want to condemn us. That is why He was left with no option, but to send His Son to take our place of judgement for us and pay the penalty for the sins that we justly deserve to suffer for."
Shawn had no response to my answer.
I challenged him to read the Gospels.
"I read them several years ago," he said," but I guess it's time for me to read them again. I will read them again."
Hallelujah!!! No seed is greater than the direct Word of God itself.
I wrote down the title for More Than a Carpenter and Te Case for Christ and he promised to read both of them. Praise God!
Shawn seemed to be a truly honest man who really wants to find the truth and nothing but the truth. I know he will find it because is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
There's a lot of Shawn's out there looking for the whole truth, but they don't look to the church very much because of all the hypocrisy, the pride, the prosperity Gospel, and many other valid reasons. This must change.

I joined up with Alex and went back to the church. What a glorious day!

San Francisco

2007-09-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

San Francisco is the most lost and demonically oppressed city I have ever seen in my life. In order for someone to truly understand what we are facing one would have to come to San Francisco and pray and preach the Gospel here for a few days. Never in my life have I seen a city that hates God so much and embraces sin to the point of becoming one with it. Satan's headquarters for many of the world's biggest strongholds are in San Francisco. The first official Church of Satan was established in San Francisco. The Beatnik movement began here, which eventually birthed the Hippie Movement. Our drug culture first exploded in San Francisco. The Sexual Revolution took place here which also gave rise to the Homosexual Movement and now the same-sex marriage movement. Oh and the United Nations was born here too. Go figure!

We drove into the city on Monday on the Greyhound. We got off of the Greyhound and hopped onto a city bus in order to get to Haight Ashbury. As we drove through the city I was able to notice numerous insane, possessed, and hostile people everywhere I looked, more than I had ever seen in any city in my life. Inside the actual bus I saw a man with shorts that only a slutty woman would wear, a transvestite woman, several punks, and a man who I believe was homosexual who seemed to be normal, but as soon as he would look at me his eyes would become full of rage. New Age, Hindu, and Hippie stores abound everwhere, but especially on Haight Ashbury.

When you walk into Haight Ashbury you feel like your in the middle of the 60's hippie movement when it first began. Naked women are painted everywhere, the smell of weed is in the air, and hippie art abounds. Posters for meditation classes with gurus are on light posts, everyone is talking about the next classic rock concert, and tons of hippies, gutter punks, and drug addicts are sleeping on the streets and in Golden Gate Park. Hinduism and Buddhism is everywhere, hooka bars are common, and bongs are normally sold. There are several new scenes in Haight Ashbury that show that we are indeed in modern times, yet they all have blended into the New Age, hippie culture. Countless people have tattoos all throughout their bodies, their is amazingly skilled graffiti all throughout the streets from the ghetto hip-hop scene, and there are way more gutter punks are everywhere. Gutter punks are punk kids who traditionally have tattoos, piercings everywhere, wild hair, and grungy clothes. Their main philosophies are rebellion and rage rather than peace and love and most of them have run away from home or were kicked out of their homes and now live on the street.

When you walk down Market Street towards the financial district the demographics completely change. Diversity abounds and thousands of people are walking up and down the streets every day of the week at all hours of the day. Most people are wealthy and dressed up in formal business attire, but most of them are still bound by the New Age and atheistic philosophies that arose during the Hippie Movement. In fact, it felt like I was in Manhattan the whole time.

The Mission District has been occupied by Latinos. The Tenderloin is flooded with the homeless and drug addicts. The Castro is almost 100% homosexual and the Fisherman's Warf is swarming with tourists. Chinatown and Japantown are also significant sections of the city. I'm sure there are many more sections of San Francisco, but these are the only ones that we have become familiar with during our time here.

Some people are open to Jesus here, but the vast majority are not just closed to the Gospel, but are openly hostile against it. I would not be surprised if one of these days we were to get physically beat for preaching the Gospel here. Thus far, we have only preached in Haight Ashbury and Market St., which is the main street of the city.

In spite of all the sin and spiritual darkness over this city there still is a small remnant of truly hard-core saints of God in San Francisco. I admire them very much. Not many Christians last in this city. Most of them either end up totally backslidden and lost in the world or they get discouraged and deppressed by the sin and obstinance of the city towards God and eventually give up and move to another city. I don't blame those who leave because it sure is hard to preach the Gospel here. After two weeks preaching in San Francisco I was glad when it was time to leave and go back home. That is why I deeply respect the Christians who come to the city and give there lives for the Gospel here. I have a feeling that God will call me to be a full-time missionary in this city one day.

Even now there was a small meeting with several evangelism and prayer groups from the city who were uniting and strategically planning to do evangelism in certain parts of the city. This was very encouraging to see, but the need here is so immense that something monumental must take place. I truly believe that the church in America needs to do something radical in order to bring San Francisco to Jesus. I know that you're probably thinking that your hometown is just as lost as San Francisco, but I challenge you to first go there, preach the Gospel in the streets there for a few weeks, and then you'll understand why I'm saying these things. I have never seen a city so utterly lost in my life. The sin in San Francisco belittles the sin in places like Las Vegas, South Beach, and Compton. It is so dark here that sometimes I feel like its only destiny is God's wrath and judgement. We must send missionaries into San Francisco and pray fervently for this city and start powerful churches here. I truly pray that even now God would begin to raise up radical men, women, and youth to leave their hometowns and move to San Francisco in order to bring this city to Jesus. And I also pray that God would awaken the Christians of San Francisco to rise up with the authority of the Holy Spirit and take their city for Christ. Please pray for San Francisco. God desperately wants to do something in this city. We can't be cowards. We must be as bold as lions.

The Story of Hao Do

2007-09-09T00:23:00.000-07:00

What God did in Hao Do's life is one of the most glorious occurrences in this entire trip thus far. This is the account of what took place and what God did in Hao's life:

One week ago I lost my cell phone in Little Tokyo. For one week now I have been praying for God to supply me with a phone because the cheapest phone in T-Mobile was $115 and I was not willing to spend that kind of money. I did not want to ask any of my friends for a phone because I wanted God to provide. After a week of not having a phone I became a little desparate, so I asked the friend I was staying with if she had any extra phones. She didn't have any. Yet God, in His mercy, provided me with a phone that sme day when my faith was weak. Silvia dropped us off at Ontario Mills Mall to evangelize and as I was walking through the mall this really cool-looking twenty-seven year old Vietnamese guy named Hao walked up to me to sell me a T-Mobile plan. He looked just like Jinn from Tekken. I'm serious. His hair style was absolutely awesome. I told him that I already have T-Mobile and I actually needed his assistance. I explained to him how I lost my phone in L.A. and asked him if there were any phones that I could buy for cheaper than $115. I described my mission trip to him as he looked up the information. He confessed to me that they had nothing cheaper than $115, but then he started saying, "Well, you seem like a really nice guy. I have an extra phone at my house. I'll sell it to you for $20." I was shocked.
"Are you serious?!" I asked him.
"Yeah man, no problem," he replied.
I thanked him and then asked him if he had a relationship with God.
"I don't know God, but I really want to," he replied,"maybe you can invite me to your Bible study and I could learn more about God. Yeah man, I could go to your Bible study."
"I live in Miami," I explained to him, "but I do have friends here at the church I'm with who have awesome Bible studies locally."
He was really excited, so we swapped our cards. He gave me his T-Mobile card and I gave him my mission trip card. I told him about the three-day Encounters the church holds and he really wanted to go. He told me that he would bring the phone to the mall the next day and I could come pick it up there. But then I explained to him that I would be leaving to Orange County the next day and since I didn't have a car I had no way of getting to the mall. So he decided that he would mail me the phone wherever I stayed and he trusted that I would mail him the money. I wanted to pray for him, but he had to go back to work.

I gave his contact information to my friend Danny at Emilio's cell group meeting so that he could invite him to his cell group.

Thursday I tried to contact Hao in order to give him Miere's address in Anaheim, but he couldn't talk because he was at work.

On Friday I called him around 1 p.m. and he was not working that day. I began to tell him what the address what when he stopped me and told me that he would come over to Anaheim in order to give me the phone. I told him not to because it was a long drive, but he said he didn't mind and he kept insisting that he wanted to come down and give me the phone. Without any traffic it was a forty minute drive from Ontario to Anaheim.

He ended up arriving around 5 p.m. and it took him more than an hour to get here. Why would a guy drive more than an hour just to sell his phone to some stranger for $20? It was obvious that the real reason Hao was coming was because he was hungry for God. As soon as I saw him he told me that he would give me the phone for free since he had taken so long to arrive. I brought him into Miere's apartment, gave him something to drink, and we started talking. The first thing he said was, "So what do you want to talk about? Do you want to know about me?"
"Of course," I said.
Alex sat with us and Hao began telling us a little bit about his life, his family, and his struggles. He confessed to us that he was very ashamed of himself because he has been smoking marijuana for some time now. He also told us that he had been having some thoughts of committing suicide.
Suddenly he asked with a glimmer of hope in his eyes,"Can God change people? I heard that God changes people. I would like Him to change me."
"Of course," I answered,"God will totally transform you when you give your life to Him."
He kept insisting that he was too bad of a person for God to change him, but I explained to him that God can change anyone who commits his life to Him. Then Alex told Hao some of his testimony about his lifestyle of drug abuse and alcoholism and how God delivered him from all of that. Hao felt satisfied, so he began asking us several questions about God and we answered them all. Eventually, he asked us if how he could get a Bible. He told us that he would really like to read it and he has plenty of free time when he's at home. I asked Meire if she had an extra Bible and she just so happened to have recently bought a really good NLT study Bible at a used bookstore, so she gave it to Hao as a gift. He was rvery thankful. When he skimmed through the pages he said, "I could probably finish this in a couple of weeks."
"It might take some months," I replied,"but go for it man. Eat it up. Read it like crazy."

Then Hao asked us if we wanted to go somewhere to hang out. He said that he didn't have many good friends to hang out with and he would like to introduce us to his people. We agreed, so he drove us out to Little Saigon in Westminster and took us out to eat. It was really cool. He took us to a Vietnamese restaraunt, he ordered the food for us, and taught us how to eat their food. The food was very different, but very delicious. Throughout our drive and dinner we mostly talked about music and our hobbies. He told us that he works as a DJ as a side job and I told him that I wrote songs and I would play him one when we returned to Meire's house.

On the drive back to Meire's house I explained the entire Gospel to him. He was so hungry to hear everything I said. He was so amazed by the Gospel and he was so convicted of his sins. But in a last ditch attempt to keep his old philosophies he asked, "What about Buddha? Can't Buddha change your life?"
Alex quickly responded, "Hao, Buddha's a real cool guy who had some cool philosophies, but he can't save your soul. He can't transform your life. Only Jesus could change your life and save your soul."
"That's true," Hao laughed, "you're right. Maybe I should give me heart to God."

When we came to Meire's house Hao asked me if he could hear a song that I wrote. The entire drive to Little Saigon Hao had showed us songs that he loved because they 'ministered' to his life in some way. They were such shallow, lame songs from people like Sugar Ray, Orgy, and Gwen Stefani and I so wanted him to see how powerful it is to worship God. I excitedly grabbed my guitar because I knew that this would probably be the first time He ever witnessed someone worship God with all their heart. I sang my song "Holy Sacrifice" with everything within me and when I opened my eyes at the end of the song Hao was practically in tears. I felt moved to pray, so I just began pouring my heart out in prayer to God and sang one more song that I had written. At the end of the that moment he was still at the edge of crying. I looked him in the eyes and told him, "Hao, there are many songs about life and love. I've even written some love songs for my girlfiend, but nothing can ever be as deep as worship to God."
"I can see," he responded awe struck,"I can see the passion you sing with to God. I've never seen someone sing with such passion."
Then he asked Alex to sing a song he had written, so Alex got a guitar and sang a really cool song that he had written. It was melodically genius and Hao was really touched by it too.

That's when Hao began saying, "I want to know God. Maybe I should give him my heart."
"Yes, give Him your heart," we encouraged him,"Do you want to give your heart to him tonight?"
"Yes, I would,"he gladly answered,"But I heard that when someone gives their life to God they need to be baptized. Is that true?"
"Yes, it is true," I told him,"you need to be baptized when you dedicate your life to God. Do want to be baptized? Meire has a pool back here. We could baptize you right now!"
"Oh, I don't know. It probably really cold right now," he said hesitatingly.
Then I explained to him the meaning of baptism and once I finished explaining it all to him he immediately said,"Alright then. I'll get baptized."

Alex and I jumped for joy inside. We couldn't believe what we were hearing and experiencing. I felt like Phillip in the Bible when he encountered the eunuch, led him to Jesus, and baptized him in a nearby pond. Kent, Meire's husband, allowed us to borrow some swimming trunks in order to do the baptism. Meire brought out the photo camera and Kent brought the video camera. I asked Hao if it was okay if we videotaped this moment. He didn't fell comfortable, but when I explained to him that it was a significant milestone in his life, he said that it was fine.

Alex, Hao, and I held hands by the pool. Alex prayed a powerful prayer over Hao and then I prayed over him.
"Now you pray, Hao, to give your life to Jesus," I said.
"I don't know how," he responded.
I asked him to repeat a prayer with me and I led him in an intense prayer of salvation and repentance. It had nothing to do with the traditional cut and dry sinner's prayer we're familiar with. It was glorious and powerful and we could see that he truly did recieve Jesus and repent of his sins. Then we walked down with him into the pool. I prayed for him again and we baptized him. It was absolutely glorious. When he came back up he was so happy that he himself prayed to God saying,"God thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life. I want to know you God. Thank you God."
Both Alex and I praised God with jubilation. Our hearts were jumping for joy within us. Words could never describe the joy I felt in this moment. If we had done this entire trip just to bring Hao to Jesus it would be worth it.

We swam in the pool for about twenty minutes and had some fun. Then Meire came over and told us that Kent wanted to buy us pizza to celebrate Hao's salvation. The crazy thing is that Hao had been craving pizza the whole day. When we went to Little Saigon he wanted to eat at Pizza Hut because he wanted to eat pizza, but we insisted that we eat Vietnamese food. Also, when we had come back to Meire's house Hao had said that he wanted to order some pizza, but we told him that we were still really full from the Vietnamese food. So he said that he would order it in a couple of hours. Now Kent ordered it for him without knowing at all how much Hao wanted to eat pizza today.

While we waited for the pizza to come Hao began letting a lot of issues about hi family off of his chest. He told us about the physical abuse he experienced as a child and he sadly said that no one has ever loved him truly in his life. In fact, he never once had one birthday party in his whole twenty-seven years of life. He explained to us many negative things about Vietnam and Vietnamese culture.

When Meire walked in with the pizza she exclaimed,"We have pizza. I bought soda and we have cookies for dessert!"
Hao commented excitedly, "Wow! It feels like it's my birthday or something."
"It is your birthday Hao!," we exclaimed with joy," Today is your spiritual birthday. The day your spirit was born to God." I looked at my watch for the date. "It's September 7th, 2007," I announced.
"Write that down for me,"Hao asked.
We ate together and talked some more. Alex went to bed and I stayed talking with Hao for at least another hour just giving him counsel, guidance, and encouragement. We planned that this Sunday we would go together to the church I was with in Riverside and I would introduce him to all my friends there and the people who would disciple him. Meire burned him his first Christian CD and I gave him a list of good Christian bands for him to listen to. I prayed for him for the last time and he left exuberant with joy. He said,"I'm going to listen to this CD on my whole drive back home and sing along with it."

On our last night in Southern California Hao came to spend some time with us because he loves us so much and he promised that he would hang out with us on the last night we were here. He bought tons of KFC chicken for us and gave us each individual presents. Then he suggested that we watch a Jesus movie together. It was already 11 p.m., but he insisted. He had never watched a Jesus movie in his life and he wanted to know more about Jesus. Maedee had The Passion of the Christ and the Jesus movie. I explained both of them to him and he insisted that he wanted to watch The Passion. I warned him about its graphic nature, but he was so hungry to see and understand the depth of who Christ was and what He did for him. So we ended up watching The Passion of the Christ at 11:30 p.m. I explained the death of Christ and the meaning of the Gospel once again to Hao so that he would truly understand what he is watching. We prayed together and then we watched the movie. None of us fell asleep or felt tired at all. We were all totally gripped by the power of what we were witnessing, uncluding Hao. At the end of the movie we prayed together and had a wonderful time talking. We both prayed for Hao and then he ended up praying for the both of us straight from his heart. It was totally awesome. Finally, around 3:00 a.m. he went home.

HALLELUJAH! ALL GLORY BELONGS TO GOD FOR THE GREATEST MIRACLE OF ALL, A REDEEMED SOUL!

Labor Day

2007-09-06T20:15:00.001-07:00

This was the best Labor Day of my life!

My old friend Big Danny invited me over to his brother Emilio's house for the holiday. Of course, for us it was no holiday. My brother and I grew up with Big Danny until I was twelve years old. After that we didn't see each other for years. Danny backslid for several years and now he's burning on fire for God for the past couple years. We call him Big Danny because he's 6'6" and there was another Danny who was short and we called Little Danny. Emilio was a feared leader of the Bloods in South Central. He has an insane testimony. My father was the one who brought him to Jesus and discipled him. Now Emilio is a youth pastor, worship leader, and interpreter and he is married to a pastor's daughter. Alejandrina is their sister. She was one of my favorite Sunday school teachers when I was a kid. She also backslid for many years and came back to Christ in the past year. It was so amazing to be with all of them once again after not being with them for over seven years.

My dad and I went to our good friends church, Henry Lein, in Riverside, CA yesterday. So that night we stayed with Nestor and Silvia Crespi. We ended up staying with them throughout the time we spent in Riverside County. Emilio and Danny live in a desert city called Moreno Valley, so this is where the Labor Day holiday took place.

We arrived at Emilio's house around 12:30 p.m. They cooked an amazing barbecue with rice, beans, and tortillas. It was glorious. I wrestled Big Danny and pinned him, but then he beat me (although he never pinned me). We had a lot of fun. Around 4:30 p.m. everyone was full, it was burning hot, and everyone was tired. So since the party reached a down point I said, "Hey, let's go evangelize at the park." There is a good sized park right next to Emilio's house. No one felt like going, especially since it was more than 100 degrees outside and we were inside enjoying the air conditioning. However, all the guys eventually hesitatingly agreed to go. We all stood up and began praying and the presence of God fell upon us immediately. It was awesome. None of the girls wanted to go, but after we prayed for about twenty minutes they all wanted to come with us. So they joined the circle and we prayed a little more. There were sixteen of us, so we split up into groups of threes and invaded the park. There were about 200 people in the park and within two hours or even an hour and a half we preached the Gospel to everyone in that park. It was so powerful. Nine people got saved and we wrote down the phone numbers of several people. I never experienced anything like it before. The power of the people of God working in unity blew my mind. It would have taken six or seven hours for Alex and I to have evangelized that whole place and even then we probably would not have talked to everyone. Furthermore, on an average day we most likely would not have had the boldness to go up to entire families and preach the Gospel to them, but since we went in groups of three, there were many of us in the park, and we had all prayed fervently together, we had a supernatural boldness to go up to anyone and everyone. I never experienced anything like it in my life. I've gone out evangelizing with groups before, but not with such a powerful group. Every person was full of the Holy Spirit, had no fear, were living in holiness, were madly in love with Jesus, and had powerful testimonies. They were all blazing on fire. It was breathtaking to look around the park and see people getting prayed for, people giving their lives to Jesus, guys preaching the Gospel with such passionate zeal, and God being glorified. It was like a battle scene from a war when a battalion conquers a whole new fort. Hallelujah! Moreover, it was amazing to see the respect that adult and elderly men and women had towards these youth that were preaching the Gospel to them. Youth from our group were also impacted. They never realized how much authority and boldness they could have when speaking to their elders about Jesus and how much respect they would get in return for their elders.

One glorious experience that my group had was with a young couple who's names were Matthew and Lucy. They were seated at the far corner of the park and we walked all the way to them to talk with them. They saw us walking towards them, but they didn't reject us at all. We had a powerful conversation. They confessed that they had no idea where they were going when they died and that they didn't have much of a relationship with God. They admitted that they had many sins in their lives and they loved their sin. After I expained the Gospel to them they were deeply impacted and convicted. We asked them if they would like to put their faith in Christ and genuinely repent of their sins in this very moment. They said that they did want to give thier lives to Jesus. So we prayed the sinners prayer with them, I prayed for them, and Nancy prayed for them. They gave Nancy their phone numbers and she is going to contact them to come to Emilio's cell group. Praise God! This is how I desire for all itinerant preaching trips to function. We win the souls and the local churches consolidate and disciple them.

After preaching the Gospel to the entire park everyone returned to the house exploding with joy. They all thanked me for pushing them to go out their and evangelize and said that this experience raised them up to a whole new level of evangelism and zeal for God. We were all so blown away at how God moved through us. We prayed for about thirty minutes to seal this glorious time. WOW! What an amazing experience.

Imagine with me now. What if every church group this Labor Day that was in a park or near a park would have dedicated one or two hours where absolutely everyone evangelized? How many souls would be have been saved that day? What would that do to America? Would it bring revival? I beleive so. What if after every Christian hang out, bible study, Sunday service, and conference all the Christians there would go out and evangelize just for one hour. What would that do to our nation? I believe that along with prayer and discipleship that is all that needs to be done in order for revival to come to America. Why are we waiting for the lost to come to our meetings instead of going out to them. Jesus never once tried to draw the lost to a meeting in a building. Why do we pour the majority of our efforts into that? I believe that one reason is because we are scared and we have become cowards. We want them to come into our territory, but we're too intimidated to go into their territory in order to save them. I read a statistic in the book One Thing You Can't Do in Heaven by Mark Cahill that claimed that 97 percent of Christians in America don't evangelize. How pathetic! I believe that if just fifty percent of the Church in America evangelized we would witness a national revival.

Anyways, we later watched Johnny English and then Emilio prayed with and talked to Alex and I about really powerful things until three in the morning. It was truly glorious. Hurray for unity in the Body of Christ!

Downtown L.A.

2007-09-02T00:15:00.000-07:00

This week Alex and I preached in several parts of Downtown L.A. It's gigantic, so we didn't get to preach everywhere.

On Wednesday we wanted to preach in Little Tokyo and as we were walking towards there we walked into an empty plaza. Suddenly, I realized that it was the Azusa Street Revival sight. I was overjoyed to have encountered it, so we had our devotional time there and spent several hours praying and worshipping God. After being there for several hours a man named Bob came up to me and began talking to me. He turned out to be a pastor from the city of Ventura. We talked for a couple hours and he gave me his contact information. It was wonderful.
Then Alex went up to a homeless man who was completely demon-possessed. Both Alex and I prayed fervently to cast the demons out of him. He seemed to remain the same, but the whole time we were praying for him he was crying. So perhaps God did do a work in him even though we weren't able to see a differnece in the natural. As we were praying for him a white middle-aged homeless woman walked up to us and yelled Hey! and she flashed us. It was one of the most sick, disturbing instances of my life. It was completely demonic and it only brought repulsion to Alex and I. Furthermore, as we were praying for the man a gangster looking big, black man walked by us. He stared for a while as we prayed, but then left. Soon, he returned to ask us for a cigarrette, but obviously he was looking for something more since he had just seen us praying and knew we didn't have ciggarrettes. He confessed that he was an evil man who thrives off of sin and he knew he was going to Hell. He wanted to repent, but he said that he was chained and bound to sin and even if he wanted to be set free from it he wouldn't be able to because he's too deep into it. He told us that the way he makes money is sinful. It seemed like he was a drug dealer, but he might be more than just that because he seemed to have a grave evil about him. I tryed to preach the Gospel to him, but he was obviously possessed by demons and they wouldn't allow him to listen to what I was saying. I asked him if I can pray for God to deliver him from the demons that possess him. At first, he hesitated, but eventually he gave in. We ordered the demons to leave him and I pray that they did although there was no manifestation that they did. This is the main area that Alex and I are still desperately seeking God for: to heal the sick, cast out demons, and heal the sick.
Later on, I spoke to a Rastafarian man named Carlos who is from Capo Verde. He had never cut his hair since birth and he had a deep bitterness toward the white man for what they did in Africa in the name of God. He hailed the Rastafarian books of the BIble as the greatest and the Bible that we know is merely the Western version of Jesus and it is cut and dry compared to their books. I spoke to him for about an hour trying to preach the Gospel to him and show him that the BIble is the truth, but he wouldn't listen. He ended up shunning me because I said that the Koran is a corrupted book. He told me that I am blind, that I am not worthy to wear the cross that was imprinted on my shirt, and that he considered me worse than a violent man who would have punchd him.

In a business plaza with a beautiful fountain we evangelized to several businessmen. I had a wonderful conversation with three hispanic businessmen. One of them eventually walked away, but the other two were extremely impacted. They both had been raised in church, but they didn't follow Jesus. They were very convicted when I preached the Gospel to them and they said that they did want to give their lives to God and truly repent of their sins, but they didn't want to do it in that instant. They asked me if I live in L.A., so I told them about the mission trip. They were so blown away that they asked me if they could please give me some money. They gave me about $12. It was pretty awesome.

On Friday, we went to the Macy's Plaza and spent about six hours evangelizing in that area. I first met and spoke to Thomas. Thomas is a great guy who changed his life around a few years ago. He was hanging out with the wrong crowd and one of his friends asked him to hold his bebee gun for a few hours during school. He ended up getting caught and had four felony charges made against him. His best friend made several false accusations against him in order to not get in trouble. Thomas was kicked out of the L.A. school district and had to go to a continuation school. During that time, he realized that he had been blind and now he had changed his life around. He had a strong faith in God, but never went to church or read the Bible. The Holy Spirit spoke so powerfully through me and it impacted him so much. That is why he was so willing to open up to me and tell me all about his life. He promised that he would diligently read the Bible and go to a church. I got his phone number and told him that I would find a good church for him around L.A. Furhtermore, his girlfriend is a pastor's daughter and her father is a full-blown hypocrite. The man has three different families in different places, he steals money from the church, and his character is horrible. As a result, his daughter is not even sure if she believes in God. He asked me to please pray for her and said that he would talk to her about what I said. I prayed with him and left.

Next, I spoke to a Mexican man who seemed to be completely devoid of all life. He works at a pizza place for 12 hours a day 7 days a week. He has a wife and kids, but he barely has time to spend with them and he never has time to go to church or seek God. He hated life. I told him that he had to get his priorities straight, get a different job, and spend time with God and his family. He had no respect towards God, but when I preached the Gospel to him he was touched. He was a completely empty, depressed, and lost man and I think that he realized that after I finished speaking to him.

Later on, I talked to a Christian Guatemalan man who was longing to have a real encounter with God. I asked him if he had ever been baptized in the Holy Spirit and explained to him what it was. He confessed that he had never experienced or felt anything of God in His life, but he was desperate to enounter Him. I asked him if I could pray that Gs would baptize him in the Holy Spirit right then and there, but he was too embarrassed to do so. I invited him to an enounter and got his phone numbe, so that I could connect him with a church that does encounters.

I had several more converstaions, but I have no time to write them down because I am currently falling asleep.

L.A. is so ripe for revival. I really believe that the time has come for California to finally experience revival once again.

The Day I Jumped

2007-08-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

This is an entry from Jon Fish, one of my closest friends. We met up in Ventura County and he preached the Gospel together with me on 08/21/07. This is the account of his experience:

One of the most influential people sat across from me at Starbucks. I had not seen him in four years. He told me of his journey across America. His boldness he wore like a mane around him. His love for the One was deep and true. I was drawn to the beauty of his testimony as one is drawn to water after a long exhausting hike. He looked deep into my eyes and asked me if I would preach Christ crucified with him on the morrow.

God you be glorified! Was the last words that left my lips as Josh and I sat in the courtyard of the Promenade of Westlake praying fervently that God would be with us as we spoke the ‘good news’ to the people there. After my bold statement left my lips my stomach sunk. There were a lot of people in front of me. Each in their own world: talking to their loved one, on their cell phone, reading books, smoking cigarettes, making sales calls, shopping. I was afraid. My heart started to pound as I stood up from my chair. Josh went walking to a group of elderly people. I split and walked to the most vacant part of the mall. I sat on a fountain and prayed. The words,” I will be ashamed of those who are ashamed of Me,” screamed in my head. I felt so torn. Everything within me wanted to scream the gospel at the top of my lungs, but my body would not respond. I was paralyzed with fear.

I found Josh. He was talking to a Hispanic fellow. He looked at me and asked how I was doing. Sheepishly I laughed and told him the first few steps are tough. He flashed a picture that a cartoonist had drawn of him. I asked him who had drawn it. He pointed to the elderly couple that he had been talking to earlier. I walked over to the table of elderly folk and asked who the artist was. A man wearing a trucker hat and a ‘Star of David pendent’ raised his hand. I struck up a conversation with the elderly group and told them I was an artist. That I had put in two years up at a college in Washington. Next thing I knew I was sitting with literally old friends. We were laughing and talking about life. Naturally Jesus was brought up in the conversation. I told them how much He meant to me. That He alone had changed my life. I spoke to them that they, the promised ones, were loved of God. That Christ did not reject them but longed for their hearts. I could tell that the artist was having a hard time with it. But by the end of the conversation they were totally drawn to what I had to say. I ended with inviting them to the church that meets in houses. They laughed and said that they would come if they were younger. I didn’t blame them for not wanting to come. One of them told me not to get discouraged if someone turns me down when I talk about Jesus, but that for every one that does ten more will be eager to listen. I was so encouraged by our talk. I blessed them and told them that I hope to see them again.

Across from me was Josh. He was talking to some young teenagers. They looked totally astonished; like someone was laying news on them they had never heard. I walked over and introduced myself to them. I felt God tell me to preach the gospel to someone else so I moved. I saw a woman in pink sitting by her self. I asked her if anyone was sitting there. She invited me to sit. I asked her how her day had been going. She replied in an accent that she was having a good day. I asked her where she was from. “South Whales,” she replied. Next thing I knew I was in another awesome conversation with a total stranger. She was telling me about herself as if we were old friends. She explained that she was visiting some friends. Right when I went into why I was talking to her, her friend showed up. I started to tell them both about Josh and my conviction to speak the gospel. I went into the whole story and saw them get wide eyed. The friend told me that they were both Christians. I laughed and told them that that was a relief. After I explained what part of the church I was from we parted and went our ways. I had totally encouraged some fellow sisters in the Lord by just striking up a conversation with a stranger.

The last conversation I had was with an elderly woman in a bookstore. She was looking at a sci-fi book that I knew. I casually walked up and talked to her about the book as if I was an employee. The next thing I know I’m in another conversation with a long lost friend. She’s talking to me about where she grew up and how she ended up in California. Her daughter moved out and joined the peace core in her twenties. She traveled the world and ended up in Rwanda where she met the love of her life, an Egyptian man. They moved to Egypt and have lived there ever since. Her daughter happened to be in town and her grandson was across from us. She called him over and I met him. He was going to Portland state this year and seemed like a really great guy. I started to talk to them about Jesus. Turns out that the elderly lady was a Jew, the Grandson was a Muslim! I spoke to them about how amazing Jesus is and that they should both look into the teachings of Jesus. The grandson seemed interested and agreed with me that Islam teaches that Jesus is a great prophet. I emphasized that and told him to search in the Koran for Gods character, and who Jesus is. They had to leave so I said good bye.

I found Josh preaching to a group of Indie kids. After he was done he walked over to me with a huge smile on his face. “That was glorious,” he said as he embraced me. As Josh and I drove away from the promenade I realized the similarities to cliff jumping and preaching the gospel. Cliff jumping involves you using ten percent of your body to jump off a cliff and ninety percent gravity to pull you down to the water. Preaching the Gospel involves you using ten percent of your body by talking to someone and ninety percent the Holy Spirit drawing the person to Him.

Jon <><

Christianity in L.A....thus far

2007-08-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

L.A. county is massive! I really think it is the most expansive, jam-packed, busy county I have seen thus far in the United States. Thus, it takes so long to get anywhere. On a map it looks close, but on the road it takes forever, especially on a bus. As a result the only cities we've been able to evangelize in are Torrance and Redondo Beach because it takes so long to get anywhere else. From the house I'm staying at it takes about three hours to get to downtown L.A.

The closest hot spots for evangelism are the Galleria at South Bay and the Del Amo Fashion Mall.

So yesterday and today Alex and I went evangelizing there. It went quite well. I had practically no fear and most of the people there were youth. Young people are my favorite people to talk to because they are so open to listen to new things, the are so real, and they are truly searching for meaning and answers in life. Adults tend to be closed to new things, have a well-built facade, and think they have all the meaning and answers in life they need.

I assumed that many people here would be anti-God and anti-Christianity because I was evangelizing in the rich towns of L.A., one of the most sinful places on earth. However,
almost everyone I spoke to was either a committed Christian, a lukewarm church-going Christian, a Christian who hasn't been to church in a while, or a Catholic. Thus far, I have not met one atheist, new ager, satanist, and I've only talked to a few agnostics. In fact, it almost feels like I'm preaching in the South except without the religious spirit. However, it does seem that many Christians here are compromised with the world at least to some degree.

For example, yesterday I saw four guys in their early twenties who looked like the type of guys who were hard-core atheist, party animals. They had big sideburns, tattoos everywhere, heavy metal type shirts with disturbing images, and crazy hair. When I saw them I thought to myself 'Yes. Now those are the kind of fish I like to catch.' So I went up to them and talked to them and they turned out to be dedicated, church-going, Bible-believing Christians. The one guy with evil tattoos explained that he was in the world for a while, but then he came back to God recently. The only strange thing was that their shirts had skulls and disfigured human beings on them and I thought I heard one of them cuss.

Furthermore, today I saw five teenagers who were skaters and somewhat punk. Again, I thought I was going to catch some good fish, but as soon as I asked them if they had a relationship with God one of them exclaimed, "Yeah man, we're hard-core!"
"So you're Jesus Christ hard-core?" I asked.
"Yeah man. We're hard-core," the guy responded.
Two of them were dedicated Christians, but two of them was once a strong church-goer and no longer attends church while the other one was not sure if he believed in Jesus. Thus, I still preached the Gospel to them and it was great. What was ironic is that the one guy who called himself hardcore told me to go preach to someone else that wasn't saved, but he wasn't able to realize that I wasn't preaching to him, but to his three other friends.

Also, I met several Catholics who really seemed to have somewhat a relationship with God. They all realized that there was more to being a Catholic than just going to Mass, saying your confessions to the priest, and performing ceremonies. Also, they didn't seem to believe in prayer and worship to saints and virgins. However, not one Catholic that I met had ever read the Bible, as usual. Furthermore, practically none of them understood the Gospel at all.

For example, today I talked to a Mexican, middle-aged man who was a Catholic who went to Mass every Sunday. He told me that even though he goes every Sunday and confesses to the priest he still knows that he should be doing more. He realized that following God was a daily lifestyle and relationship with Him. He told me that ever since the scandals with the priests he is no longer comfortable in confessing his sins to any priest, so I told him to only confess and repent to God. He talked to me about his problems with lusting after women and how his wife gets mad at him for checking out other women. I counseled him about being faithful to his wife and to holiness before God. He confessed to me that he had no idea where he would go after he died and that he had never read the Bible before. I explained the Gospel to him and when I asked him what he believed Jesus death on the cross meant he confessed that he had no idea. How could this be? A man goes to mass every Sunday for most of his life and he still doesn't know the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross, where he is going when he dies, and he has never read the Bible!? What a horrendous crime! Someone might think 'Oh well that's just because he's Catholic.' However, every day I meet Christians of all sorts that have no idea why Jesus died on the cross, where they are going after they die, and practically never read the Bible. It's absolutely heartbreaking! Is this their fault? Partially. But I think it is much more the fault of the church. We are to blame. I am a pastor's son who was born and raised in church my entire life and I could count on one or maybe two hands how many times I have heard the Gospel being preached from the pulpit on a Sunday. However, it would take me quite a while to calculate the numerous amount of times I have heard offering messages, activity announcements, God wants to bless you sermons. Why? I know that the Sunday service is meant for the saved and not for the unsaved, but I have talked to countless faithful church-goers who do not understand it all. In fact, they would not be able to explain the Gospel if their very life depended on it. The sad thing is that I am not exaggerating. The more I preach the Gospel to church-goers who don't know the Gospel the more I realize that the church needs to stop focusing so much on all kinds of details of Christianity and return to the foundation of Christianity, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So many Christians believe that the Gospel is the most basic teaching of the Bible and once you know it you need to move on to deeper spiritual truths. However, I completely disagree. The more I preach the Gospel, the more I meditate on the Gospel, and the more I read the Bible I realize that the Gospel is the deepest, most powerful teaching in all of Christianity. It should be something we always talk about, sing about, meditate upon, and read about. The one message of the Bible that we should never get tired of and never stop going deeper is the Gospel message of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.

I love the church and I hate to criticize the church because we are God's representatives on earth, but this is something that has been burning deep within my spirit throughout this entire trip. Something must radically change. The church needs to return to the Gospel message.

Moreover, I would like to thank God for the churches in this section of L.A. county because they're doing something right. There's no other explanation as to why so many people love Jesus here. It's great.

Entering Los Angeles

2007-08-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

08/13/07

Leah dropped me off at the trolley this morning for me to get to downtown and take the Greyhound bus to L.A. On the trolley, I was so tired and everyone else looked pretty tired too, so I didn't get up and preach. However, I talked to a Mexican man in Spanish who was sitting directly in front of me. He was a Catholic that loved God, but didn't follow God. He told me that he doesn't have time for God because he has so many other responsibilities in life. I explained to him that we must love God more than we love our money, family, friends, and even ourselves. I challenged him to truly follow Christ. After talking for about twenty-five minutes I had to get off on my stop.

I bought a Greyhound bus ticket for 10:15 a.m., but it was still 9:30 a.m. So I went across the street and found an open space with a bench right on Broadway St. I got out my guitar and just worshipped with all my heart. It was wonderful. I walked back into the bus station at 10:15 and the bus had just left. I was so bummed and felt so irresponsible. However, I knew that God had a plan and there was a reason to why I missed that bus.

The next bus left at 11:15, so I decided I would evangelize until then. There were a few people that looked just like me with their hiking backpacks on and their adventurer spirit. I sat next to one of them and had a great conversation. I forgot his name because it was quite different, but he was a guy in his mid-twenties from Scotland with a very thick accent. It was hard to understand him at times. He and his companion had decided to leave Scotland and go on a crazy journey. They went through Thailand, Papa New Guinea, Australia, Fiji, and a few other places. Now they had been in California and were going to Las Vegas. The guy has a mother who is a strong Christian, but he himself didn't follow God. I was surprised because he was one of the first people in this three month trip who actually understood the Gospel and knew what His death on the cross actually meant. I challenged him to seek God and give his life to Him and he really took it into consideration. However, he remained undecided even after I spoke with him.

Then I spoke to a Mexican guy who claimed to be Catholic, but said that he had never gone to church. He lives in Alburquerque, NM and he said he had some good Christian friends there. He completely understood and believed in the Gospel when I told it to him. However, when I asked him if he wanted to believe in Jesus and repent of his sins he said no. He explained that he thought it was futile to repent because you will never be perfect and always sin anyways. I explained to Him how God transorms us and gives us a new nature and I told him about grace, but he didn't believe me. He remained stubborn and just concluded that he would continue living in sin since it was impossible to truly repent. Then I left on my bus.

The bus was very empty, but there were three young backpacker guys in the back, so I went back there and started talking with them. There names are Kyle, Arthur, and Tim. I asked them about their travels. They are all from Toronto and they had just spent a couple weeks in Ensenada, Mexico on the beach getting high and drunk everyday. Then they asked me about my travels. So I explained to them my mission trip and that opened up the conversation to the Gospel. It turns out that all three of them were raised their entire lives in devout Catholic families and in Catholic schools, but none of them believed in Jesus. It was sad. They thought Christianity was a religion that constantly condradicted itself and that the Bible is just a bunch of fairy tales. Tim slept the whole time, Kyle and I talked the whole time, and Arthur just listened most of the time. Arthur and I would talk just when Kyle would leave to go to the bathroom or something like that. Arthur was actually quite open and interested, but Kyle was a hard-core skeptic although he did listen to everything I said with an open mind. We talked for about three hours. Kyle basically believes that Jesus was just a cool guy that decided to bring hope to his war-torn society by telling them about God, fulfilling the Messianic prophecies, and dying for them. He thought all the miracles, the claims to Deity, and especially the resurrection were made up by His disciples. I debated him forever and by the end of it all he was quite confused about his philosophies, but he still didn't believe in Jesus at all. However, when I told him about my encounters with God and supernatural experiences that my friends and family have had he was quite intrigued. In Anaheim, some big black guys came on the bus and Kyle ended up talking to them about weed and getting high for half an hour. It was one of the most fleeting and empty conversations I've ever heard in my life.

When I finally reached L.A. I had to figure out how to get to Union Station. I asked one of the workers, but he didn't know how to get there from here. However, about fifteen minutes later he came out with a friend and told me he would give me ride because it was on his way back home. On the ride, they asked me about my travels, so I told them and I began preaching the Gospel to them. They were born and raised in L.A. and they had never been outside of L.A. county in their entire lives. When I told them that I was born and raised in Orange County they asked me questions about it as if it were another country even though it is simply the county that borders L.A. county.

As I walked around the city, rode the metrorail, and saw the city as I rode the metro God seemed to open my eyes to show me how oppressed Los Angeles is. I must confess, I have never seen such a ghetto city in my life. Not even New York seemed as ghetto. In most cities there a ghetto section of town, but in L.A. it seemed like everything was ghetto as far as the eye can see. I rode the metro for nearly an hour and the entire time all I saw was ghetto, ghetto, ghetto as far as the eye can see. Graffiti like no other city I've ever seen, dust and dirt everywhere, condemned buildings everywhere, countless corroding houses, not one nice car, and every single person dressed in ghetto-style clothing.

I felt like I needed to preach the Gospel in the metrorail, but I hesitated and didn't do it to my shame.

My brother picked me up in Redondo Beach and all of a sudden everything changed. Every neighborhood we drove through was filthy rich, their were cool shops and fancy restaraunts everywhere, and the beach appeared at every corner we turned. It was beautiful, but sad. Just a second ago all I saw was poverty. Now all I saw was extreme riches. Before I only saw Mexicans and Blacks. Now all I saw where white Americans. So this is what it means when people say "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

We arrived at Heather's home and she served us one of the most amazing meals of my life. Heather Short is one of my best friends and she lives in Palos Verdes Estates.

At night, a spirit of interscession came over me to pray, grieve, and cry out for Los Angeles and I just cried out for about an hour.

GOD send REVIVAL to Los Angeles!!!

A Wild Night in Pacific Beach

2007-08-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

08/12/07

Most of today I spent time with God. I really needed to spend some good quality time with Him, so I did. I cried out to God desperately for His anointing and power. I am so tired of preaching the Gospel without a demnostration of the Spirit's power. I know the Spirit manifests His power in many ways and He has touched people's lives during this trip, but I still have not seen one person healed, one demon cast out, one person get baptized in the Holy Spirit, or one person raised from the dead. I am already three months into the trip and there still has not been a supernatural breakthrough in signs and wonders. Thus, I desperatelly sought God today and yesterday because I won't settle for anything less than the fullness of His kingdom coming down on the earth.

Furthermore, I laid out the basic format of the website I want to build for IPO and showed it to Leah. Leah has made dozens of websites and at one time worked as a web designer along with Fabian. Leah does html and more and Fabian does flash. So today Leah and I created some of the basic ideas I presented to her.

Fabian is a Jewish Argentinian, Leah is Brazilian, and their kids Kevin and Melanie are totally American; they speak neither Spanish nor Portuguese. Fabian and Leah both were saved through my father when he was a pastor in Orange County, CA. They are awesome people who are blazing on fire for Jesus. They are extremely loving and hospitable to me and treat me as they would a family relative. They've known me since I was in my mother's womb.

Anyways, around 6 p.m. Fabian dropped Kevin and I off at Pacific Beach. Kevin surfed and I evangelized...kind of. I talked to two people, but they were both Christians. Eventually, a fear gripped me that paralyzed me from preaching to anyone. It was pathetic, but I truly believe it was demonic. It happened to me yesterday too. Yesterday I was paralyzed with fear for a couple hours. Then I called my dad to pray for me and he ended up telling me a testimony of how the entire family of one of our friends just got saved in Honduras. As soon as I hung up with him I felt all the fear lift off from me. It was a crazy feeling. After that I talked to several people about Christ and I was full of joy.

Finally, around 9:45 p.m. a group of twelve people from Abiding Place Ministries, including Fabian, came on the beach to pray and evangelize. It was awesome. It felt like I had just recieved military reinforcements to help win the battle for souls this night. Four of the people were German teenagers who were visiting the United States for a few weeks. They had never been evangelizing in the streets before and they were pretty wierded out by our intense prayers. We prayed for nearly an hour on the beach and then we split into groups and went out to preach the Gospel. Two of the Germans, Lisa and Patrick, came with me.

Pacific Beach is the main club scene of San Diego and it was quite happenin' tonight.

The first guy I spoke to was around my age. My heart broke to see his state. He was maybe 18 or ninteneen, he was sitting on the sidewalk with a nice bike in total despair in brokeness. He was homeless, but he wasn't begging. He was trying to sell his bike for thirty bucks. I gave him a dollar and began talking to him about Jesus. He was in complete hoplessness and depression, but he didn't seem to be an alcoholic or drug addict at all. His family lived in New Jersey and for some reason couldn't help him. He wasn't sure if he believed in God and he didn't really seem to care whether their ws one or not. He just wanted help and love. I talked with him and gave him hope. I told him about my few days being homeless in Orlando and how I was so close to God in those days because I realized that He is all I've got and He is all that matters. I prayed for him and just poured out my heart to him. He was touched and impacted and he was really touched when I ended up giving him five more dollars at the end of the conversation. I was saddened that I couldn't bring him to my house because I don't live here, but I was even more upset that there wasn't a Christian that would take him in. These are the kind of fish that God wants us to fish for. Sometimes you have to fish for a long time in order to find it, but when you finally reel him in it's glorious.

We talked to two guys, but they ony talked to us for a few minutes and the made an excuse to leave. One of them goes to church every Sunday.

The German guys wanted to use the bathroom in McDonald's, so I went with them. There was a table of about eleven adults who were pretty drunk. So I walked up to them and joyfully said, "How ya guys doin' tonight."
They all exclaimed, "Great!" Immediately one of them said, "So do you want to preach Scripture to us."
"Yeah man," I responded.
So two of them who were pretty drunk piously said, "Read us a passage of Scripture." They both claimed to be saved Christians.
I began talking about Jesus to them all, but eventually one of the girls influenced everyone else not to listen to me. However, the two 'pious' Christians wanted to listen. I preached the Gospel and told them the true meaning of repentance was. They understood, but they still thought they were great people that were all going to Heaven. In the middle of the conversation on of the two took off his shorts and just stood around in his boxer briefs in in front of the girls. Then he came back and told me about how good of a person he was. I tried to bring them to the Law and convict them that way, but it didn't really work. So I just prayed for them and left.

The Germans were amazed that people would actually talk to me and listen. They said that in Germany no one would have the politeness or interest to ever talk to a stranger about God like that. I told them about my vision for IPO and they were really amazed by it. Lisa said that she thinks the vision would work in Germany and that there were plenty of dedicated Christians who would love to do it. That was exciting to hear.

On the beach, I talked to three Mexican youth who were just on vacation here from Mexico City. They were all nominal Catholics who never really put much thought into following God. I talked with them in Spanish for about forty minutes. It was awesome. They were so hungry and impacted by everything I said. They seemed to be shocked to see how ignorant they were of God and the Bible and they committed themselves to seek and follow God more. I loved it. I love talking to Hispanics because, generally, they are so open and hungry for God.

Then, all of a sudden, all four of our groups bumped into each other all at once from all four directions. It was so wierd. Fabian wanted to leave already since it was almost 1 a.m. and there was church the next morning, so I left with him.

What a great night!

I Love California!

2007-08-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

I love California because it is truly a melting pot of all nations. Miami is already Latin America because it is almost entirely latino. There are many diverse nations in Miami, but they pretty much all constitute of Spanish, Portuguese, or Creole speaking people. The rest of the nations are very small in numbers. However, in California when I get on the bus I hear so many languages being spoken all at once: Tagalog, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, etc. In fact, it was kind of hard for me to preach in the bus because I noticed that many of the people didn't even speak English or Spanish. That's so awesome! I love it!

So today I caught up on many things. I woke up at 9 a.m. because I went to bed at 1:30 a.m. the night before. I talked to Brooke, printed and filled out two college applications, called some colleges, did my laundry, prayed, worshipped, read my Bible, cooked pasta, and chilled a little bit with Kevin and Melanie.

Finally, at 4:30 p.m. I left to go evangelize. The nearest bus stop is two or three miles away, so I took Kevin's skateboard and I had a blast. 90% of the road was going downhill. It was so much fun.

At the bus stop, I began talking with an old Filipino woman that was also waiting at the bus stop. When I asked her if she had a relationship with God she told me, "I am a Catholic, so don't talk to me about religion." I politely stopped talking, but she ended up walking about thirty feet away from me and the bus stop until the bus arrived thirty minutes later. Praise the Lord for rejection! It just makes me stronger.

On that bus everyone was speaking a different language. Only one man spoke English and he was pretty far from me.

On the next bus stop I sat by a tall, hairy man. I began chit-chatting with him and eventually I told him that I was going to the mall to evangelize. It turned out he was a true Christian that hadn't been to church in a while and was falling back into the world. He was probably in his late forties. The man told me that he did a school of evangelism at his church, but never completed it. He told me that he was amazed that I was talking to him about God because last night he had had a long conversation with his friend about God. I laughed and felt compelled to tell him, "Maybe God is calling you to go deeper." Then he looked me in the eyes and said, "That is exactly what my friend told me last night. A young Asian guy was sitting next to me the whole time. Who knows what he got out of the conversation?

I didn't have the boldness to preach on the bus and once we arrived at the mall I just couldn't find the strength to preach the Gospel. So I sought God for about forty minutes. The first few people rejected me right off the bat. One was Muslim, another Catholic, and the other Athiest.

The entire time I was praying, "God show me the one or two people you want to me to speak to." I was praying this because I only had about an hour left to evangelize since I had started so late in the day. Suddenly, I found a jewel in the midst of the rubble.

There was an Asian guy in his twenties sitting alone in the food court and I felt compelled to go to him. His name is Hoto. He is from the northwestern region of Thailand. He has been in the U.S. for eight months and he will only be here a total of two years in order to learn English and then return to Thailand. He had never heard anything about Jesus, the Bible, Heaven, Hell, judegement, or Christianity. He had heard the name Jesus and he knew he was a religious/historical figure, but he had never heard of him dying on a cross. The saddest part of it all is that he said that as a kid he went to a Catholic school for a few years and they would go to church services, but he never understood why someone would go to church or what it is that people do in church. I find that to be so horrific. That the Catholic church could go through so much sacrifice in sending several missionaries and using tons of money and labor to spread the Gospel in Thailand and yet a kid that goes to one of their schools for several years doesn't even know that Jesus died on the cross for him. That's is sickening to my stomach and grievous to my soul.
Hoto told me that he didn't believe in God and that he was a Buddhist. From the depths of my heart I started to tell him that there is a purpose in life. We are not here just to make money, go to school and die. God created us to have a relationship with Him. I just went on and on about how God has to exist and he was very captivated. I asked him if he understood what I was saying and he laughed and said, "I cannot change religions. I am Buddhist, my parents are Buddhist, my grandparents are Buddhist, and my ancestors too." I told him that it's not about religion. It's about truth. Truth must exist and it is found in knowing and following God. As I explained to Him all these things his eyes started to get watery. I explained to him the Gospel in detail and he understood it. I gave him the card of Abiding Place Ministries, the church that my friends attend (it's an amazing church). He told me that he would come. Then he asked me, "Is it okay to change religions?" I told him of course because it is not about religion. It is about God and truth. I prayed for him and left him. That was absolutely amazing! We talked for at least forty minutes.

Then I went to the bus stop to wait for the bus because the last bus left at 8:40 p.m. I still had some time so I went up to a group of four high school kids. There were two girls and two guys. All of them were acting extremely immature. As soon as I began talking to them one girl shouted out, "I'm a Muslim."
I said, "Cool," because I didn't want to get into an argument.
When she saw my response she said, "No, I'm Jewish."
I saw she was joking, so I just started talking to them. The boys wouldn't say a word, so I tried to ask them questions. Finally, one of them said, "I'm an athiest." Eventually, he distracted the other boy and they both walked off. The two girls stayed and the main one that was hungry to hear more was the one that had initially mocked me.
It turned out that the first girl was a Catholic that went to church every Sunday, but wasn't even sure if God existed. The other girl was a Christian girl that went to church every Sunday, but she later on asked me, "If God loves us so much, how could He send people to Hell?" And she stated that she thinks that people in other religions go to Heaven too. I began explaining to them the Gospel, but the second girl eventually walked off with the boys. I could see the first girl was struggling because she wanted to go with her friends, but she was truly wanting to know more. I explained the Gospel to her and challenged her to seek God and I could see that she was impacted. She had a bunch of questions and she really wanted to know more, but her bus came and they all had to leave.

Then I went to my bus stop and sat next to a totally decked-out punk girl. Her name was Alex. She was Filipino and she was actually quite pretty, but she looked so depressed and gloomy in her all black clothing and patches. Her entire pants, shirt, and jacket were all covered with band patches. and she had two lip rings. I just started talking to her and she was actually quite friendly though she really did seem to be depressed. I asked her what she believed in and I let her talk for quite a while. She told me that she was raised in the Catholic church, but when she was a young teenager she dyed here hair blue and everyone in the church rejected her, so she left and never went back. She still believed in God, but she believed in being open-minded to everything and that there is no absolute truth. I ended up telling her several things about God and eventually I told her the Gospel in full detail. She understood it and she confessed that she had never understood it before. What a shame! She had no idea why Jesus died on the cross. I encouraged her to seek God and read the Bible and she said that she would when she was older, but right now she's young and she doesn't want to worry about following God. I talked to her more. We talked for at least an hour because we talked throughout the entire bus ride. Although she enjoyed the conversation, she didn't seem to have been very impacted at all. However, she was extremely emotionless and expressionless about everything, so I really have no idea what took place in her heart.

When I got off the bus I went up to a black man to talk to him, but he was stone cold drunk and he didn't wast to listen to anything I had to say. He was quite hostile.

Fabian picked me up around 10:00 p.m. and that was the day. Yeehaw!

Frustration in La Jolla

2007-08-04T00:41:00.000-07:00

I'm back on the road again!!!

I was with The Cause for three weeks, but now I'm by mysself preaching the Gospel. I felt God leading me to get back on my mission, but Alex wanted to continue with The Cause until the San Francisco. I didn't want to force him to stay with me, so we separated for a short time. However, I'll meet back up with him in a week and a half in L.A.

Today was actually very, very hard. I haven't evangelized fro so long because we rarely did any evangelism with the Cause and the few times we did it was pretty minimal. Furthermore, I am alone and it is always harder to evangelize alone. Also, I evangelized in La Jolla (i.e. the Beverly Hills of San Diego) and it's pretty intimidating to talk to rich people sometimes.

I left my friend's house at about 1:30 p.m. and it took me an hour and a half to walk to the nearest bus stop. The bus was empty, so I started chit-chatting with Mark the bus driver. He saw my Bible and he asked me, "Wathca readin'?"
I answered, "The Bible. I follow Jesus with all my heart."
"That's a shame!" he frowned, "that book is a lie from beggining to end. Just one big, long lie. That's all."
We talked for about 45 minutes to an hour. He just continued ranting and raving against God, the Bible, the Gospel, creation, and Christianity. He was a Christian for much of his life and he actually read the Bible several times, but eventually he came to the conclusion that it was all false. In fact, he was truly trying to convert me to athiesm and he told me that he wished that the entire world would convert to athiesm because then the world would have a lot less problems. I told him that if the world was athiest it would be utter chaos.

What was horrible is that since I had not debated an intellectual for weeks I was not prepared at all to effectively talk with such a strong one. In fact, Mark might have been the most hard-core athiest I have ever talked to. I'm totally not exaggerating. I just wasn't ready for such a crazy conversation, so I ended up losing pretty badly. I was just incapable of properly anwering his questions and blasphemies.

The Devil used this conversation to ruin my confidence and focus for the day. No matter how much I would pray or read the Bible I just wouldn't feel ready or capable to preach. I got into downtown La Jolla around 5:30p.m. and I didn't preach to anyone until 9:30 p.m. It was absolutely horrible. Around 9 p.m. I called Fabian to pick me up and he ended up encouraging me a whole lot. He cuoldn't pick me up until 11 p.m., so I still had plenty of time to talk to people.

Finally I appoached a twenty-something year old drinking some beer. His name was Tyler. He was pretty friendly and we ended up having an awesome conversation. He had a very New Age philosophy, but he confessed that everything he's ever heard about Jesus he believes. So I explained to him the Gospel and challenged him to seek God. He was impacted and he said that he would look deeper into it and he would read the Bible. He had to go back to work, so I didn't get a chance to pray for him, but it was still awesome.

Then I was walking by a really, really fancy restaurant. Suddenly, a guy saw my Bible and asked me what I was reading. I told him and we started talking. His name was Mark and he was sitting with a woman named Virginia. Both of them were Catholics that frequently went to Mass. Mark kept asking me personal questions about my relationship with God and specific questions about the Bible. Both him and Virginia were touched by our conversation.

Next, I went up to a big guy named Bruce. We started talking, but then he had to go in the bar to play drums because he was part of the band playing there. He told me that I was in a real bad place to evangelize and I told him that I was in a prime place to evangelize. He smiled.

Eventually, Fabian came and I went home. I need a major breakthrough and I know it is coming. Hallelujah!

theres no wrong way....to preach the gospel (reeses rip off hehe)

2007-07-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

Theres many ways to preach the gospel. We took a different route on this particular day. Josh and I couldn't find a ride to downtown. But ower buddy alex ( fellow community member, he has a really rad beard) told us about an old lady named Dina who he visits. she has arthritis, and has an extremely difficult time getting around.Dina can barly move around, and she has no friends.She is such a beautiful person.The love in her heart for jesus radiates through the room, and penetrates all of us.Her house is full of the presence of God. A girl named faith lives with her on the weekend to keep her company and alex(the bearded alex) tries to visit her as much as he can.We sat around and talked about the LORD and many other things. I did her dishes , josh kept her smiling , and alex (the one with the beard) cooked us some rice and beans.I have to be honest with you, it was really horrible tasting and i accidentally drenched it in sugar thinking it was salt.Faith pointed me to the salt, and i felt really embarrassed but i tried not to show it. Alex (the one with the beard) likes to visit all the people in his neighborhood to offer a helping hand. Theres alot of people with disabilities around this area. I admire him so much for taking time out of his day just to make someone else smile. And he gets absolutely nothing out of it. Not money, not a pat on the back, not notoriety. He just does it out of the goodness of his heart, to let Christ shine through him. You know the bible says we shouldn't worry about riches on earth because moths and rust destroy ower possessions here. We need to store up ower riches in heaven where moths and rust do not destroy.(Matthew 6:19) I want to encourage anyone reading this to take up this offer. Take up this promise that jesus has revealed to us, and truly believe in it. Go out and do a random act of kindness, and don't tell anyone about it. Give away your TV to someone less fortunate, have a bar-b-q with a group of homeless people and share the gospel with them. Give away your car or your computer. Go into a poor neighborhood and offer to paint someones house for free.Have a bible study with the homeless.Remeber, its not the healthy who need a doctor, its the sick (mat 9:12). DO NOT give away your clothes to the salvation army. Find your favorite shirt/pants/shoes ect... and give it to someone who needs it, give it to them face to face. Spread the love of christ to all those who have no one left to love them back. Adopt a child who will otherwise starve and die. Visit the sick (matthew 25) . Its ower obligation as followers of Christ. Take time out of your daily life to make someone smile.Why do we only love those who love us back?? even the pagans love those who love them back! what reward shall we get for that?! and why do we only greet only ower brothers, what are you doing more than others?? (math 5).Hide money in strange places and write "jesus loves you" on the money. put the money in places like mail boxes, or under a rug, in a shoe ,nail it to a tree , or put it on someones car windshield.Buy a present and give it to a stranger. Store yourself riches in heaven. GO! NOW! and then come back and finish reading this....no im serious go!

After the dinner we went to church to get some good worship in ower system. We loaded up dina's electro wheel chair in the back of the truck and faith drove her to the church. The service was mind blowing. We danced with the holy spirit for a while worshiping God and then we listened to rick joyner (the head pastor) talk. His message was very prophetic. The things he said were a bit confidential. But it had a little to do with noahs ark and some insane manifestations of the lords power ::wink wink::....all i can say, is God is doing some CRAAAAAZY things in these last days!!! ah geez what exciting times to be living in. The LORD is almost back!! HOLD ON TIGHT.

Josh and I wanted to visit dina one last time before we left. There must be so many people just like her.It kills me on the inside thinking of how many people like dina have no one.Glory to God she has alex and faith,but imagine the people who have no one. Find someone like dina and take care of them. Dont waste your time at a club or in a house party, theres so many people out there in need of love. America has all the possessions in the world but we are dying of a deprivation of love. We are the light of the world so go shine. love someone who has no one to love them back. That is your Christian duty. Dont just preach the gospel, live it.

We hung out with dina for about 3-4 hours. Mainly we watched some videos of preachers and passed the time with jokes and stories. We went to her house with the intentions of blessing her. But it turned out that she blessed us, with her presence. Josh and I prayed for her healing, i know she is going to get healed. And she prayed for ower safe journey, we have a long way ahead of us, and who knows whats in store for us. Theres many ways to preach the gospel, this is just one method. I hope this encouraged you to go out and preach the gospel in your own way as well. If we dont, who will?

How God Provides

2007-06-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

A person that lives by faith, at least in my dictionary, is essentially a person that has no money, no house, no car, no other material possessions, and no job. They simply hear God tell them to do something and they obey knowing that God will provide them with clothing, shelter, food, and even money and/or a job.

I've often times read books about, heard about, and even met people who live by faith, but it always frustrated me that they would just tell one or two isolated incidents about how God would provide for their needs and the rest of the time they would just say "well, God provided". How did God provide?! Tell me! I want to know the nitty-gritty details. How did you eat every day? Did you eat every day? Where did you sleep each night? On the street? In a person's house? How did you get around? What about your wife and kids?

Well since I have always truly wanted to know what happened to people when they lived by faith I will be faithful in telling how God provided for Alex and I when I put my faith in Him alone.

First of all, I do have money in the bank, but God spoke to me specifically to trust in Him alone. So I left both my credit and debit card behind. Also, I felt specifically from God that I was never to ask anyone for food, money, or shelter, not even other Christians.

So on the day I left I went with nothing in my pockets except an empty wallet. However, when I was about to step onto the Greyhound Bus my mom, with tears in her eyes, insisted, "Here Joshua. Take this son. Please take this!" Although I had not wanted any help from my family on this trip I humbly took the $40 because I could not bear to reject my nearly weeping mother.

Ultimately, then, I started this trip with $40 in my pocket. And boy did they help. Those $40 enabled me to have some food to eat.

The first day in Orlando I preached all day and night until 11 p.m. No one offered me a place to stay, so I slept on the street. On the second day I already was somewhat desperate to get a place to stay after experiencing the worst night of my life. I met an on fire Christian and asked him if there was anyone in his church that would be willing to host me. He said that he didn't know and he gave me a card of his church with directions on the back. I went to the church in hopes that they were having a meeting that night, but they didn't have one. However, they were having band practice. I saw a woman standing outside. I told her about the man I met and the card he gave me and I asked if anyone could provide a place for me to stay in. She was very sorry that there was no way she could help, but she gave me $20 to help me get a motel room for that night and invited me to the church meeting the next night. Unfortunately, I only had about $35 total now, so there was no motel room I could afford. Therefore, I slept on a huge lawn of grass. It was actually quite nice. These to instances were the only times in this entire trip where I asked someone for anything because immediately afterwards God rebuked me for my anxiety and ordered me to not ask anyone ever again and only trust in Him. I surrendered The following night I went to the same church to attend their meeting. Everyone was so kind to me and the pastor even allowed me to speak briefly, but no one gave me a place to stay. However, the pastor gave me $20 and one of the youth gave me $5. Thus, I slept on the lawn again.

There is one thing I must tell you. I do not say this to boast or impress anyone, but solely to help people better understand my day-to-day living. Throughout this entire trip, even until now, Alex and I have been fasting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in order to be totally surrendered to God and dead to ourselves. I did not do this with finances in mind, but fasting did end up greatly lowering the cost of this trip. Thus, so far in this story I have only eaten for one day: Tuesday. The other two days I fasted. Therefore, my funds did not disappear very quickly because of that.

On the fourth day a man named Greg came up to me and eventually invited me to stay at his house. He was pretty poor, so he didn't have much to eat. I told him that I would pay for my own meals and I did. Twice Greg gave me a hot dog and once or twice I had come cereal out of eight or nine days being with him. Also, Tatton, Greg's neighbor, gave me some food once or twice. Thus, I payed for lunch and dinner everyday that I wasn't fasting and I was constantly paying for bus fares.

By the end of the first week God had provided me a place to stay and money to eat and transport myself on buses. However, now that I had a place to stay no one pitied me anymore and it seemed like no one was going to donate money to me anymore. So on Sunday morning I looked in my wallet to see how much money I had after taking the bus for two hours in order to get to church. I had $25. This was the smallest amount of money I have had on the trip thus far. So far, I have not had less than $25. Hallelujah! That Sunday morning I was somewhat worried, but I prayed and asked God to provide believing that he would. As soon as I walked into the church Lourdes hugged me; served me breakfast; and gave me two loaves of Cuban bread, a box of Argentinean pastries, and $20. Hallelujah! The church served free lunch that day and Lourdes invited me over for dinner. After dinner, she gave me another $20.

On Monday, Greg gave me $100. I was shocked and felt humbled and unworthy to accept it. Here is a man hat has already helped me so so much. He has three homeless people living in his house. He has no job. He lives off of disability paychecks every month because he's paralyzed. That was the holiest $100 I have ever received in my life.

On Tuesday, I received a jacket that my mom had sent me through mail because I had forgotten to bring one. In the jacket was $70. Sixty from my mom and ten from the lady at the post office that was touched by my mission when my mom told her about it.

On Wednesday, I preached to a bunch of black guys playing basketball at a park. One of the guys was an on fire Christian. He really respected me for what I did that day, so he gave me $20.

On Sunday, I only had $25, but three days later I had more than $200. Praise God!

After being with Greg for six days I went to Lourdes' house. At her house, I had breakfast each morning and she would always cook an exquisite dinner for everyone. It was like eating at a five star restaurant every night. Throughout this time I was still spending money constantly for meals and especially for bus fairs. I took the bus absolutely everywhere. I ended up buying a $12 seven-day bus pass, which saved me a lot of money. When I left Lourdes house a week later she gave me a $25 gift certificate for Wal-Mart.

For the next week and a half I spent in Orlando no one gave me any money. Thus, by the end of my time there I had a little more than $100 remaining. I was going to spend it on a bus fair to Jacksonville, but then my parents offered to pick me up in Orlando and take me with them to Atlanta. They weren't going to Atlanta for me. It was for a completely different reason, but it ended up that I just happened to be conveniently on the road to their destination. Thus, I didn't have to pay for a bus fare. This saved me about $70. Also, Alex came along with my parents, so he didn't have to pay for anything either.

In Atlanta, the entire first weekend was paid for because my family was there.

On Monday, my parents left and Alex and I were left with Nilton. Nilton took us to a meeting that he hosts at the Atlanta Vineyard that night. We preached there and someone came up to us at the end of the meeting and gave us $50.

Nilton served us breakfast each morning and took us out to eat several times. In fact, in Atlanta, we were treated like kings. Our stomachs were constantly full because people would take us out to eat or they would feed us at their church and/or home. We stayed in Atlanta for three and a half weeks and we probably paid for a meal six or seven times. We spent a good amount of income on bus and train fares. However, all the money we spent was completely overshadowed by the huge blessings that God had in store for us.

On Tuesday, Nilton hosted a men's prayer meeting. We spoke about our vision and the men were greatly touched and challenged. At the end of the meeting one man came to me and gave me an envelope with $40 in it and another man came by and slipped me an envelope with $200 in it. We couldn't believe it. We were totally shocked.

If I were to add up all of the donations given to us without counting the money we spent it would come out to be $620. Thus, in three and a half weeks we had already received $620. That is insane. Hallelujah!

However, the best was yet to come.

From Tuesday until the next Wednesday we received nothing, but we already had quite an abundance anyway. So we weren't worried one bit. However, God just wanted to bless us off our socks.

That Thursday night, we preached in a Brazilian church that had about eighty people there. The people were extremely impacted. Then the pastor did something that I would never have expected or even dreamed of happening. He asked the church to give a love offering to us. The people joyously gave to us. That night we received $554. WHOA!!! We had never expected that! We were completely overwhelmed by their love and generosity. We felt so unworthy of what they were giving us, yet the would feel mocked if we refused to receive it. I honestly don't see how any preacher could ever get rich off of offerings or treat them lightly. In order for such a thing to happen much corruption would have to enter one's heart. I was so deeply humbled at such an offering and I realized that this money was sacred and I should never misspend it. That would be a horrible sin against God, the people, and myself.

On Sunday, that same Brazilian church gave us another offering even though we didn't preach this time.

Furthermore, another smaller Brazilian church that we preached at four times gave us an offering.

Also, a few individuals gave us very generous offerings.

When we left Atlanta we had more than $2,000 with us. Never once did we ask or expect money. Glory to God!!! Glory be to God alone!!! HE is awesome and more than faithful!!!

We opened up a savings account and put most of our money in it. We only kept a portion to have as spending money. I seriously prayed and asked God if he wanted us to act as if all the money that was now in the bank did not exist. We would only spend the money that we had extracted from the account to use for expenses. All the money in the account would be used to pay for the expenses of our book that we want to publish at the end of the trip and for starting up our organization. I made this prayer because I wanted to continue depending on God alone throughout this entire trip and I felt that now that we had so much money we didn't have to rely on Him anymore. However, as soon as I opened up my Bible God gave me a very specific word about not being a religious Pharisee, but being practical and real when necessary. So I tossed that thought away and just thanked God for His abundant provision of faithfulness.

We spent $100 to go to Charlotte on the Greyhound.

In Charlotte, we received a place to stay on the second night we arrived. We were invited to stay at The Call and The Cause headquarters for free. Until now, Alex and I are still at The Cause base in a cabin full of on fire young men.

The first Sunday we were here a man we met at the Morning Star Fellowship gave us $100. I was amazed! Praise God! Also, the day before that a man from The Cause gave us $10.

We have actually had to spend quite a bit of money in Charlotte because at the cabin it's every man for himself. Thus, the only meal we ever get for free is breakfast. However, in the past few days we have cooked our own meals from the food that one of the guys left us. We spent more money here than in any other city because we had to buy lunch and dinner almost everyday for both Alex and I, we didn't fast for three of the days that we usually do, we stayed at a motel the first night, we bought some groceries, we bought some supplies, we used the bus a lot, and on one night it was my birthday and I went to a nice restaurant.

Now that we have decided to go on the Summer of Love Tour with The Cause I see why God provided so much money for us. The Tour will cost about $400 a person and we would never have been able to go on this trip if it weren't for the offerings we received in Atlanta. Praise God!

Someone might think that it is foolish of me to be so candid and transparent about the financial aspect of our trip, but I think it is absolutely necessary. I believe that their is practicality in spirituality. I cannot only show the spiritual side of this trip. I must also show the practical side of it. I think that the church has a right to know where there offerings go and I want to be very real and transparent about every dollar we receive and spend because it is not my money. It is God's money. May God alone be glorified and praised! Hallelujah!

Reality Check

2007-06-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up, exercised a bit, and had a great time of prayer. I ended up finishing my time of prayer around 1 p.m. Alex and I got ready, found directions to go to Eastland Mall (the ghetto mall of Charlotte), and we left.

For the past three dayswe have been using a friend of a friend's car. Alex is our friend and he is borrowing the car of his friend Ben. Both Ben and Alex are very chill, hippyish guys, so Alex let us use the car whenever we needed it. It has helped us immensely. It's hard to always be depending on other people for rides, but that's just how we live during this trip. I just have to humble myself and accept it. Several times I have wanted to evangelize all night long especially on the weekends, but since we are dependant on rides we'll have to be picked up or meet up with our host at 6 p.m. or 8 p.m. even on a Saturday night. Sometimes I wish we could just stay on the streets, so that we could evangelize to the maximum capacity possible, but sleeping on the streets totally sucks. You could never get e descent night of sleep, you could never shower, and you truly fell like you're the scum of the earth. All the Christians I've stayed with so far, except for Greg, live in the outskirts of the city where there are no buses. Thus, we are completelel dependent and sometimes it bites.

Anyways, so today we left with the car that Alex has been letting us borrow. However, the ignition keyhole just wouldn't turn. It's been like that the entire time we've been using the car and most of the time it takes two or three minutes for the key to actually turn the ignition and start the car. However, this time it took 25 minutes for us to get the key to twist the ignition. Both Alex and I felt that maybe God didn't want us to go with this car or perhaps He didn't want us to go preach at all today. The thought was absurd, so I shrugged it off and called it an attack of the devil to stop us from preaching today. We persevered and finally the key turned and the car started. Once the car would start it would run perfectly, so we never worried about car problems. After being on the road for about five minutes we the car suddenly died in the middle of Interstate 77. Luckily, we were on the most left lane and I was able to simply pull over on the side of the highway, but the car was completly and utterly dead. The engine wouldn't even rev. To make a long story short, the road service came by, but couldn't help us because the said that our starter was shot. Then some friends called a tow truck to come and tow us back to The Cause base. All this took about three hours. After being stuck in burning hot, humid weather without any water and complicated circumstances we were completely drained and hungry.

We arrived at the base around 5 p.m. and we were completely stripped of our present funds (we have lots of funds in a bank account we opened, but we had no way of getting to a bank) because the tow truck charged us $75. Since we had no money to eat out I found a bunch of random foods around the bachelor pad and cooked up a home made meal. It was great. We had Jambalaya Rice, burnt plantains, fried potatoes, and water. Pretty random, right? We had a very good philosophical discussion with some of our roomates about anarchy, government, submission to authority, and the falseness of rebellious freedom. I think we all learned some great lessons.

At 7 p.m., we went to a conference meeting at Morning Star. The worship was absolutely off the chain. Leonard Jones ripped on the guitar, Suzy Wills sung her lungs out, and the violinist played the best live violin I have ever heard in my life. Everyone was dancing as if they were high on drugs. It was pretty wierd, but it was beautiful. Alex and I did some capoeira and worshipped God. It was great.

I'm still trying to figure out why today happened like it did. I spent some time alone in prayer asking god why everything happened like it did and I felt like He was telling me: "I want to get your attention. You've lost faith in hearing my voice. You don't even try anymore. I want you to stop and listen." I think there's more to why today was like it was, but that sure was a powerful message to my soul.

Sorry that there wasn't much action today, but that's life right? Sometimes reality isn't picture perfect. It bites sometimes.

Southpark Mall

2007-06-27T19:55:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to sleep past 2 a.m., so I woke up at 9:20 a.m. this morning. I had a glorious morning in God's presence. I had a deep time of intercession. I began by praying for Brooke and this led me to pray for my family, Brooke's family, my disciples, my extended family in Brazil, my friends, my unsaved friends, my disciples' cell groups, Miami, Charlotte, The Call, the Summer of Love Tour, the future army of itinerant preachers, the end of abortion, revival in America, revival in Brazil, an awakening in the American church, and revival in all the world. I prayed deeply for all these things without ceasing. Before I knew it Alex came rushing to me and told me that we had to go because it was already 2 p.m. We quickly filled out the applications for the Summer of Love Tour and turned them in.

At 3 p.m. we left for Southpark Mall. It's supposed to be the rich mall of Charlotte, but it looked just like all the other ones to me. I took a few tracks for atheists today because I felt that we would run into several of them toady. Sure enough the first person I walked up to was an atheist who didn't want to talk at all, so I gave him a track made specifically for atheists and he began reading it and thanked me. However, he still didn't want to talk. Furthermore, the first person Alex walked up to was an atheist, but he actually did talk with Alex. At the end of the conversation Alex gave him an atheist track also.

After being rejected a few times, I walked outside of the mall to see if there was anyone hanging out there. Sure enough there was a girl dressed in all black smoking a cigarette. She looked somewhat Gothic, but it turned out that her black clothes was just her uniform for work and she was simply taking a break off of work. That is why we should never ever judge. She looked mean, but she turned out to be one of the nicest, most open-hearted people I have met on this trip. Our conversation was definitely one of the best I've had in the entire trip.

I started out by asking Sarah (her name) if she had a relationship with God. She said that she didn't. Her grandma took her to church when she was a child and she went to come youth camps, but she never felt connected to God during that time. So as she grew up she dissociated herself from Christianity and although she is still open to it she really has no idea what the truth is. I explained to her how I also was raised in church and never felt connected to God for many years. I told her how I became connected to God and truly began following Him. She saw that I was able to relate to her situation and was very amazed by my honest testimony. I asked her if she believed in Jesus and what He did for her on the cross. She said that she would like to believe in Him, but was not able to. I asked if I could explain why I believe in Jesus and she gave me permission and listened very attentively. I preached the Gospel to her, but it was hard for her to grasp. However, as soon as I would give her a down to earth analogy to explain what I was trying to say she would fully understand my point. After explaining everything to her she complimented me saying that I was really gifted in breaking things down to make them easy to understand. I honestly explained to her how I struggled with atheism and doubting the Bible at a certain time in my life. I had to grapple with life's toughest questions and question all my beliefs. However, it was then that I objectively came to realize why I believed in all that I believed and now I have more faith in Christianity then ever before. Nothing could shake my faith now. She was very touched by my personal stories. I prayed for her and when I opened my eyes she was staring at me as if she had just seen an angel. I asked her if she wanted to give her life to Jesus. She wanted to, but she was scared of what her family would think and say. I explained to her why we should love God more than even our family and she understood. However, she just didn't feel totally ready yet even though her heart was saying yes to Jesus. She thanked me sincerely and went back to work. I know it's only a matter of time before she gives her life to Jesus.

This is what I desire to do. I want to be like Jesus and I want to bring the Gospel to people on the streets in such a way that they could have a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit right then and there. I always wondered why we invite people to church, camps, conferences, and special meetings in order to have an encounter with God when the Spirit of God lives in us already. Why does my faith limit God by believing that people could only truly encounter God in a meeting. I want the Holy Spirit to flow through me in such a way that people could encounter Him right then and there as I speak to them and pray for them. That is what I believe took place in this conversation. It was glorious. Hallelujah!

Later on, I talked with a Buddhist guy named Chai. He is Cambodian, but he was born in Thailand and raised in Asheville, NC. When I approached him he was talking with an White American couple. The guy he was with claimed to be an Episcopalian, but really knew very little about God and the girl was really annoyed by me because she seemed to really want her boyfriends attention. Pretty soon, the couple rudely walked off and I just stayed talking with Chai. He was pretty familiar with the Gospel, but he still called himself a Buddhist. In reality, he seemed to be more of a Christian than a Buddhist. He believed in God, a judgement once we die, the afterlife, and he really respected Jesus. However, he didn't know or understand the Gospel really. I preached the Gospel to him and the entire time he was agreeing with everything I was saying. However, when I asked him if he believed in it all he said that he pretty much did, but he didn't want to become a Christian because then he would be betraying his family, culture, and heritage. I told him that he could remain with his culture, but he must love God more than the Buddhist beliefs he has been raised believing. If the Gospel and the Bible are true then he must put his faith in Jesus and repent of his sins. I even explained to him that many of Buddha's teachings don't contradict the teaching of Christ, but some do. He definitely had the desire to put his faith in Jesus, but he was too scared of what his family would say. Soon the couple returned and kept nagging him to stop talking to me, so eventually he left with them. However, all that needed to be said was spoken.

Almost all the other people I spoke with were real Christians. All of them were convicted and inspired to see what I was doing. I challenged them all to preach the Gospel and live radically for Christ and several of them were very convicted. Others just wished me luck on my mission. I am truly amazed at how many Christians and church-goers there are in Charlotte. Practically everyone I have talked to that was born and raised in Charlotte is either a Christian, a hypocrite that goes to church, or a backslider that no longer goes to church. It seems like the only people who are not in the latter three categories are people that moved to Charlotte from other states in the USA and immigrants from other nations. This is truly part of the Bible belt. Moreover, from the first day of preaching the Gospel hear I feel like Charlotte's spiritual doors are open to God. I don't know how to explain it. In each city I've been to I am able to sense the spiritual atmosphere of the city. In certain places like Athens, GA and South Beach I would feel a strong spiritual atmosphere of oppression and witchcraft. However, I have never felt so much freedom and easiness to preach the Gospel in any city I've ever been to more than I have in Charlotte. Here even the people that reject me do it so kindly and respectfully and people of other religions are totally open to hear the Gospel. It's amazing. I'm sure some of it has to do with Southern culture, but I honestly believe that for many reasons there is an open heaven over Charlotte to preach the Gospel. In Atlanta and the other cities it was so common to get rejected, but here it is extremely rare to get rejected at all. The sad thing is that so, so many people go to church or have gone to church for most of their lives, but many people are still lost. I am convinced that if the churches in Charlotte become revived then all of Charlotte could be saved because probably 75% of the people go to church and the rest of the population is very open to Jesus. Charlotte seems to be the perfect city to raise ones kids because it is so moral, clean, safe, and well-mannered. It is truly a wonderful city, but I could never live here because it's just too good. I want to live in a city that is so desperately sinful that it would be considered impossible for God to ever transform it. Those are the type of places I want to live in because I know that God wants to turn those places upside down and turn them into righteous cities of God for His glory.

We finished evangelizing at 9 p.m. and went home. What a day.

Summer of Love

2007-06-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Today we woke up really late and we were kind of sluggish for most of the day. It sucked, but the day was great.

I was still somewhat discouraged about going on the Summer of Love tour because of the residue remaining on my mind from the previous night's debate. However, Alex spoke several encouraging words to me and that helped. We basically decided that there were so many signs from God that it was His will for us to go that we would go unless there was a clear Word from God that we are not suppossed to go. We went to the office to use the computer for a bit and Chuck, the leader of the Summer of Love tour, randomly walked up to us and told us all about the tour, invited us to go, and told us that he would "let us loose" to evangelize in all the cities we go to. He did this without knowing that we were seriously praying about going on the trip or even that we knew about the trip at all. I took it as a confirmation from God that it is His will for us to go.

Let me explain what the Summer of Love tour is. On 7/7/7 there is going to be a massive prayer event called "The Call" in the LP Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. The day after The Call a tour called the Summer of Love is going to begin. For a little over one month hundreds (anywhere from 500 to 1,000) of young people are going to travel on buses, cars, and RV's from Nashville to San Francisco. They are going to stop in eight major cities. In each city they are going to pray, intercede, fast, worship, prophesy, preach the Gospel, give food to the poor, and preach in churches. Several worship bands will be coming including Leonard Jones from Morning Star and they will have a portable stage to set up anywhere and everywhere in every city we go to on the trip. The hippie movement in the 60's began in San Francisco with about one thousand people who came together and experienced a "summer of love". When they returned to their hometowns they spread this philosophy of sex, drugs, peace, tolerance, and the New Age and it spread like wildfire. That is how the hippie movement was birthed. So Lou Engle and others have the faith that this Summer of Love tour could birth a righteous Jesus movement in America and in the nations of the world.

I had planned to go to "The Call" from the outset of our trip, but although I had heard about the Summer of Love tour I didn't really understand what it was until we arrived here at The Call headquarters in Charlotte. Now we really see this as a divine appointment from God. I'm sure that Lou Engle would love to hear the vision that God has given us and I believe that through him huge doors will be opened to preach to radical youth across America who will become a part of the army of itinerant preachers that God is raising up. Also, I believe that dozens or even hundreds of the people in the tour will be convicted and inspired to become itinerant preachers also. I thought it would take many years to raise up an army of itinerant preachers, but it seems like God is opening the doors and causing the army to be raised up within a short time because we are in a time of absolute emergency. Praise God! If it is his will then so be it.

So now Alex and I are seriously considering going and we are, in fact, quite decided that we will go. My brother and Brooke, my girlfriend, have both decided that they are going for sure and their parents have allowed them to go. Now my cousin, my disciples, and several of my friends in Miami are all seriously considering going on this trip. So we might have a whole bandwagon of Miamians going on this trip. Praise God!

Please be in prayer for us for God to show us His perfect will for us. Currently, we are planning to go on this trip, which will only last one month and then buy a plane ticket to Philadelphia to continue our trip up the East Coast.

So anyways, we left the base at 3 p.m. to evangelize. I spent some time reading my Bible once we got to downtown, but Alex began evangelizing right away. Also, Alex decided to fast today, but I didn't. So he talked to a lot more people then I did today. Alex spoke to about twenty people while I only spoke to six. Furthermore, I called my disciple and talked to him for quite a long while.

My first conversation was with a Sudanese Muslim. He is the first homeless Muslim man I ever met. He is perfectly sane too. He told me that he enjoyed hearing people talk about God, so he was extremely open and kind as I explained to him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It seemed like he was a pretty dedicated Muslim, but he still would go to Bible studies sometimes. He believed in and respected Jesus, but he had no clue of what the Gospel was and why Jesus was the Saviour of the world. However, after I explained to him the entire Gospel I asked him if he understood and believed in what I was saying. He said that he did. I asked him if he wanted to give his life to Jesus and repent of his sins and he said that he did. I clarified to him that Jesus is the only way and explained why and he perfectly understood and agreed that only through the blood of Jesus could he be saved. However, he continued to hold on to the Koran and Mohammad. I explained to him that the teachings of Mohammad and Jesus can't be simultaneously true and I tried to persuade him that Mohammad was a false prophet, but no matter what I said he would not be dissuaded. It was an interesting conversation. He told me that I should go to the Charlotte Islamic Center and speak to the Muslims there, so maybe we will. I prayed for him and left. So he ended up believing in the Gospel, but holding onto Islam. I know God will guide him.

After eating dinner, I spoke to three skaters. They were extremely rude at first, but eventually they really opened up and asked lots of questions. In fact, one of the three guys got up and ran away screaming as if he were some demon- possessed psycho. The wheel from his skateboard flew off when he did that, so the other guys laughed at him and said he was cursed by God. Also, a little while later one of the guys started questioning God's morals and all of a sudden thunder blasted even though it was a sunny day. It was really crazy and the guys were kind of freaked out. We talked for about an hour. One of the guys just kept asking tons of questions and he was so hungry to know the truth, but he had very little patience to hear the explanations to his questions. He would ask one question and as soon as I was finishing my first sentence of response he would ask another question. The converation kind of bounced around because of his so many questions, but overall it was great. They were all very intrigued by God, but they were all very confused.

Later on, I met Vince. Vince is a young man that is a homeless crack addict that was born and raised in the church. However, he didn't appear to be homeless and he was still completely sane. I don't know how to explain it, but after talking to him for a while I know that he is saved, but he is bound by a demon of addiction. He knows the truth and believes it all wholeheartedly, but he is addicted to cocaine. So I asked him if I could pray that God would set him free from the demon of drug addiction and he said yes. So I prayed for him very strongly and I believe that he was delivered. Amen

It sure was a great day. Hallelujah.

My 20th Birthday

2007-06-26T20:20:00.000-07:00

June 25, 1987- June 25, 2007

I am now two decades old. I am one fifth of a century old: 20. That's pretty old. It's time to get serious now. No more playing around. No more excuses. It is time to conquer my destiny and live in the fullness of my calling.

I wrote a letter to God for my birthday thanking Him for these twenty years of life he has given me. I spent most of the day with Him. I've never had a birthday where it was just me and God in the middle of the woods. It was truly awesome.

At 6:30p p.m. we went grocery shopping because the cabin we are staying with is essentially a bachelor's pad where every individual buys their own food and shares it with no one. One of the guys let us have all of his food since he was leaving, but most of it was canned foods, so we went out and bought some basic groceries for ourselves.

Then me, Alex, and a friend who I will leave unnamed went to Buca Di Beppo's for my birthday. It was great. Most of the waitresses are going to The Call and our waiter was a lukewarm Christian. We arrived there around 9:15 p.m., so eventually the restaraunt closed, but the workers conintued working whil we ate. So we got to talk with our waiter about Jesus. It was great. They even gave us $10 off of our bill. They were really nice to us.

On the way back to the cabin I began telling our friend our vision for raising up an army of itinerant preachers. However, I immediately felt tension in the air as I started to explain him the vision. When I finished telling him everything he immediately began derailing the entire vision. He said that the United States already has tons of people preaching the Gospel and that it is absolutely foolish, ignorant, and a waste of time and energy to raise up an army of itinerant preachers in America. This was the first time that one of our own brothers in Christ both disagreed and went against our vision. It was a total shock to me, but I knew it would come one day. I just didn't expect it to come from an on fire young man of God who I had grown to truly love and respect. He claimed that America doesn't need to hear the Gospel because everyone already knows it. They just need more revived churches. We told him about our experiences and how 85% to 90% of the people we spoke with every day were not saved. We talked to him about all the athiests, agnostics, homosexuals, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, New Agers, Jews, Religious Pluralists, and backslidden Christians, but he completely disregarded our experience and our claim that the United States is in a spiritually dire state of emergency. Instead, he argued with us about our doctrine concerning the Gospel. He believed someone is saved by saying a prayer and that even if they continue living in a completely decadent lifestyle of sin they are still saved. We claimed that if a person continues living a lifestyle of sin then they never truly repented and that "if anyone claims to have fellowshisp with Him yet walks in darkness, they lie and do not live by the truth" (1 John 1:6). We quoted several Scriptures to him about the necessity of true repentance, but he continually quoted one verse alone: "If you confess with your mouth... and believe in your heart...that Jesus is Lord... you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). He claimed that our version of repentance translated into salvation by works, but we told him that his version of repentance translated into saying: "Just repeat this little prayer after me and you'll have eternal life no matter what. You can do whatever you want for the rest of your life and just because you said that twenty second prayer fifteen years ago you are still saved." I really don't enjoy theological debates, especially amongst the family of God, but this is an issue that must be addressed. I genuinely believe that the latter statement is a modern heresy that has entered the American church and allowed hypocrisy and lifestyles of sin to thrive in our congregations. No one is saved by a mere utterance of a few repeated words. A soul could only be saved by complete faith in the death and ressurection of Jesus and a genuine repentance of one's sins. So many people we speak to believe in Jesus, yet continue to live lifestlyes of lies, fornication, doubt, drug usage, drunkenness, lust, violence, homosexuality, laziness, blasphemy, hatred, jealousy, pride, greed, selfishness, and the like. They don't read the Bible, they only say five second prayers, and they regularly, occasionally, or never go to a church service. I fear for such people, yet my heart goes out to them. I fear for them that they will be those people that Jesus talks about in Matthew 10:21-23 who will say 'Lord, Lord' , but He will tell them plainly, "I never knew you. Away from Me, you evildoers!" However, what is tragic is that it is not necessarily their fault because many churches in America are teaching these same people that as long as you say the 'Sinner's Prayer' you can sin all you want and you are still saved. That is a heresy and is leading many people straight into Hell even though they think they are going directly up to Heaven.

Now, I don't want to paint a dark picture of my friend. He is an awesome man of God who will be used powerfully to do great things for God. I love him and he is still my friend. It was just in this interpretation of the Gospel that we had a sharp disagreement.

This episode somewhat disilussioned Alex and I about going on the Summer of Love Tour, but we concluded that it was all just an attack from the devil to try to discourage us from going. So we forgave and brushed it away and we apologized to our friend for our debate.

Even though my 20th birthday ended on a sour note it was still awesome and I know that this will be the greatest year I have ever lived thus far.

Breakthrough!

2007-06-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

06/23/07

Today we had a powerful breakthrough in our obedience towards God and overcoming the fear of man.

At 7:30 a.m. in the morning we met up with about twenty people from The Cause to go siege an abortion clinic in Charlotte. This abortion clinic had a pro-choice demonstration planned for today, so The Cause gathered up some people at the last minute to siege the clinic. The term ‘siege’ is used to basically say that we are going to pray, intercede, and do spiritual warfare against abortion as we stand, kneel, and sit in front of the clinic itself. We pray for abortion to end; the clinic to close down; the women in the clinic that day not to perform the abortions they plan to carry out; for the governing authorities over the city, state, and nation; for the abortionists to be saved; and the like. However, all this is done in complete silence. All of us tape our mouths with large red tape that has the word “LIFE” written on it. This is done because we recognize that the battle is spiritual and not carnal. So instead of yelling and picketing against abortion we tape our mouths in to symbolically embody the unborn babies who cannot speak and we intercede for them and wage war against the kingdom of darkness.

When we arrived at the clinic there were already dozens of other people there. There were three distinct groups that had no clue that the other was going to show up and had nothing to do with each other in their methods of protesting against abortion. From our group alone there were about fifty people there (I actually counted them). There was also a small Catholic group of about seven or eight people who constantly repeated the same prayer to Mary probably about sixty or seventy times (I’m not exaggerating at all). Furthermore, there was a large group of conservative Evangelicals in front of the clinic who held many graphic posters of aborted babies and had many picket signs with powerful phrases on them. The sign that impacted me the most was one that only three of the women held up that stated, “I Regret My Abortion.” That is a powerful statement. You can’t really contend with that one. There was a line made that no one could pass. On the other side of the line stood four cops, the owner of the clinic, and the people who would walk by to enter the facility. However, whenever someone would walk into the clinic there was a certain man that had a sign that said “Thou Shall Not Kill” and he would follow the woman or couple as far as he can yelling, “In the name of Jesus Thou Shall Not Kill. Do not kill your baby.” He would repeat phrases like this one until the person finally entered into the clinic. Moreover, the pastor got as close as he could to the door and began yelling out a sermon against abortion, pleading with the people to not abort their babies. Once he started he and a few other men after him yelled sermons for more than three hours straight. It was a really intense and hostile atmosphere. The owner of the clinic just sat there and ate her lunch in front of the heckling preachers as she read a book. I must admit, she was tough. I really didn’t like the method and spirit of the heckling preachers, yet I cannot judge them for their passion and anger against abortion. In fact, the pastor that began the heckling is actually the man brought the woman from Roe v. Wade to Jesus by yelling in her face just as he did today. If someone doesn’t consider an unborn baby to be a living child whether one week old or eight months old then obviously one would consider all that I described above as total fanaticism and stupidity. However, if one does believe that an unborn child is a living being whether one week old or eight months old then it is only right to raise up a fierce outcry against such an unfathomable, barbaric injustice. I believe that an unborn baby is a living being and, thus, it is a horrific, murderous act to abort a baby and such a holocaust must be ended at all costs. This is not at all a political issue. It is a matter of justice, morality, and truth. I honestly don’t see how someone that supports abortion could ever be horrified by a woman that throws her baby in a trash can immediately after giving birth to the baby because that is what is happening every day in abortion clinic throughout America.

We prayed from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. without ceasing. It was truly powerful. I have always hated abortion, but today God gave me a burden to pray against abortion like I never had before. Actually being in front of an abortion clinic and feeling a spirit of death, murder, arrogance, and depression over the place opened my eyes to show me that abortion clinics are truly houses of death. I must end. It must. Around noon, we all prayed together and shared what God had spoken to us during the four hours of prayer. We also had communion. It was such a powerful experience. However, a pro-choice group never actually came, so it was just us.

Around 1 p.m. Matt, the leader of the day, dropped us of at the Carolina Place Mall. When we got there we ate lunch, spent time with God because we hadn’t had time to be alone with God yet, and we called our friends and family. I actually spoke with Brooke for three hours. I know that sounds like way too much time, but it isn’t because my cell phone plan only gives free weekends, so I’m not able to speak with Brooke or my family all week long because I have so few minutes on my plan. Therefore, although three hours is a lot it was absolutely necessary and glorious because I am absolutely in love with this woman who is my future wife and she deserves all the time that I can possibly give her. This is an aspect that I and perhaps others don’t think of when going on a mission trip. When I think of a mission trip I think of some hard-core, never-ending mission to do the will of God. We are doing this and living with this kind of mentality. However, I have come to realize that I am still a human and I still need to rest, eat, sleep, talk to the people I stay with, and keep in contact with the people I love. I do not consider that time spent talking with Brooke to be a disruption of distraction from my mission at all. It was wonderful and important. If I don’t take breaks every once in a while I can’t go on. My body, mind, and soul could only do and take so much.

Alex began talking with people around 2:30 p.m. because he talked to his mom first while I waited for him for one hour and a half. Then I talked with Brooke until 5:30 p.m.

Then Alex took a one hour and a half long break while I talked to people about Jesus. In reality I only spoke to one man the entire time. His name was Paul and he was 51 years old. He was a hippie and although he dresses as a business man he still is one to this day. He didn’t believe in Jesus at all. The only person he believed in was a super famous Yogi whose name I can’t remember. When he was nineteen he read this yogi’s autobiography and ever since he has adamantly followed his ways. He explained to me his beliefs. Then I explained to him mine. He tried to find many ways to get around the Gospel message, but I constantly rebutted his statements and showed him why Jesus is the only way to Heaven. He understood my explanations and, eventually, could not refute them, but he refused to accept them.

glory glory glory to GOD

2007-06-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, Alex here writing to you crazy cats from North Carolina. Now I know what you're saying "i thought you were going to south carolina". Well, we did and the lord lead us to North carolina the next day!!!! ALOT x 100 has happened in the past few days. I plan on writing about it, but I just want to give you guys a quick update of what's going down at the moment.We will get to all the other enounters with demonic forces and principalities in the next few entries. We barely have access to computers though. We left Nilton's house and boarded the Greyhound. We arrived to North Carolina, did lots of evangelism, and looked for a place to sleep. Josh and I decided to go to Morning Star church to worship with them. To make a long story VERY VERY short, we found out "the call" is right next to Morning Star church, and Lou Engle (an absolutely phenomenal deeply anointed by GOD preacher) lives right next door. We meet Chuck ( one of the head coordinators of "The Call") he gives us a place to stay, and now here we are hanging out with some beautiful on fire for God kids. Thank you Jesus for taking care of us. We didn't have a place to stay, we were right about to sleep in the forest , but God made us cross paths with Chuck. Josh and I and extremly grateful. Thank you Lord Jesus. I believe we are hanging out with the next prophets, healers, eveneglists, and missionaries of the world.

We went to downtown Charlotte to evagelize. It was amazing, but I don't want to get into to much detail about it right now. We walked up the streets and we ran into a street preacher shouting at the top of his lungs in the middle of the downtown area. Many people looked at him like he was crazy. We didnt think he was. We approached him, and the man was BLAZING ON FIRE for God. He couldnt even slow down. The man was about 60 + years old and he was talking faster than the speed of light. We spoke for a LONG time.He was quoting scrpiture faster than we could keep up with him. He was fascinating.He told us about some of his encounters with Jesus and it blew us away. My jaw dropped. He says he even was cought up in heaven and saw the Lord himself. If that won't get you preaching in the streets, then I don't know what will!!!I know he isn't crazy. and according to him, World War 3 is going to commence in 2007. So I guess by the end of 2007 we are going to find out whether he is a false prophet, a lunatic, or a true man of God. He was very nice and humble, he only shouts so loud because he has a strong passion for the lost, in the same way that Josh and I have a burning desire to get people saved.

My friend Rafael told us about a siege that is going to happen at an abortion clinic. Right away Josh and I jumped on the oppurtunity. It was about 30 warriors for christ, protesting against the abortion clinic.They wanted to have a silent protest. We all put tape on our mouths and wrote "life" on them. We prayed , read scripture and cried out to God for the babies that where never given a chance to cry. We had communion outside the abortion clinic. The spirit of God was moving in that place. There was another group that held many powerful signs. One said "i regret my abortion", another had a close up shot of an aborted baby torn to bits and pieces. It was extremly disturbing and graphic, but the truth must be told. About four police officers showed up to monitor us. I was greatful for their prescence, because a woman from the clinic came out with a gun straped to her waste. None of us had any fear of her at all, because we don't fear the man who can destroy our flesh, we only fear the one who can destroy our soul (Matthew 10) and only God can. Things became real intense when the other group started to shout scripture to the clinic. Satan's army can't stand the words of God, not even for a second. They pleaded with the woman to repent and turn from her ways. They cried out to her trying to let her know that God still loves her despite what she is doing, but she put on head phones, sat down on a chair and casually ate an apple in front of all of us. We prayed without stoping for about three hours. Many people who drove by slowed down to see what the commotion was about. We just want to fight for rightouesnes, and love our enemies. We prayed for the abolishment of abortion, the babies who were never given a fair chance, and the repentence of everyone in the clinic. We prayed, we prayed, and we prayed. At the end of it we sang songs of worship to the Lord. It really lifted my spirit. And we got news, that all machines in the clinic malfuntioned. So no abortions where able to take place. GLORY BE TO THE MOST HIGH GOD!!!.....now if your reading this, I want you to stop and pray right now. At this very moment pray for the babies, pray that the mothers repent, cry out to God. The blood of the innocent cries out to God. Pray for revival..Pray for your enemies, We need to fight hate with love. They know not what they do. Their sin blinds them. Satan has decieved this entire nation. It breaks my heart...just take this moment to thank God for stopping the abortions yesterday. We lay our lives down for you Lord Jesus.

The siege was a great success. Afterwards, Josh and I needed to go evangelize, so we asked them to drop us off at the nearest mall. I finally got a chance to call my mom; I miss her a lot. I walked around the mall for a bit talking to people about Jesus. It went well, not as good as i would have liked. But i was able to sow some seeds. Many people rejected me, so i gave them gospel tracks. Hopefully, they will read it. I mainly encountered Christians, so i just tried to stir up a spirit of evangelism in them. Josh had a really amazing conversation with this hippie/yoga/hindu guy. He knew all about jesus. But he only beleives in the parts of the Bible that he likes and uses it to mold his own religion/philosophy. I wish people would understand that it doesn't work that way. You either take it or you leave it. Many people have created a God in their own head. Their God agrees with everything they agree with, and their God likes everything they like. Because their God is themsleves. That's idolatry.

Josh and I went to the food court and bought pizza. It was delicious. The food court was jam packed, there was barely any seats left. Josh started talking to me about David Hogan (fascinating preacher, please check him out) we were having a pretty good time. We needed a break from all the preaching we were doing, it can get very exhuasting. But right in the middle of the conversation I started to feel a little strange. Josh kept talking, but I couldn't understand the words that were coming out of his mouth. I wasnt' sure what was going on. When all of a sudden the Holy Spirit dropped right on me!!!!!! right in the middle of the crowded food court.............Josh looked at me and saw that something was up. I looked at him, he looked right back. He instictivly knew what I was about to do. Josh looked at me and said "go for it man" he bowed his head and began to pray for me. I told josh "the Holy Spirit wants me to say something"............. immediatly satan infiltrated my thoughts trying to convince me to stay put. But I rebuked it in the name of Jesus!!! I walked over to a table, stood right up on the chair.....and let the Holy Spirit say what He wanted to say........ I said to them "Excuse me!! the Lord wanted me to speak to you all today"...the place went dead silent,you could hear a pin drop....i had no fear. The Holy Spirit moved so powerfully . One guy began recording me as i spoke. The Holy Spirit wanted me to tell them all to repent, put their faith in Jesus, to stop putting it off or waiting for another day. To put away thier disbelief and put their faith in Jesus. I began to pray in tongues, and when i got down from the chair the Holy Spirit told me to keep praying in tongues. I walked out of the mall and security got us. I had tears in my eyes. They chastised us and threatened to ban us from the mall because "we need to respect other peoples beliefs"...etc etc etc..also we need a permit or something. I didn't care, A CITY ON A HILL CANNOT BE HIDDEN.NEITHER DO PEOPLE LIGHT A LAMP AND PUT IT UNDER A BOWL. INSTEAD WE PUT IT ON A STAND. AND IT GIVES LIGHT TO EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE.IN THE SAME WAY WE LET OUR LIGHT SHINE BEFORE MEN SO THEY MAY PRAISE OUR FATHER WHO IS IN HEAVEN (matthew 5: 14-16).

glory be to the Most High God

Your Brothers in Christ
Alex & Josh

love peace prayer....good night, hope you enjoy

p.s -we love nilton marcos and miguel!!! ;)

Overcoming Laziness

2007-06-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up at 9:30 a.m. because I fell asleep at 2 a.m. the night before. This might be okay if this only occurred today, but it has been happening almost every day here in Atlanta. In Orlando, I was homeless for three nights and when I was staying with people I had to leave early in the morning every day for various reasons. However, in Atlanta, people treat us like kings. We eat out virtually every day and only about 30% of the time do we actually pay for it. Our hosts let us sleep whenever we want, wake up whenever we want, and give us rides whenever we need one. It's wonderful, but it's debilitating.
Furthermore, in Orlando I was never given the opportunity to preach in a church, but in Atlanta we preached in churches almost every night for the first two weeks. This is the only week that we haven't preached at a church. It was great to preach in churches, but it was also a major distraction from our main purpose. In Orlando on a bad day I would preach for 5 or 6 hours and on a good day 9 to 11 hours. But in Atlanta, because we've been preaching in churches so much and because we've become a little lazy, on a bad day we'll preach for 2 or 3 hours and on a good day we'll preach 5 or 6 hours. In fact, out of these three weeks in Atlanta only once or twice have we preached for 6 hours. That's pathetic. I came on this mission to preach the Gospel from the time I open my eyes to the time I close them. Of course I need to have my time of prayer in the morning and I need to eat throughout the day, but besides that the only thing I want to do is preach the Gospel. Also, I need to become friends with and minister to my hosts, go to a church at least once a week, talk to friends and family occasionally at home, and keep the Sabbath. But otherwise, all I want to do is preach the Gospel. The problem is that the latter list has been taking up much more time then they should be taking. So today in prayer God really convicted me about all these things and I made a commitment to become more focused and disciplined in this trip.

So today, for various reasons, we only preached the Gospel for about 3 hours, but it sure was totally awesome. I love to preach the Gospel! It is the last thing my flesh wants to do, but it is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling works in all of life. Once your start you just can't stop, but it is so hard to start. So Alex and I went to Northpoint Mall here in Alpharetta (that's the city we are currently staying in). We had some amazing food while I told Alex the long story of how I fell in love with Brooke and how our relationship has been. Alex doesn't want to get married for many reasons, but I really think he needs to so I was gave him some advice.

Then we began the wild hunt for lost souls. Yahoo! While we were eating Alex saw this long-haired skinny guy walk by and Alex just couldn't stop staring at him. Even after the guy left he just kept staring towards where the guy had sat. Eventually, Alex excused himself from the table even though he was only halfway done with his food and a little more than ten minutes later he returned with a big smile on his face. I asked him where he went and he told me that he went to preach to that skinny guy. He explained that he had felt as if the Holy Spirit himself ahd put a burden on him to preach to that guy. The burden was so strong that he just had to stop in the middle of his meal and preach to him. Alex said that the words just flowed out of his mouth and he barely realized what he was saying, but the guy was soaking in everything he said and was deeply touched. Praise God! But Alex was kind of freaked out because he had never had something like that happen to him before. Once the day was over and I asked him how the day went for him because we had split up to preach. He said that it was weird. The entire time the same thing would happen. The Holy Spirit would cause someone to pop out at him and when he would speak to the person the words would flow out without him thinking about anything he said. He said that he didn't use one of the methods of evangelism that he had learned and that, in fact, he had practically forgotten them all as he evangelized. He said that he didn't preach at all from his mind, but only from his feelings. He told me that there were times that the urge within him was so big that he felt like yelling the words out with passion, but he held himself from doing it because he was scared of what the people would think. He was scared, confused, and wierded out becuase it was the first time in his life that he experienced the Holy Spirit flowing out of him in this way. He didn't know what to think. Were all of the methods of evangelism that he had learned wrong? Was this feeling truly from God? Were the people really impacted or were they just freaked out? Is God dissapointed with me becuase I held back from letting him flow through me all the way? He explained to me all these qualms. I calmed him down and jofully explained to him what had happened to him and told him about the times where the same thing happened with me. He felt better, but was still somewhat puzzled and now he's taking a nap.

My experience today was great. I felt led to speak with two cool guys sitting in the food court. It ended up that they were dedicated Christians, so I challenged them to preach the Gospel and be radical for Christ. It was a great conversation and I could tell they were challenged. Next, I talked with Wade. He was also a Christian teenager that goes to church with his girlfriends, but he doesn't evangelize. I challenged him also and prayed for him. He was touched and the conversation was also great. Then I met another teenage Christian named Weinel. He's going ot be baptized this Sunday and he gav his life to Christ two years ago. However, he's never preached the Gospel to one person in his entire life. So I challenged him to preach the Gospel and explained to him the urgency to preach. He was convicted and he said that he would start preaching the Gospel. Praise God.

Aftwerards, I spoke with a Mexican man who is a non-practicing Catholic that never reads the Bible. He admitted to me that most of the time he considers money to be more important than God. We talked for an hour and we spoke about many things. But ultimately I made him look at the state of his soul and what God's thinks about his lifestyle and about the second rate relationship he has with God. He understood and was convicted, but he still didn't want to change. Eventually, his wife and kids came and swooped him away, but I know God will deal with him.

Then came the best part of the day and one of the best conversations of my life. I met a Muslim guy who appeared to be around my age. His name is Samir and he is from Palestine. He came to the USA when he was nine years old, but he still speaks and reads Arabic. He is a devout Muslim, but he is very humble and kind. He seemed to be somewhat open-minded, yet 100% sure that Islam was the absolute truth. However, he listened to me with a very humble, honest, and open heart. I explained to him the Gospel and why Jesus is the only way to heaven. I showed him why we can only be saved by grace and the absurdity of ever being so self-righteous to believe that we can be saved by our own works. After explaining to him all of these things I asked him what he thought about what I said. He said that he believed in all that I was saying, but he didn't believe that Jesus is the Son of God. So I asked him if he believed Jesus was a prophet.
He replied,"Of course."
Then I asked him," If there were a preacher that claimed that he was God would you consider him to be a prophet."
"Of course not," he said.
"Well, Jesus claimed to be God and Islam claims that He was a prophet. So either He is a liar, a lunatic, or He is what He said He was. God. And how dare Mohammed call Him a prophet if He claimed to be God. Isn't that the highest blasphemy?"
This threw him completely off guard. I explained to him how even his murderers and secular, obective historians all wrote that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. I quoted to him several passages where Jesus claims to be God including the verse where Jesus said, "Before Abraham was I AM." And I explained to him what I AM means and where it came from.
Then I compared Jesus and Mohammed and I explained how even through the Koran there is proof that Jesus is a greater prophet then Mohammed. So why hasn't he read Jesus' teachings? He was speechless. Then I went further and I asked him permission to do this. I told him why I believed that Mohammed was not a prophet at all. I explained to him my qualms with Mohammed's lifestyle such as polygamy, jihad, vanity, and being a pedophile. Samir didn't reply with one word or even a facial expression in defense of Mohammed, perhaps becuase he knew that all that I was saying was true. I went on to explain why I believe that the revelation of the Koran that Mohammed recieved was a demonic deception that completely went against the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I even showed him the scripture in Galations that says that even if an angel preaches another Gospel then the one that the apostles preached "let him be eternally condemned." So I said that even if it was a real angel that appeared to him that angel is now condemned because he preached a Gospel that completely went against all the teachings of Christ. I continued by asking that even if Mohammed didn't believe in Jesus as Lord, but only as a prophet why didn't Mohammed keep Jesus' teachings. And I went on to show several teachings of Jesus that Mohammed directly disobeyed. At the end of all of this I asked him what he thought about all that I had said to him. He responded with a smile, "I guess both of us have learned some new things today." He said both of us because he also explained to me some things about the Koran and the Hadith. I asked him some questions about the Arabic language and he explained to me several things about it and about the different Arab nations. I later confessed to him that the reason why I am interested in learning Arabic is because I am thinking about one day being a missionary in the Middle East. He laughed kindly and gave me some tips. We talked about the Middle East for a bit and he explained to me how he thinks Dubai is the next Tokyo or New York and why he thinks it will be even bigger. We'll see. I wrote down the website http://www.answering-islam.org/ for him to look into and he was really interested. That website is one of the best in the world. It thoroughly answers virtually every question a Muslim could ask about Christianity and every question a Christian can ask about Islam. Most of the questions are actually asked by real Muslims and the entire website is answered by ex-Muslims who are now Christians. Isn't that awesome?! I encourage anyone and everyone to check it out. Then I prayed for him and I had to go. Junior picked us up and took us to his house and now I am waiting for Joanice (my dad's cousin) to pick me up in order for us to stay at her house for a few days. Woo-hoo! What a day!

Athens: A City In Desperate Need of God

2007-06-11T20:04:00.001-07:00

Nora with us at Athens

What a day! What a city! Nora picked us up around 2 p.m. today to take us to Athens, Georgia. It's about an hour and a half away. Nora has adeep burden to see revival in Athens and she has live around it and prayed for it for about 18 years. That is why she kept insisting for us to go there. I am glad she did because it is truly a gold mine for the Gospel, a city in desperate need of God. Athens is one of the most demonically oppressed cities I have ever walked into. It's right alongside New Orleans, Hollywood, San Francisco, and Venice Beach. Even South Beach is not as oppressed as Athens. South Beach and many other wild places are full of sin, but they are not so controlled and oppressed by witchcraft. The impression I got of Athens was that it was almost entirely controlled by witchcraft and the New Age spirit. There seemed to be only minatuare poked holes of light penetrating through the dark blanket of darkness that overshadows the city. I felt the same spirit of oppression in Athens as I did on Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. The city was established in the 1700's and the University of Georgia, which is in Athens, was founded in 1760. The university is in the heart of the downtown and probably the majority of the population is students from the campus. It's not a big city, but it's definetly a happenin' place. It's kind of like Ventura, CA or Key West, FL. The New Age and the occult dominates there, so most of the people we saw were hippies, junkies, alcoholics, and druggies. They have tattoos all over the place even on their face and all kinds of piercings on thier bodies. They seem to have absolutely no meaning to their lives except to drink and hang out with friends. Also, almost the entire population was white American. I didn't see one Hispanic, there were a few Indians, and only a handful of blacks and even some of the black people were hippies. Now if a black man was influenced so strongly that he became a hippy too, even in the 21st century, then you know the thing is strong! Also R.E.M. (a rock band) is from Athens and Nora claimed that they own about fifty percent of the buildings in downtown and they still live and walk around in the city all the time. Athens desperately needs some on fire churches there. It is truly a ripe place for the harvest, yet a place of strong opposition.

We arrived in Athens at 3:30 p.m. We spent some time in prayer and then began evangelizing. I first went up to a Catholic girl and I actually believe she was saved, but she doesn't believe that she needs to preach the Gospel at all. In fact, she thought it was quite offensive to preach the Gospel unless someone actually came up and asked her about it. How many Christians do I know that have fallen into the same deception!? God, have mercy!

Alex and I split up and he was strong the entire day and preached the Gospel boldly. I then went and found a group of really nutty looking tattoed hippies at a bar called Globe. I met Nick and Ryan and the rest of the people just ignored me and many even walked away from us. I also introduced myself to a guy named Robert, but the only thing he said to me is his name and "I am god!" and then he left. So Nick and I began talking because Ryan soon walked away too. It turns out that Nick was a Christian that fully believed in the Gospel, but was also dabbling with Buddhism. He only believes in the meditationa spect of it and many of the Buddhist scriptures, but all the rest of Buddhism he completely rejects. He actually told me very honestly and humbly that he had died for thirty minutes and had gone to Heaven. At first it was hard to believe, but as he told me what happened it really seemed to be true. He said that in one day several horrible events took place including that he found his wife cheating on him. He became so overwhelmed with depression that he overdozed on a bunch of sleeping pills and other drugs. He ended up dying and being found dead soon after. Thirty minutes later. During those thirty minutes he saw a bright shining light and was guided up to Heaven by a bunch of angels. He saw his grandfather and several other loved ones that had died. Then he returned to his body. The doctors said that he would be a vegetable his whole life and his liver would never function again. But now he is a perfectly healthy person that is just as normal as anyone else. I asked him if he truly believes that Jesus is the only way to Heaven and if he reads the Bible and he said that he does. After he came back to life he searched out an afterlife experience group and actually found one. All of them were hard-core Christians and several of them had actually gone to Hell in their experience. He started going to churches, but eventually got tired of all the legalism and division. Now he goes to a house church with his close friends.

Then I started talking to Ryan. Ryan was raised in a Christian home, but when he came to college he strayed from God. He just finished his degree in English at University of Georgia and he claimed that he was much more open to God now then he was in the beginning of his college years. In fact, he was very close to finding the truth as are many New Agers. He is truly seeking God and has a deep reverence for Jesus and the Bible, but he also has deep reverence for every other holy figure and religious literature. He does see Jesus and the Bible as reaching the highest form of holiness possible, but he doesn't believe that Jesus is the only way. He also does not believe that God is a being, but rather a universal soul that we are all a part of. However, he does believe that that soul does have an intelligence. He is not sure if Heaven and Hell exist and he does not believe that we will be judged by God, so it was almost pointless to convict of sin through the law although I still did do so. He was really amazed by me adn listened to me wholeheartedly, especially when he found out that I was preaching the Gospel up the East Coast for six months without any money. He is a hippy, so he really admired me for that. He promised me that he would start reading the Bible again and that he would read "More Than A Carpenter", which I recommended to him. I prayed for him and he was deeply touched. He was so glad to have met me and I was so glad to have met him.

Then I met up with Alex and he had just had some good conversations too. All the while Nora was filming us from a distance on a tripod in order to get footage to make a short documentary film of our trip and vision. We were talking about our conversations with people when all of sudden someone yells "I am god." I turned around and it was Robert and he said "and you're god too." So Alex and I walked over to him. He kindly met us, but the man that was with him immediately went into the bar. He stayed outside and talked with us. Nora had to turn off the camera because he spotted it and became really uptight. We ended up having a crazy, yet glorious conversation. At first he kept saying that he was god, but in the middle of the conversation he suddenly changed and began saying that he is Satan and began cursing Jesus. He yelled at me and said that if I kept talking he would slam my head through the glass window behind me. I calmly looked at him and lovingly said, "Go ahead." He was so shocked that he approached me, kissed me on the nose, and hugged me. I was scared that he was going to slam me into the window next, so I braced myself, but instead he asked me to hug him. I refused to hug him because I thought some homosexual demon was in him and he might slam me the moment I hugged him. But instead he let go of me, threw his hands in the air, closed his eyes and asked me to hug him. With much hesitation I finally gave him a hug. Satisfied he thanked me and backed off. With total brokenness and pain he told us almost crying "I have evil inside me." Then he started telling us about his life. He said that this has been the worst year of his life. He was raised his whole life as a Jehovah's Witness in hard-core JW family. This past year his dad died and when his dad died he found out that his mother was not really his mother. Thus, he felt betrayed and that his whole life he had been lied to. So he left his family and God and wished that he had never been born. We told him that Jesus could save him from the demons that are in him, transform his life, make him a new creation, and give him purpose in life. I asked if we could pray for him and he desperately agreed. We prayed for him and he just started crying deeply. At the end of the prayer he was in tears and he exclaimed "I'm gonna give my life to Jesus! Thank you so much! I'm gonna give my life to Jesus!" HALLELUJAH!!! Athens is so ripe for the Gospel.

Afterwards, we met a guy named Chris. His entire left arm was tattooed green and black with red flowers and his right arms had big green vines wrapped around it. His shirt was more dirty than almost any shirt I had seen a homeless person wear although he wasn't homeless at all. He was just a hippie probably in his late 30's. He also did not believe in God as an entity, but only as a force. However, he did not believe that force had any sort of intelligence or mind. He did not believe in an afterlife at all nor in judgement. He had no reverence for Jesus or for the Bible. Alex took him through the law and theoretically took him through the judgement and the after life since he didn't believe in it. He completely understood and even considered it. However, he thought it was really scary and was disgusted by the idea of having to give his life to God out of fear of Hell. We challenged him to seek God and read the Bible and he said that he would read the Bible. We prayed for him and he was truly touched. Although he somewhat opposed of, he was touched and affected by our conversation.

At the end of the conversation with Chris his friend Ryan came up to us and we introduced ourselves to him. He was very arrogantly atheist and only approached us because he wanted to audaciously make us feel stupid. He miserably failed and ended up contradicting himself a quite a few times although he didn't want to admit it at all. He sounded just like my philosophy teacher. It's so sad that someone could gain so much knowledge and yet be so, so dumb. Now I really know why God didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We ended up bidding him farewell. Nora said that while we had been talking with Christ and Ryan a warlock came by and sat at a table near us and just watched us. I don't know how she knew he was a warlock, but that's what she claimed. Pretty nuts, right?

We prayed on a street corner together claiming that Athens belonged to Jesus and doing spiritual warfare against the demonic realm. I know that I am going to be in Athens much more. I believe many of the future itinerant preachers are going to do some powerful things in Athens in the future. There is going to be revival in Athens. I can's wait. Maybe I'll even start a house church there one day.

I talked with two other groups of three people each, but all of them totally rejected me except for one guy. His name was Matthew. He claimed to be a Christian, yet he was a heavy alcoholic and loved it. He said that he never wanted to stop drinking in his life and enjoyed many other things that he did not consider to be sinful. He told me that he has a devotional time with God every day and that his brother is a pastor. He didn't talk much because I think he was high, but he didn't want to ever stop drinking. He had a New Testament in his pocket. He told me that he had already changed a lot and he believed that his day would one day come. I pray that as he spends time reading the Bible and praying every day he would have an encounter with Jesus and be totally transformed and bring a revival to Athens. Amen!

All this took place on a Monday! And Alex and Nora had may other encounters too. Imagine what it would be like on a Friday night. Alex and I decided that we would come to Athens this Friday night. Woo-Hoo! Hopefully we won't get stoned, but if we do praise the Lord!

Peachtree St. and Brazilian Churches

2007-06-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

Pastor Napoleao praying in the Mexican Restaraunt

Madison, Christian, and Lavon Simmons

Saturday June 9, 2007

Today we we spent the whole morning in prayer and doing our laundry. We are now staying at Junior's house. Junior is a Brazilian guy in his mid-20's who is the youth pastor of the Brazilian revived Presbyterean church called "Tocha Viva". We met him on the first weekend we came to Atlanta and he immediately offered us a place to stay. He is extremely humble and hungry for God. I know his youth group is gonna soar.

The only thing about his apartment is that it is very far from any bus stop, so we depend on him to get a ride from place to place. So today he got back from work around 2 p.m. We ate lunch and he dropped us off at the subway station. We arrived in downtown around 4:30 p.m., so we only had two hours to do evangelism because I was going to preach at Junior's youth group at night.

Nora met up with us at downtown along with her two sons, Madison and Christian. They are great guys. One is fourteen and the other is eleven. The entire time they called me 'sir' even though I asked them not to. So Alex went and preached with Nora while Madison and Christian tagged along with me. They didn't say anything the entire time. They were just here to watch, listen, and learn.

We first approached a rugged-looking man who was sitting down drinking coffee. As soon as I mentioned God he said that he was not interested. So I replied, "So you don't have a relationship with God?" That question got him to talk. In fact, every time people immediately turn me away I ask them that question and most of the time they end up responding and continuing in the conversation. So we talked for quite a while and he basically stated that he loves God, but he loves his lifestyle of sin and he will not repent of it. He claimed that he was that way since the day he was born and not even God could change him. The way he continued talking about his lifestyle of sin it really seemed like he was saying he was a homosexual. This really surprised me because he had absolutely no homosexual mannerisms, he was a very tough guy, and he had a very manly voice. He allowed us to pray for him, but e refused to repent. But praise God he listened. He clearly understood that unless he repents he cannot ever enter into Heaven, but will be cast into Hell. I made this clear to him in a very gentle, loving way, but he totally understood.

Next, we met Milton. Milton is only twenty two years old and he is a homeless drug addict. We talked to him for a little more than an hour. He told us about his addiction to drugs and how he ended up homeless at a young age. I preached the Gospel to him and he felt very convicted and acknowledged that he needed God. He told us how about how much he hates being addicted to drugs and he said he wanted to give his life to Jesus. So I asked him if he wanted to pray to give his life to Jesus and repent of his sins, but he insisted that he doesn't want to stop doing drugs. I prayed for him and when I had ended my prayer he was glaring at me with a very mean look on his face. At the moment I didn't put two and two together, but now I realize what was happening. A demon was manifesting. Just a moment before he had told us about how much he hates being addicted to drugs and the next moment he insists that does not want to stop doing drugs. Then he looked angry when I prayed for him. I should have cast out the demon from him, but I was not spiritually aware of what was going on at that moment. Now I see how important it is for us to always be in the Spirit.

As we walked down Peachtree Rd. a homeless man walked up to us and asked us if we were Christian because he had seen my Bible. We sat down and started talking. His name is Lavon Simmons and he was a completely normal, intelligent man. He was not a drug addict or alcoholic. After being with homeless people for so long and becoming friends with many of them it is very easy for me to tell if the person is an addict of some sort within a few minutes of talking with the person. Lavon has AIDS. He has been homeless for only three weeks. He told us that he was a Christian man that went to church every Sunday, but he made the foolish decision to sleep around. The business he was working for went out of business and since then he cannot find a job. He got a job doing manual labor, but he soon realized that his body hd become too weak to do hard work. He is going to start recieving disability paychecks in two months, but until then he is homeless. His family couldn't help him because his mom is very old and his sister is handicap. All of his church friends completely rejected him the moment they found out he had AIDS. I gave him all the money I possibly could give him, $14. Then I declared that he would be healed and I saw faith light up in his eyes. I had Christian pray for his healing and then I prayed also. I believe he is healed. I told him to get tested again and he said he would do so on Monday. Praise God!

Those three converstions lasted for two hours. Alex had a really tough time evangelizing with Nora. He felt uncomfortable evangelizing with someone he did not really know. However, he still was able to talk to a few people.

At 6:40 p.m. Alex and I got on the train. I was thinking of preaching in the train, but instead felt compelled to talk to the man beside me. It turns out this man is an Indian that lives in Bombay. He is only in Atlanta for a few weeks on business. Isn't that awesome?! I got to talk to someone that was born and raised in Bombay and is still living there and I didn't even have to go on a mission trip there. He turned out to be a secular Hindu that hated the caste system. I preached the entire Gospel to him and he listened the entire time. I asked him if he had a Bible. He didn't have one, but he said that he has several friends that have Bibles. I told him to ask them for one and he said that he would get one and read it. Praise God!

We eventually got picked up and taken to the Tocha Viva youth meeting. I preached there and it was awesome. Many people were impacted. Afterwards, we hung out and I got to know many people there. We stayed there until midnight. Then we went to a church party at Videira.

This Brazilian church rented a Mexican restaurant and advertised that they were going to have a big party there to the whole Brazilian community. They had a professional dj from there church, an area to dance, and all Christian music. No alcohol. Several non-Christians came, but as soon as they realized that there was no alcohol they left. The party was from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. By the time we got there only three or four non-Christians were left. The around 1 a.m. they paused the music and the pastor preached the Gospel to everyone there. It was great. All the waiters weren't saved, so at least they heard. Alex talked to an unsaved guy for nearly an hour and had a great conversation with him. After the pastor finished preaching everyone started dancing. All the dancing was totally clean and fun and no one was actually dancing together. It was a blast. Alex did capoeira against some of the guys and he really kicked butt. I as really embarrassed to dance and so was Alex, but eventually we started dancing like crazy. No one wanted the night to end. We got to know some great people there. We got home at 3:50 a.m. I took a shower and went to bed at 4 a.m. Yeah baby!

The next morning we woke up at noon. I spent four hours praying and reading the Bible and God gave me a massive revelation. We went to Videira at night and we had a powerful time there. They asked me to sing a song, so I did. The pastor committed to help us publish our book in front of the whole church. That church is on fire and they are so full of love. It was wonderful.

captains log, alex reporting live!

2007-06-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

Joshua and Alex praying for people at Videira

Hello my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. A lot has happend recently, both good and bad. I'll fill you in on all the details. I haven't written here in a long while, but i'll just mention the things that stick out in my mind most. If there is one thing that I have noticed, it is that everyone wants a first class ticket into heaven, but no one wants to do anything to get in. And the last thing anyone wants to hear is that you have to put an effort to get into heaven. There is a tremendouse heresy in America.The heresy is that being "good" is enough to get into heaven, and that ALL religions are correct. It is spreading like wild fire, because it makes everyone feel very warm and cozy. When you try to give them the truth of God's word they aren't happy. It sincerely breaks my heart. All of it is taking it's toll on me emotionally. The enemy has become so crafty that I can't even figure out who to point the finger at for letting this heresy get so much momentum. AMERICA HATES JESUS. You can see people squirm at the mention of his name.

On a lighter note, the other day I stood up in the subway and began preaching the gospel to all the passengers. Josh and I have finally been able to get some footage of it so hopefully we will be able to put it on the blog soon.

I felt the Holy Spirit tugging and tugging. I had no clue what to say, but i couldnt back out. I said a quick prayer asking the Holy Spirit to guide my lips and convict all the passengers. I stood up, introduced myself, and said "So you gotta ask yourself, where am i going when i die?". Oh boy, I got there attention. hahahahahah!!! I spoke for about 10-15 minutes and everything just flowed through me so well, glory be to the Most High!!!!! My spirit was so happy. When i sat down an old buisness man with a suit case gave me a very suttle thumbs up and a little smile. Josh was really happy for me to. The gospel was preached, and if you can pray for all the passengers I believe it would make an even bigger difference. So please pray that they open there hearts to Jesus. When i got out of the train this gigantic guy pounced on me and put his arm around me and told me "thanks for doing that". hahahaha. The lord Jesus was glorified. Mission accomplished.

On a separate occasion, things didn't go as smoothly. I followed the same procedure, except in this incident a bearded man sitting down right in front of where I was preaching very rudly told me "sit down we're not here to listen to this". When he said that it fueled my fire, and I wanted to preach even longer. I felt the Holy Spirit move in me . He got up and walked right past me. He was looking for security to try to get me kicked out. I kept preaching to the crowd. I thought I might get arrested, and maybe I would even come out on the news. I could just imagine the newspaper headlines "persecuted for preaching, land of the free???". Seemed like a good oppurtunity to inspire others to do the same thing, but in the end the man got tired and sat down with his arms crossed. What a rush. I hope the passengers got something out of that. And more than anything please pray for the bearded man, so he can soften his heart to Jesus. More than anything I just hope the Lord's will was done. Thats all that matters.

After that Josh and I went to "The Underground". Its supposed to be the hip place where all the cool kids hang out. It turned out to be pretty desolate but Josh and i managed to have to great ecounters with some people. Like this truck driver. He was saved and knew scripture really well. But next to him was this drunk guy who was clearly on some serious drugs. His pupils where the size of a pin needle. Man......that guy was insane.......craziest thing of all, he was quoting scripture like some theologian!!.......Josh and I eventually walked away because he kept yelling about nonsense and talking about Mel Gibson and the goverment and..? Well...just wierd stuff...at one point I kind of had the feeling he might start running around screaming "I'm a hamster". hehe. Well not really, but he was saying a lot of things that didn't make much sense; at least not in our reality. I remeber thinking "man..what was that all about?" I wasn't even sure how to feel about the whole incident. haha it was very strange. Afterwards, Josh and I had an amazing conversation with two homosexual girls. they said they were saved, but Josh and I kept trying to show them that they can't possibly be saved if they keep holding on to their sin. This was an amazing conversation/debate , Josh and I worked together so well because we combined our knowlege of scripture . We were unstoppable lol...Josh has an amazing amount of knowlegde of the whole bible. We worked together very gracefully. Then two homeless guys jumped into the conversation and tried to side track us. At one point all 6 of us where yelling about something until eventually I said "guys guys guys!!!!....one at a time lol".. at the end of the conversation you could clearly see the conviction the two girls had on their face. Someone was finally able to reveal to them that if they continued to live in their sin, they will end up in hell all over a desire of the flesh.I sincerely believe they are going to repent eventually. That's what one of them said. She also said that she attends church all the time, but I'm suprised she didn't learn that at church.....pretty interesting huh?.

Josh and I had the AMAZING PRIVELEGE of being able to speak at the greatest church I have been to. It was a Brazillian church. They are such spirit-filled, amazing people. I'm honestly still shocked at how wonderful these people are. We sang, preached, worshipped, laughed, and danced together. All of which I'm very anxious to write about and tell you all, but I don't have time right now. The church is called Videira which means vineyard in Portuguese. I love them all so much and hopefully we will be able to hang out one last time before we leave. Thank you Pastor Napoleao for letting us fellowship with you all. It was an honor.

love, peace and prayer.

Georgia Tech and The Vineyard

2007-06-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Georgia Tech

Today we were absolutely exhausted. Even though I slept a good seven hours I was wasted. Alex was even more tired than I was and he slept more than me. This all goes to show how draining all-day everyday evangelism really is. It's not easy to have to daily pour out your whole heart to people, pray intensely, debate millenium-old arguments, preach in front of crowds that aren't always very attentive, get rejected multiple times, and have to constantly being dying to one's self. It's really hard. It's definitely doable for one day or two, but all day everyday is really hard. As spiritual and radical as a Christian could be there are still someday's where you just want to relax and take-it-easy. But not us. We're getting paid to do this. If an employee is expected to work hard then I don't see why God wouldn't expect us to be working hard for Him especially if He's housing us and paying us our wages.

Another key thing is that we could only give out as much as we recieve. I cannot preach all day long if I only spent one hour with God that day. I must spend two to four hours a day praying, reading the Bible, and even hearing preachings. In addition, I must pray without ceasing throughout the day and stay in the Spirit at all times. Some days I honestly feel that although I preach I am not giving the people the fullness of the Gospel because I had not been filled with the presence, power, and word of God that day.

So today we spent time praying and we heard an hour long message from Lou Engle. That caused us to pray some more. Joyce ended up coming to the shop to give us a word from God. She said that God showed her that were would be difficult days ahead of us, but we must never be discouraged and just endure. We prayed and the presence of God was truly there.

Around 1 p.m. we left for Georgia Tech. I preached on the bus and it was great. The bus driver already knows us and really likes us. The first time I preached on his bus I was a little nervous because I assumed that he was probably Hindu and he would stop me. He didn't react at all, so the second time I preached in his bus I didn't worry about it and when we got off of the bus he was smiling at me. Could he be a Christian? So the next time I came on his bus I talked with him. His name is Mathew Thomas and he was born and raised in Kerala, India. He is a Pentecostal Christian who goes to an Indian church here in Atlanta. I got his phone number because I really want to go to his church this Sunday. The church service is three hours long, so it must be on fire. I've always wanted to go to an Indian church to learn from them, hear their testimonies, and learn how to effectively witness to a Hindu or Indian. So today we greeted each other with big smiles and when I was getting ready to preach he extended his hand as a gentleman extends his hand to a lady when he opens the door for her so as to say,"Go ahead. Take the stage." It really feels great to be embraced and encouraged by the bus driver when you're gonna preach on his bus.

What's really strange is that even though I had a great time preaching on the bus I just couldn't muster up the strength and courage to preach in the subway immediately afterwards. You see, the bus takes us to the train and the train takes us to downtown. So the whole ride on the subway I just sat their constantly torn in my mind as to whether I get up and preach or not. In the end, I didn't do it. Neither did Alex because he was tired.

When we got to Georgia Tech we were both exhausted. We honestly did not have the strength to get into deep, strong conversations and debates. We walked around and prayed for about 45 minutes without having the guts to go up to anyone. Finally we found an outside ampitheater where some people were sitting down eating. I felt compelled to talk to an Asian guy who was eating a burger. I approached him and talked to him very calmly and casually and he turned out to be very open to everything I said. His family is from Thailand and his name is Nash, but he was born and raised in Tennessee and Georgia. I asked him what he believed and he told me that he didn't really have any beliefs except in the existence of God and that he was open to whatever came his way. Well, I sure was glad that I came his way. I told him the Gospel and he really enjoyed my explanation of it all. I asked him if he believed in what I was saying and he said that he did. However, he was not ready to give his life to Jesus yet. He understood that Jesus is the only way and even agreed to that fact. He said that he was sure that his time would one day come and he gave his word that he would read the Bible and seek God. Praise God!

Afterwards I spoke to a born again Baptist, but he had to go when we started to really get into the conversation. Alex found me, but he was still tired and discouraged because he still had not spoken to anyone.

We eventually found the Student Life Center and we went in. There were plenty of people there sitting around doing nothing. So I went up to a black guy who turned out to be much older than he looked. He was a full blown Christian so I just encouraged him. Then I saw Alex really get into a conversation with an Asian girl and when he started to talk to her her friend came up and began listening too. I was so glad for Alex that he had broken through.

I found a room where there were a bunch of people sitting down doing whatever. I saw a table of about eight or nine Indian youth and I really felt compelled to go up to them. I prayed and read my Bible for about thirty minutes just trying to find the strength to go up to them, but my fear got the best of me. I was scared that since I was inexperienced in talking with Hindus I wouldnt know what to say when a bunch of Hindu, intelligent Georgia Tech students bombarded me with Hindu questions and arguments. But I might have been completely wrong. They might have been Muslims, Christians, or all mixed. Who knows. I guess I will only know on the day of judgement because I failed to speak to them. Eventually, I just gave up on them and sat next to an Asian guy that looked like he would be mean.

However, it turned out that Wei Ho was an on fire Taiwanese Christian. Hallelujah! We both encouraged each other and learned from each other. I got all the information of his Chinese church that he attends and two Korean churches in Atlanta. His church has a Chinese congregation of 600-800 people and an English speaking (though dominantly Asian American) congregation of 150-200 people and he said that his church is hard-core. Praise God! He even leads a fellowship group in his home (i.e. cell group). We talked for about an hour.

Meanwhile, Alex spoke with several other people.

Then we left. On the way I gave Alex a Church history lesson about the Protestant Reformation and all the mainline denomination of today. I explained to him the Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Charismatic movements. He was so happy to learn all these things.

On the subway I talked to an American Catholic that is currently looking for a Christian Church. I told him about the few good churches I knew, but they were all far from where he lived. However, I still got to encourage him and we ended up having a good conversation.

At the bus stop I talked to three Korean girls, but only one of them spoke English and she explained to me that they are all saved and are part of a Korean church there in Atlanta. Praise God! The Koreans are coming!

I talked with a Mexican guy who was truly saved, but had been backslidden for several years. we talked a lot and he confessed to me that the only reason he wasnt following Jesus was because he was a fool. He had already become sick of the worldly lifestyle and he told me that he was lonely and wanted to become part of the family of God again. I encouraged him and he made the decision that he would return to church. Hallelujah!

All this took place in about four hours of evangelism.

By 6 p.m., we were wiped out, but full of joy and satisfaction.

Then we arrived at The Vineyard. We got there 70 minutes early, so we had plenty of time to pray and prepare. I asked God if there was anything that He specifically wanted to say to that youth group and He spoke to me in my spirit and gave me a word. When I say a word I essentially mean a prophecy. It was actually really harsh and I wasnt how everyone would respond to it, but I obeyed and said it.

The youth meeting began with a few fun games. After about twenty minutes of games we went in and had twenty to twenty-five minutes of worship. However, there was almost no reverence or seeking of God. It seemed that the hype of the games leaked into the time of worship and distracted the youth from engaging in worship. In fact, for a few moments I looked around to see if people were worshipping. Only about five or six people were actually singing and only two were really with somewhat of an emotion as they sang. Most of the others were staring at the worship leader, staring into space, or talking. Everyone was sitting down, not one person sat down and only one or two people had thier eyes closed. It was a heartbreacking sight, but at least the worship leader was really worshipping. Thats pretty hard to find these days.

When the pastor introduced us I came up and played my song Holy Sacrifice. I finally have forced myself to play the right-handed guitar upside down and it actually sounded almost exactly the same as when I play my lefty guitar. Praise God. I prayed and then gave the mic over to Alex. He told his testimony and gave a very strong message on how we must evangelize and do Gods work. Once he finished, I came up and spoke about the radicalness of common Christianity in the Bible. I was really honest and straightforward with everyone, but at the same time full of love for them. I saw myself in them because I used to merely be a church goer Christian. I challenged them to seek God everyday and gave them practical steps they can take to become men and women of God. Everyone was truly impacted and all except one made the commitment to spend at least twenty minutes everyday seeking God through prayer, worhsip, and the Bible. Glory to God! They then prayed for us and we prayed for them. It was truly awesome.

Now we are at Niltons house and I feel like sleeping for twelve hours straight, but its already 1 a.m. and we have to wake up at 8 a.m.. Ahhh! This is the life! Yahoo!

Day of Wisdom

2007-06-03T19:43:00.000-07:00

Jim Watson and me

Today neither I nor Alex evangelized. Alex was feeling discouraged, so he spent the whole day seeking God in order to regain his strength. One thing that is for sure about preaching the Gospel all day long everyday is that it is exhausting.

I wanted to evangelize, but I never got to it because God kept putting good situations in my way. Allow me to elaborate.

I was going to read from the book of Acts today, but I heard the Holy Spirit gently telling me to read from Proverbs instead. I did so. In chapter seven it talked about how crucial it is to attain wisdom and understanding and I believe that is what God wanted for me to day. He wanted me to attain wisdom and understanding. So after I finished reading and praying around noon, Gilberto, one of Nilton's employees at his mechanic shop, sat down and started talking with me about his life. He just became a Christian in January and he is on fire for God, but he needed some counsel about personal decisions in his life. We had a counseling session for almost an hour and I prayed for him. It was great.

Then I went into Nilton's office in order to call Pastor Napoleao, the pastor of Videira in Atlanta. I talked with the pastor and we scheduled to have me preach in his church on Thursday night. Nilton told me to write down the appointment in my agenda immediately, but I didn't have it with me. He had given me an agenda yesterday in order to organize my schedule. The reason for this is because last week I had scheduled with a youth group to preach on Saturday night at their meeting. On Wednesday Nilton told me that the pastor of Videira wanted me to preach at his church (the largest Brazilian church in Atlanta) on Saturday night and at that moment I had forgotten about my commitment with the previous church, so I said that I would preach at Videira on Saturday. On Friday I realized that I had to preach at the other youth group on Saturday, so I told Nilton. He was kind of dissapointed in me for having him confirm with the Videira church that I was going there when I already had a commitment to another church. So I had to call Pastor Napoleao myself, tell him that I couldn't come to his church, and apologize for the mix-up. It was a shameful and humbling experience for me. The pastor was very understanding and forgiving and that is why he allowed me to reschedule with him today. So Nilton pointed out that in order for me to be successful I must have an agenda with me at all times, otherwise things like this would occur with me throughout my life. I humbly agreed. From there on the fool listened to the counsel of the wise man. In fact, I pleaded with him to point out all the weaknesses he sees in me and give me all the counsel he can. Nilton was a pastor for six years, has a degree in Theology, owns a very nice house, and founded a successful mechanic shop that he is the boss of until this day. He is very humble, godly, and most of all responsible and organized. He is a businessman. I know that one of my greatest weaknesses is being disorganized and being forgetful. Nilton told me that he noticed that those were my weaknesses from the very beginning, so he began counseling me on how to be organized and overcome forgetfullness. This counsel is extremely crucial to my life because I want to start a worldwide organization of itinerant preachers and in order to do that I must be meticulously organized and responsible. He instructed me on how to admintrate, delegate authority, and train employees. His advice was invaluable.

When I had just finished talking with Nilton a 79-year-old man named Jim Watson walked into the shop. He came just to talk to me. This man is absolutely awesome. I want to be like him when I'm an old man. He's an on fire Southern Baptist preacher that goes all around the world and the USA preaching the Gospel to the lost. Just recently he went to Israel to preach the Gospel. He took boxes of videos, Bibles, and Gospel literature and passed them out as he preached the Gospel. He also crossed the border to Jordan and preached the Gospel there. He said that God told him to bring a box full of Japanese Bibles and videos on this trip. He thought it was crazy, but he obeyed. And guess what happened. When he was in a slum motel in Jordan a crowd of Japanese people walked into the the same motel as him. Japanese people in Jordan! So he passed out all the Bibles and videos to them all and there wasn't even enough to give out to them all. After staying in Jordan he tried to cross the border into Iraq in order to preach to the American troops over there, but the border control didn't allow him to enter the country.

Isn't this man amazing? He's 79 years old and he's trying to go into Iraq to preach the Gospel?! That is true Christianity. Furthermore, when I told him about my trip he casually said, "Oh, that's good. I did the same thing except in Russia." What?! I asked him if he spoke Russian, but he said he learned enough just to preach the Gospel and explain biblical teachings. What an amazing man. He's also preached the Gospel in India and many other places too. So after this man told us all these stories he began to counsel me concerning my mission. He told me to not always look for the easiest way, but to always look for God's way. He explained to me that his trips never go as he expected of planned them to be and for me to not be scared of harship and setbacks on my trip. What a wonderful man. I am truly honored to have met such a saint of God.

Also, everyday Alex, Nilton, and I have been listening to Ravi Zacharias and I am truly learning so much from him. Praise God for his life and ministry. He is like a modern day C.S. Lewis except he's Indian and he's more geared to evangelism. That's awesome. The amount of revelation he recieves is mind-boggling. I would love to be in his church if he has one. I encourage everyone here to listen to him especially if you want to know the answers to tough questions people challenge you with when you are evangelizing. He has amazing answers to many tough questions.

In the evening, Alex and I went to the youth meeting of Tocha Viva. We prayed together with the youth leaders for about an hour before the service. It was awesome. The service itself was awesome. We worshipped God and then they asked me to sing two songs. I am a lefty and I only play lefty guitars, so this entire trip I have had many opportunities to play my songs but I never could do so. I became so frustrated that before the meeting started I grabbed a guitar, flipped it upside down, and determined that I would play my songs. Sure enough, I eventually was able to play fine upside down. So from now on that's what I'm gonna do. I sang my two songs and people were really impacted. As soon as I finished singing I felt such a deep spirit of prayer come upon me and I just began crying out to God for 15 or 20 minutes. The presence of God fell so powerfully and many people were weeping. Finally, I felt that it was time for the message. Alex got up and preached a great message about living radically for Jesus. I gave him all the liberty to preach as much as the Spirit led him and he ended speaking for about half an hour or more. It was great. The three preachings that Alex gave this week were the first one of his life and I am truly impressed at how little stage fright he has. I topped of the meeting just by talking for less than ten minutes and then Alex and I laid hands on the people and prayed for them to recieve a fire for evangelism. The pastor's wife prayed for some newcomers and everyone prayed for the youth that had backslidden and for their lost friends. It was powerful. We ate snacks and talked with several of the youth until midnight. They are truly wonderful people. I know God is going to move in that youth group because they are serious about God, especially the youth pastor. Hallelujah!

why??? because jesus is the only thing that matters...thats why....

2007-06-03T16:30:00.000-07:00

Alex Diaz the Great

hello everyone. my name is alex , im josh's partner on this 6 month journey im a horrible speller i rarly use propper grammar and punctuation mostly because i dont care.my current occupation is lover of christ and his lost sheep.my hobbies are sowing seeds, studying scripture,attending church,dancing to worship,listeing to ravi zacherias speak with josh and nilton and gettin brain farts in the process and trying to convince people that im funny. i greatly admire all fools for christ around the globe, people who take mark 16:15 seriouse and modern day martyrs. so i guess i should tell you all how i got involved in this adventure. pretty interesting story actually, i met josh at a house party he threw in order to raise money for the invisible children organization to help build a school for the kids in uganda. a friend of mine named henry who is in an amazing band called mod'lone, (which i strongly recomend you check them out of myspace) invited me to the party and told me he would like me to meet josh.i was really excited to go but unfortunatly i had to work on that day so i wasnt able to attend the party. oddly enough on the day of the party my manager told me "alex dont come in today we got someone to cover your shift". i thought so myself " but i didnt ask anyone to cover my shift????"......now i know what your thinking "divine intervention".....i know i said the same thing...God is good and i'll leave it at that!!! so as i was walking out the door i jumped for joy praised God and hoped no one noticed i was talking to myself. i think alot of people at my job already think i have some screws loose because i love jesus and i dont stop bugging them about it, but no worries. so i get to the party and mod'lone sets up to play while i waited in josh's room staring at all the art on his walls. josh walks in and we begin just chatting he tells me about his vision and i immediatly ask him if i could join him. josh tells me "well i have been praying for a partner and im leaving in 2 days". so i think to myself "wow just in time!!! gods plan must be unraveling"..i tell him i dont care id like to go anyway, so we pray about it and immediatly feel a close spiritual connection. what can i say??? it was love at first spirutual sight..but anyway,i called my job and quit and postponed college, and decided to travel up the east coast preaching the gospel everywhere and anywhere with no money, food, or home.i have nothing but a backpack and faith in GOD and the promises he made to all those who love him.the bible says that a worker is worthy of his wages.and i belive that the LORD will provide. and i belive jesus when he said"first seek rightousness and his kingdom and everything else will be given to you". and so far GOD has kept his promise and provided more than i need without ever asking anyone for anything. thats bascially what happened in a nut shell. it has been absolutly amazing so far and ive grown in my walk with Christ so much because of this experience. i urge you to do something for Jesus that makes people question your sanity as well. thats how you know your doing God's will. just ask the apostles, everyone said they were nuts and look at the mess they caused, all because they met this crazy guy named Jesus the Christ. As an early christian (im still kinda young in Christ) i started asking myself "what does it mean to be a christian"...i had a strong sense that going to church once a week didnt make you a christian. i heard someone say "if going to church makes you a christian does walking into a garage make you a car" that made me laugh really hard, but afterwards it got me thinking..ah geez thats true, have i earned the title follower of Christ what does it even mean..so im searching, im still searching. i beleive the search doesnt end, its a constant ever changing journey that has many ups and downs. its a constant learning experience, filled with trial and error. its the greatest thing to ever happen to my life and i hope our stories will challenge you and inspire you to go out of your comfort zone and go out of your way to tell all creation the good news. the good news that there is a God, that he loves you unconditionaly, that he loves you so much he would even die for you and he already did. that you dont have to waste anymore time worshipping false idols because God is in the Bible. that you can know with great confidence that God is with you always and grieves when you grieve. and best of all he has a gift for you, its a completly free gift with no strings attached,its eternal life!!!!!!! all you have to do is get up and take it. and you can finally know God on a personal level and give him the love he deserves. so i pray that the Holy Spirit touches and makes you lose sleep thinking about how amazing and fascinating GOD is. greater is he who lives in you than he who lives in the world. if you beleive this then that would mean your a dangerous force against the powers of evil that have a hold on the world. its a raging war out there so put on your helmet of salvation your belt of truth your breast plate of righteousness . and make sure to be fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. in addition to all this take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. and DONT forget your sword of the spirit which is the word of GOD and pray in all occasions. if you feel something burning inside you to get up and do something, then that means your a warrior for Christ, and GOD needs you to get out their and do battle. dont put it off, stop making excuses..just go.....

god bless everyone
peace be to you all

P.S. Please keep me in your prayers.

Another Spectacular Day

2007-05-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

Nora and I praying for Adam

Me, Alex, and Sofia evangelizing at Perimeter Mall

What an amazing day. Today Sofia, the worship leader of a Brazilian church we visited, picked us up and took us to Georgia Perimeter College. This is the school she attends and it is a junior college. There weren't many people because it was summer, but we were still able to find enough people to talk with for several hours.

I met Jamie, a Venezualan 19 year old. Jamie's goes to church occassionally with his girlfriend, who is a pastor's daughter. He loves God and Jesus, but he is open-minded to all things and his mom is involved in New Age. I saw that he sincerely does love God and does want to live in righteousness, but he just needed to hear the Gospel to bring clarity and guidance in his beliefs and his life. I asked him if he knew why so many people believe Jesus is the only way. He said he had no idea. I asked him if I coul explain to him why and he eagerly agreed. I explained to him the entire Gospel as he listened wholeheartedly. When I explained how we are all sinners who will be justly condemned and why God sent Jesus to die on the cross for us he opened his mouth wide in amazement. He excaimed that finally he understood. Praise God! I asked him if he had ever given his life to Jesus and repented of his sins and he said that he sincerely he had. However, he had never understood why he had given his life to Jesus until now. I warned him about open mindedness and the New Age and he quickly understood. Jamie is an example of a ripe and open soul that just needed someone to sit down and explain the Gospel to him. If no one ever did that he would never had understood the Gospel and possibly might have fallen into the Occult or another religion.

Sophia had many great conversations and a Jewish girl and another guy promised to go to her church this Saturday.

Alex was really discouraged because he talked with five people and three totally rejected him while the other two barely even listened. I encouraged him and prayed with him.

Then Sofia, Alex, and I walked up to a table of three people. It turned out two of them were conservative Jews and one was Orthodox. We talked to them for a good while. I explained to them the Messiahship of Christ and read some prophecies to them. I read some of Jesus' words to them also. I can see that they were impressed and they were thinking about everything we I told them, but in the end they insisted that we would not convert them. I know God planted some good seeds.

Nora found us and we left the college because it was so empty and we went to the Perimeter Mall.

Nora saw us preach in the Vineyard on Monday night and she was so amazed and excited about our trip. She has worked making some documentaries, so she asked me if she can make a small documentary on us. She wanted to come along with us as we evangelized and film us. The battery of the camera wouldn't work so she wasn't able to film us today, but she said she would another day.

At the mall, Nora and I evangelized together and Alex and Sofia evangelized together. It was awesome.

We approached a table of five freshman in high school. They were really open and attentive to everything I said. They all professed to be Christians and all had been baptized. However, when I asked them if they were to die tonight do they know where they would go they said that they did not know. I preached the Gospel to all of them. Once I was done I asked them if they wanted to give their lives to Jesus, but all of them said no. I asked why and they all said because they still have doubts that it is the truth. I prayed with them and left.

We approached a guy named Adam. It turns out that he was radically saved two years ago when a man approached him on the street just like we did and told him about the Law and what Jesus did on the cross for us. He actually explained what the guy told him and the guy talked to him exactly how Ray Comfort teaches to preach. The man took him to his church and he got radically saved. Adam has one of the craziest testimonies I have ever heard in my life. He was kidnapped for two and a half months, he was stabbed by a man ten times in the back, he was shot twice, but the trigger jammed, he went to jail a few times, violated his probation many times, and because of all that only has a sixth grade education. The most mind-boggling thing was that all of the above simply had to do with being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Even him going to jail and violating probations had to do with him simply being with the wrong people at the wrong time. He never actually committed any crimes. It's hard to believe, but this man is now totally born again and I believe his words. We challenged him to evangelize and use his testimony to save souls. He admitted that he had been complacent and God used us to wake him up again.

Then we spoke with Utagi, and African-American born and raised in downtown Atlanta. He was not saved at all, but he was totally kind and open. He told us that he had been searching for wisdom. I preached the entire Gospel to him and he was deeply impacted to the point that he solemnly made the decision right then and there to give his life to Jesus and repent of his sins. After praying the sinners prayer with him I reiterated several times that this was the most important decision he ever made in his life. He completely understood and agreed. He committed to go to a church this Sunday morning and then we prayed for him. HALLELUJAH! Another soul saved!

Sofia and Alex had a great time too. They talked to three Hindus and two Muslims. One Muslim young man Alex talked to sought Alex out to talk to him some more tow hours later. So they talked twice, not because Alex approached him again, but because he was hungry for more and searched for Alex to speak to him again. Praise God!

Then we left to The Vineyard. The youth group was about 14 people because most of the youth were gone on a camp. The meeting was quite mellow and it felt like they were quite disconnected from God. Before we got up to preach I got on my knees on the stage and cried out to God for about 15 minutes. Alex spoke first and he spoke very well. This is only his second time ever preaching in a congregation and he did very well. Then I preached I could see that the people were truly touched, convicted, and challenged. God opened their eyes. It was awesome.

Afterwards, I talked with several of the youth one on one. Andy, a man aproximmately 25 years of age, told me that he had seriously been thinking in these past six months of buying a motorcycle and doing the same thing I'm doing. He wants to just go around the country preaching the Gospel. He just hasn't bought the bike yet and he was kind of scared to go on the trip, but after hearing Alex and I he knows he can do it. That was so awesome for me to see that God is already using me to raise up soldiers to join the army of itinerant preachers that will sweep this nation and I haven't even finished the trip yet or wrote the book. Hallelujah! God is sovereign!

Atlanta, Here We Come!

2007-05-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

Nilton Dias: The Main Man

What a day! Alex, Nilton (the man we are staying with), and I had a wonderful time seeking God together this morning. We then went to Nilton's business and there met Jerome. We had a great conversation with Jerome and he just encouraged us with many testimonies and words from God. Since his work is in downtown Atlanta he gave us a ride to downtown. On the way I asked him if he had a family and he told me that he had never been married. He jokingly, yet seriously said that since he gave us a ride we could pray for God to send him a wife, so when he left us at our destination we prayed for God to send him a wife.

Then the evangelism began. I immediately walked up to an asian girl and she bluntly told us that she is an atheist and she didn't want to talk about religion. However, we asked her a few questions and she would answer them and before you know it we were having a full on conversation. The entire time it seemed like a part of her just wanted to walk away, but another part of her wanted to stay and listen. We kept trying to prove to her the existence of God, but she would just insist that she was an atheist. So Alex asked her to prove her faith that their is no God. All she could say is that you can't see God, so no one could truly know if He exists. I responded by saying that you cannot see love. One cannot put love in a test tube or laboratory and scientifically prove it, yet we see the effects of love every day and it is the most real part of life that a person could ever experience. In the same way, no one can see God or scientifically prove Him, yet He is the most real aspect of life that a human can ever encounter. I told her how the greatest proof of God are the lives transformed by Him and that if He does indeed exist then she is missing out on the greatest thing in all of life. When I said all that she she said, "What you said really made me think," and from that moment on she changed. She began to question her atheism and listened to us with oppenness. We explained the Gospel to her. At the end of it all we asked her if we could pray for her and she agreed. She was touched by the prayer. Alex gave her a tract and we left.

We walked over to a large park that was full of monuments from the Olympics and we found a large area where a couple hundred people were just sitting around and relaxing. So Alex and I split up and began talking with people. We talked with many people, so I'll just share the highlights.

The greatest highlight was that one of the men that Alex preached to gave his life to Jesus! Hallelujah!

I talked with a young man who was raised in church, knew all about the Bible, and believed he was saved. His name was Miles. I began asking him several questions and eventually I realized that he believed in Jesus, but he had never truly repented of his sins. I pointed this out to him and he acknowledged that it was true. Then I lovingly and gently told him that according to what he has told me if he were to die tonight he would go to Hell and he admitted that he would go to Hell. So in the beginning of the conversation he thought he was saved and at peace with God, but after I took him through the Law, showed Him the Gospel, and pointed out that he had never repented, he realized that he was lost and going to Hell unless he turned to God. I could see that he was convicted. I prayed for Him and he was even more convicted, but he still didn't want to give his life to Jesus.

Alex talked with a Muslim woman and she hated his guts. She rejected him completely.

I met a man named Anthony. He is currently in seminary getting a degree in Theology, but he doesn't believe Jesus is God, doesn't believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God, and he twists every verse that he doesn't agree with in order to support his beliefs. I talked with him for more than an hour and the entire time I showed him Scriptures that proved him wrong and he would always twist the verse or just reject it completely. I began telling him the Gospel and he agreed with me until I concluded that because we are all guilty sinners before God we will all be righteously condemned to Hell. Then he went completely against me. I expained to him that Jesus is the only way to salvation and that we could never be saved by our works, but by faith alone. However, he insisted that we are saved by our good works and a man could be saved without believing in Jesus. I showed him John 3:18 where it says, "He who believes in the Son is not condemned, but he who does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." Even though this was a very direct statement he attempted to create some strange interpretaion of it other than what it is obviously stating. I showed him several other Scriptures that out equally as blunt and every time we denied them. Finally, I felt led by God to speak God's jusdgement upon him. I read to him the Scripture, "Many will come to me in that Day saying, 'Lord, Lord'...Yet I will say to them plainly, 'I never knew you. Be cast away, you evildoers.'" At that moment he asked me to please leave him because I was bringing negativity and disturbing his aura. He told me that I was acting like God and I replied that I was only reading God words to Him." Alex approached him and gave him a tract and we left.

When we went to eat business was slow so we began chatting with the cashier at the fast food restaraunt we went to. He was actually the manager. When he gave us our change Alex gave him a one million dollar bill in exchange. They asked him where he got the bill and Alex explained what it was. From there we began talking about God. The man was a middle-aged dedicated Muslim. He said that he believed in Jesus only as a prophet. So Alex asked him if he believed Jesus when he said that he was the Son of God. The man immediately said no. So I asked him if he believed in the Koran and Mohammed's teachings 100% and he said, "Of course. Mohammed's words are perfect." So I pointed out that the Koran says that Jesus never died, but went up to Heaven with God and he quickly agreed. But then I pointed out that the Koran says that Mohammed died. I continued saying that the Koran taught that Jesus healed the sick, but Mohammed never did. So even according to the Koran Jesus is a greater prophet than Mohammed. Thus, how can one completely believe in Mohammed's teachings and not completely believe in Jesus' teachings. I urged him to read the Gospels and treat them with just as much reverence as he does for the Koran. However, he just kept brushing things off and insisted that he would never study another religion besides his own. But I know God planted a seed in his heart and will make it grow.

We had to leave at 4:30 p.m. because Nilton got off of work at 5 p.m. and he wanted us to participate in a prayer meeting he hosts every Tuesday night. He picked us up at the train station and when we got home we watched some videos of Ravi Zacharias and a video of two ex-Muslims who explain Islam to Christians. They were both tremendous videos.

Then the men came and we began the meeting. Nilton opened us up in prayer and then asked me to share our mission. I shared it with everyone and they were truly amazed and impacted. One South African man that owns his own business with several employees was so impacted that he decided that he would share his testimony and the Gospel to every person he ever interviews whether they get the job or not. And he said that he interviews a lot of people.

The time of prayer was truly glorious! This is the first prayer meeting that I have ever been to that was only men. Most of the time it is women that interceed and sometimes youth, but very rarely men. And it was such a beautiful and powerful thing to see men praying, weeping, and crying out to God. I prayed my heart out and really felt the Holy Spirit flowing through me.
Afterwards, Rich, a man that has the gift of visions, dreams, word of knowledge, and healing, imparted all of those gifts to Alex and I. It was powerful.

Jerome was also there in the meeting and he was so shocked by what had happened to him. He told us that fifteen minutes after we prayed for God to give him a wife his ex-fiance called him. They had ended their relationship two months before and he hadn't heard from her for three weeks, yet she happened to call the moment after we prayed for him and she was full of joy, love, and the Holy Ghost too. That's God. That's awesome.

Peace, Love, and Joy

2007-05-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

Today I was just so full of peace, love, and joy. I had no stress, oppression, fear, or hesitation to preach. I didn't feel burdened or overwhelmed to preach the Gospel to a world of dying souls. Instead, I felt at peace and full of joy in trusting that God was in control and He was using me to do His will. It is necessary to have an urgent longing for the world to be saved, but we must entrust that burden upon God and not upon ourselves or else we could get overwhelmed and depressed if we think we have to save the whole world by ourselves. It is God who saves, not me. I just speak, He is the one who changes hearts.

This morning Greg and I went to the Lynx central bus station in downtown in order to bring a good quality wheelchair to an angel named Anh. Let me tell you about Anh. She just might be the sweetest, most love-filled human being I have ever met. She is a Chinese American who was raised as a Buddhist. She was born three and a half months premature and as a result she has always been on a wheelchair. However, she is one of the most joyful, loving, life-filled people on this earth. She is truly an angel. Her best friend growing up was Catholic, so she went to mass with her often. She never got saved there, but many seeds were planted in her heart. In 1999, she was at the beach depressed and contemplating suicide when God spoke to her and called her through the waves. I know that sound wierd, but it's true. As she saw the waves get bigger and bigger she heard God calling her to trust in Him and give her life to him. That is how she got saved. Eventually, she was rejected by her family and now she lives by herself. She is truly amazing and just seeing her, talking with her, and praying with her today filled me with so much joy, love, and peace. That had a lot to do with why my day was so full of peace, love, and joy.

Greg and I went to the Florida Mall today to preach. On the way there I finally had the boldness to get up and preach in front of the bus. It was wonderful. The bus was completely packed.

At the mall, we talked with many people. I'll just tell about a few converstations. We went up to Ashley after eating lunch. She turned out to be a strong Christian and she became very interested when I said I was a pastor's kid and Greg was an ex-drug addict. She really wanted to hear Greg's testimony, so he told it to her. When Greg was winding down a friend of hers sat down next to her, but she stayed staring the other way. As Greg talked with Ashley I began talking with her friend. I started off by asking, "so do you follow Jesus too?" She said, "No. I'm a Buddhist." From there on we went into a full on conversation about Jesus and the Gospel. We explained to her the entire Gospel, but she stubbornly rejected everything we say. However, I have faith that what we said pentrated her heart because God's words do not return to Him void. Also, I noticed that Ashley was so excited and amazed to see us preaching the Gospel to her friend. I can tell that she had never shared the Gospel to her friend and was amazed at how great the conversation with her friend was turning out. I pray that God uses her to bring her friend to Christ. Her friend was mixed Chinese and something else (probably American).

I spoke with a Puerto Rican guy named Bolivar. He confessed that if he died tonight he would go to hell and that he had never given his life to Jesus and repented of his sins. So I preached the Gospel to him. I asked him if he wanted to give his life to Jesus and he said that he really needed to and wanted to, but he didnt want to pray right now. However, I know he was deeply convicted and will be saved. Before this I spoke with a Mexican and almost the exact same thing ocurred. It was wonderful.

Greg went up to Lonny and Lonny (father and son) from the Virgin Islands and we had a great conversation with them. We were straight up with them and they were truly convicted. However, they did not want to give their lives to Christ. I asked them why they do not want to give their lives to Jesus if they know He is the truth. The son (about 19) responded, "That is an unanswerable question." I know they will be saved.

Then I met Romey, a Greek Jew that has only been in the USA for two weeks. I preached the Gospel to him, but I didn't have the time to tell the whole Gospel to him because he had to go back to work since his break was finished. When he saw Greg's necklace that said Kadosh (Holiness) in Hebrew he really opened up and listened to us. Greg read him Psalm 22 and explained some reasons why Jesus was the Messiah, but right when we were getting deep into Christ's messiahship he had to return to work. But the seed was planted and God will be faithful to bring growth.

My favorite conversation of the day was with two Peruvian businessmen that are flying back to Peru tommorrow. They were both Catholic and they both claimed to know and follow God, but when I asked them if they knew where they would go if they died tonight they both confessed that they had no idea. So I preached the Gospel to them because I saw that they didn't really know it. They gave me their undivided attention and Greg excitedly observed it all even though he did not understand one word as we spoke in Spanish. I find it so amazing that through the Holy Spirit two middleaged, successful businessmen could be arrested and convicted by the words of a nineteen year old boy that is not very accomplished in the eyes of the world. Truly, all the glory belongs to God alone! They were deeply impacted by my telling of the Gospel. I asked them if they wanted to give their lives to Christ, but they said that this was a hard decision to make. I asked them why it was so hard if they knew it was the truth. They said that family and work occupied all their time. I believe this is one of the cheapest excuses in existence, so I appealed to their manliness to shame them. I told them, "I know you are men. I am certain that you know what it means to be disciplined and responsible in your life. You have top priorities in your life and no matter what it takes you will make time to fulfill those top priorities. Now, I know that you both believe God to be the most important One in all of life, yet he is one of your least priorities. You know that God must be our first priority in life, so if you are responsible and mature enough to make time for such top priorities as family and work why can't you give God what he rightfully deserves if He is indeed your top priority in life. I truly dedicated my life to God when I was twelve and I have been completely dedicated to Him ever since. You are men. If a kid could commit his life to God surely you could." I talked some more and they were so so convicted. I begged them to repent and give their lives to Christ and asked them why their are holding back and they were sincerely speechless. One of the men's eyes were all watery and I was able to tell that he was amazed by me. Glory to God! They didn't pray in that moment, but I implored them to not go to bed tonight without giving their lives to Christ. I believe they will.

We had many more conversations, but I don't have time to write about them all. This is my last night in Orlando and it sure was great.

Breakthrough!

2007-05-21T20:24:00.000-07:00

Today was glorious, but it started out absolutely miserable.

I had a wonderful time of prayer in the morning and I was absolutely certain that I would preach on the bus on the way to West Oaks Mall, but for some reason I didn't. I don't really know how to explain why I didn't. As much as I wanted to I couldn't do it.

When I got to the mall I was a little discouraged, but after praying some more I went into the mall confidently, but I wasn't able to preach to anyone. I was petrified with fear. It was torture. So I went outside and found a hidden table. There I prayed and read my Bible for more than an hour. I felt like burying myself and just hiding myself from the world. I truly felt like just giving up this whole trip. I honestly thought that I was much stronger than I actually am. I thought that if I am forced to daily preach the Gospel all day long I would do it with no fear or hesitation. However, being forced into it now I realize that even though I am being forced to preach I still am not able to. I am truly a weak man. This has been a deeply humbling experience for me. Finally, I came to the following conclusion: Either I give back Greg and Lourdes their money that they gave me to continue on this trip and just give up and go home a defeated man or I suck it up and preach. If I quit this trip I would be in direct rebellion towards God. I would never raise up an army of itinerant preachers in the world and as a result millions of people that were suppossed to be saved through these itinerant preachers would never be saved. Thus, I will have the blood of millions of souls upon my hands. And what's much worse is that there will be millions of souls that will burn in Hell forever that wouldn't have been there if an itinerant preacher had brought them to Christ. Also, if I don't do this trip I don't think I would do Christian music because the main cause of my music will be to raise up missionaries and itinerant preachers. In essence, if I give up on this trip I am running from the destiny God has for me and my life will be in shambles.

So I decided to just suck it in and preach. I began quoting Scripture and proclaiming God's promises in His Word and upon my life. And, eventually, somehting just broke and I was free from my fear. I am not sure if it was something demonic or simply in my mind, but all I know is that I overcame it completely at that time.

I began by talking with two very elderly men of which both claimed to be saved although I was not so sure about one of them.
As I walked and prayed I felt led to talk to a guy named Sunny working at a kiosk. It turned out to be great because the guy was desperate for someone to talk to. He said that in the past eleven days only one person has bought a product from the kiosk. He said it is miserably boring just sitting and doing nothing all day long. He was working a 10 hour work day today and had already been sitting doing nothing for four hours.
It turns out he is a descendant of Indians (from India) and he was born in the USA, but raised in India and England. He now has been in the USA a few years. He is Sikh as in a follower of Sikhism. I asked him several questions about Sikhism and he answered them very kindly. Then I began preaching the Gospel to him and he was extremely open and listened intently the entire time. At the end of it all he told me that he has never told anyone this: He has always believed in Christianity and Sikhism and much of Islam, but he has never wanted to decide which one is absolutely true because if he did so then the others cannot be true. So I urged him to make a decision. He acknowledged that indifference and laziness are sins and he should make a concrete decision about what is the truth. He said that he has read most of the Sikh scriptures and he has read some parts of the Bible and he told me that he really enjoys reading the Bible because every sentence has a meaning even if he doesn't undersand the meaning. I told him to read More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell and he promised that he would especially since he was bored out of his mind at work. I prayed for him and he was greatly touched and appreciative. I believe that our conversation lasted a good hour and a half.

Later, I began talking with an American Muslim man, but he had to leave for the airport. So I walked over to an Indian looking couple and they turned out to be Muslims from Guyana. The husbands name was Muhammad Ali. We talked for about forty minutes. It was great. He quoted the Ten Commandments, The Lord's Prayer, and Psalm 23 verbatim. I preached the Gospel to him, but his wife just ignored me and tried to fall asleep. He listened politely and considered all that I said. I repeatedly explained to him Jesus' death on the cross and how it is our only salvation. However, he just kept saying he beleived in God and not Jesus. I thought he was Hindu throughout the conversation. It was until the end when he told me his full name did I realize that he was Muslim. Even still he clearly understood that Jesus is the only way and why it is so. He admitted that apart from Christ he had no assurance of salvation. However, he still did not want to accept Christ as his Lord.

Next I spoke with another man from Guyana. His name is Milton, he is 77 years old, and he has always been faithful to church from childhood until now. He has always been Presbyterean or Lutheran. For a while we talked and it seemed like he was a somewhat strong Christian. However, I finally mentioned how I am so worried about America because they are believing the lie that all religions lead to God. Suddenlt, he revealed that he to is under this deception, which further revealed that he didn't understand the Gospel at all. I explained the whole Gospel to him and he debated if it all was true.
What a shame to the church. Here is a man that is has been a faithful church-goer for 77 years in Guyana, Canada, Michigan, and Florida, and he still doesn't understand nor believe in the Gospel. In fact, he even debated it validity and power. That is depressing. What on Earth is the church preaching and teaching?! If they haven't clearly presented the Gospel in 77 years then something is desperately wrong. I prayeed for him and it was great.

An American guy hungrily listened to the Gospel, but then had to go back to work because his boss was calling him back.

Then I met Denzel, a fifteen-year-old African American. We talked for about 45 minutes. I preached the Gospel to him and was very real with him about true repentance and what sin is. He was deeply convicted, especially by the fact that the Bible says "fornicators will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" and he had already had sex out of marriage. At the end of it all I asked him if he wanted to give his life to Christ and he said "Yes". So in that moment we prayed together and he accepted Jesus into his life and he repented of his sins.

Afterwards, I approached two African-American teenagers and began talking to them. They both regularly attend a church, but after a while I saw that they weren't saved. After I preached the Gospel to them one of them called a friend of his who was walking by with a girl. They both came and sat down and I talked with them too. The guy fully understood the Gospel and admitted that if he were to die tonight he would go to Hell. However, after talking with all four of them for a while he ended up asking me if they could all pray to accept Jesus and repent before I even asked them. So the three guys truly gave their lives to Christ. After praying the sinner's prayer the third guy asked if he could pray too, so he prayed his own prayer of surrender and repentance towards God. The girl didn't want to give her life to Christ. Their names are Chris, Deshon, and Ryan (I forgot the girl's name). It was beautiful. We talked for about an hour and fifteen minutes at least and they all greatly thanked me for talking with them. They along with Denzel were just ripe for the picking. In fact, when the girl stated that she wasn't ready to give her life to Christ Ryan began preaching to her and told her about the parable of the 10 virgins and urged her not to be one of the foolish virgins.

Next I talked with five guys around my age. One was a youth leader at his church and all the others had one or more family members who were in the ministry. However, none of them were fully dedicated to God except for the one who was a youth leader. But what was really ironic is that the youth leader ended up stating that he believed that if someone in another religion is truly devout to their religion they can still go to Heaven and then all the other guys ended up preaching to him explaining why Jesus is the only way. I don't doubt the youth leaders salvation because I was able to see that he truly did have Christ living in him, but I just found it so ironic that the one true Christian got rebuked and corrected by all the backslidden, hypocrite Christians.

I talked with a lesbian couple, but they were atheist and were really irritated by everything I said, so I just said some things from my heart and left them. I believe they were touched.

Then I saw two pretty girls sitting at a table, but I was kind of hesitant to approach them because I thought they would be snobby, rude girls. However, I soon approached them and they turned out to be real Christians. That made me laugh at myself because I realized that all too often I judge and stereotype a person from afar, but once I talk with them I end up being totally wrong from my judgement. Sometimes it is the most inimidating looking person that is open and the sweetest looking lady that bluntly rejects you. I love it.

What a spectacular day! Hallelujah!

The Need For A Partner

2007-05-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

05/18/07

Today was a really weird and frustrating day. I was physically, mentally, and somewhat spiritually and emotionally drained. After so many days preaching the Gospel every day there just comes a point where you can't do it anymore. At least that what I just experienced. My spiritual and emotional relationship with God was wonderful and my intellect was at peace, but my drive and energy to thoroughly explain the Gospel to people all day long just wasn't there.

A big part of it has to do with doing all of this by myself. I recieved a revelation today (at least to me it was a revelation): Paul was mever alone whene he preached the Gospel. Perhaps there were a few instances where he preached alone, but never was there a time period, missionary journey, or big evangelistic effort where Paul was alone. He was always with Barnabas, Silas, Luke, Timothy, Titus, or someone else. I thought I was being like Paul by going out alone, but I'm not being like Paul at all. Almost no one in the Bible was alone during ministry: John the Baptist had his disciples, Jesus had his disciples, Peter and John preached together, Moses had Aaron and Joshua, David had his mighty men and Samuel and Nathan, Jeremiah had his scribe, etc. There were definitely some people that were alone such as Jonah, Elijah (except when Elisha came along), Joseph, and some others, but rarely in the New Testament is there ever an instance of someone preaching alone.

Now I know why. I find that when I evangelize with a partner it is a lot less stressful and draining. When I evangelize I talk to the person with all of my heart, soul, spirit, mind, and strength. I try to convey the Gospel to each individual as powerfully and personally as I can. This is exhausting. I have found that when I preach alone I almost always need to take a

five or ten minute break between talking with people becuase I am so mentally tired. However, when I am witha partner I share the load with him. We'll take turns approaching people (which is the hardest part to evangelism) and we'll flow together in the conversation. So when we're done talking with one person(s) we could go straight to the next without taking a break because neither of us are mentally exhausted at the end of the conversation because we shared the load. Furthermore, having a partner gives me more confidence just by having his presence there and knowing that he is supporting me, praying for me, and will help me if I say something wrong or don't know an answer. Moreover, it's a lot more fun with a partner. Sometimes evangelizing alone can be an overwhelming experience, but when I am with someone else it is much more fun and easy, but still equally as powerful. Another reason for having a partner is the power of prayer. "One puts a thousand to flight, two ten thousand." My personal time with God each day I love to do by myself, but when I go evangelizing it is always more powerful to pray with another person. Also, sometimes I feel alone. I feel like no one around me really feels what I am feeling, sees how I am seeing, cries like I am crying, and desperately preaches like I am preaching. And that causes me to feel lonely sometimes. But with a partner I will have someone to share those feelings and thoughts with and that will bring comfort to me. Furthermore, whenever I feel discouraged I will have someone there to encourage me, pray with me, and challenge me. Even if I don't have the strength to preach my partner might and just by being with him and seeing him preach I will naturally regain the strength to preach. Also, preaching in front of crowds is very hard, but when someone is with me it gives a stronger motivation to preach in public. Having a friend staring at me, praying for me, and waiting for me to get up and preach causes me to stop making excuses, stop hesitating, face my fears, and just do it. But when no one's there with me the pressure and encouragement to preach is much less even though I know God is with me regardless. There's just something about having the presence and support of another brother in Christ together with me that empowers me to preach and gives me the josy and strength to do it all day long.

I am so glad I am going to have a partner join me next Friday. His name is Alex Diaz. Please pray for him too, especially once he joins up to me. I'll tell the story of how I met him and how we joined together in another blog.

Deep Conversations

2007-05-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

Today (05/14/07) I only spoke with three people, but I spoke to them for a long time.

In the morning I wrote in a blog because I've been behind on writing them in. When I was finishing Greg woke up and he started talking with me. We have wonderful conversations and he tells me some really crazy stories of his own life experience, but once he starts talking it's very hard for him to stop. We usually talk from one to four hours at a time. In the morning about two hours and at night about four hours. That is why I have been going to sleep so late. However, I realize that it is necessary for the both of us. I am learning many, many things from him and he has finally found someone that he could pour his heart and past out to.

So I left at 2 p.m. even though I woke up around 8 a.m.
Walking down to the bus stop I saw a homeless man across the street. I didn't really want to talk to him because I had grown a little disillusioned with homeless people because many of them hear sermons every day, yet few of them ever change. However, I felt drawn to him. As soon as I went over to him and greeted him he grabbed my Bible saying, "So what is it you got there." This led into a one and a half to two hour conversation about his relationship with God. Jim had already believed, repented, and given his life to the Lord, but he was still somewhat far from God. He was truly a unique homeless man. I sincerely respect him. The conclusion of it all was that he made a commitment to read and truly study the Bible more and to seek God with all of his heart. He was truly touched by our conversation. It was amazing how much he knew about God, life, and righteousness. He was very honest. We talked about homelessness a great deal also.

Towards the end of our conversation I hear someone yell "Joshua!" I looked and there was Ronald, the son of Pastor Joao and Rosangela. Their family were good friends of ours for over a year in Miami. They had moved to Orlando almost three years ago, but we eventually lost contact with them because they changed their phone numbers and address. The entire family is currently living outside of Florida except for Ronald. He is the only one still in Orlando. And God would have it that in the entire huge city of Orlando I would happen to be sitting at the CVS on Orange Blossom Trail and Oakridge Rd. at the same time that Ronald would be exiting the CVS. Wow! Praise God! I had wanted to see their family, but we had no way of contacting them. So I hung out with Ronald for at least a good hour. He is currently working in the YMCA and he id now the youth pastor of John Calvin Presbyterean Church right next to the YMCA.

He took me to the YMCA where there is a park with a basketball courts and a skatepark. There were many people playing basketball, but only one kid skating. Ronald and I began talking with Miguel, the one skater, and it led into a one and a half hour conversation about God. It was absolutely beautiful. Honestly, Miguel knew practically nothing about God. He was very attentive and touched by everything I said to him. I said it in a way that he could understand it and see that it is truly real. Eventually, about thirty skaters came in and he began skating too. Very few of the skaters stopped to rest, so I couldn't really talk to them. So I just watched them and prayed for about an hour. I asked God for another opportunity to talk with Miguel because I had not had the chance to preach the Gospel to him yet. Miguel is a beginner, so he got really tired and frustrated after about an hour. Praise God! So I was able to talk to him again and tell him the Gospel. He was deeply convicted and impacted and he wanted to give his life to Jesus, but he said that he needed some time to process it all since it was the first time he had ever heard the Gospel message in his life. He's sixteen and he was raised in the Catholic Church, but he never heard the Gospel before. What a shame! I prayed for him and he was extremely grateful. Ronald, Miguel, and I exchanged information and Miguel said that he would start coming to Ronald's youth meeting at his church and Ronald committed to taking care of him. Praise God!

As the sun was setting all the skaters left and only four remained. I felt God leading me to preach to them, so I casually introduced myself. They shook my hand and then continued joking and talking amongst themselves. I knew I needed to get into the conversation somehow, but I couldn't. I realized that I just had to interject and ask them if they knew God, but I couldn't muster up the courage to do so. They lingered and lingered doing nothing and it felt like God was the one causing them to linger, but I couldn't muster up the courage to speak up. One of them even said, "Look at how stupid we are. It's dark, we're sitting around doing nothing, and we're starving. Let's go." Finally they left and I hadn't said a word to them. I don't know why. As the drove away I felt Godsaying to me, "Their blood is on your hands." The fear of the Lord struck me and I began to cry out for mercy and for God to still save them somehow. I was a coward once again.

Once I arrived at Greg's house at 9 p.m. I still felt like I needed to talk with more people, so I prayed outside. I felt the Lord leading me to speak with three people that were chillin', but I just couldn't push myself to do it. Then Luis, Greg's neighbor, came out and we began talking. As soon as we started talking Avner, Greg' s other neighbor came out and started talking with me. Luis left and Avner and I continued talking. Avner is an Israeli Jew who was born n Haifa, but has lived most of his life in the USA. However, he still can read, write, and speak Hebrew. Almost immediately he knew I was going to ask him about God, so he began talking about God first. He told me where he stands in his opinion of Jesus, the Bible, Christianity, and Judaism. We ended up talking for about three and a half hours. It was awesome. He is the closest Jew to the kingdom of God that I have ever met besides Jews that have already given their lives to Jesus. Greg and Tatton also came into the conversation for a little bit and spoke their words to Avner. Avner also has a good friend that is a Messianic Jew that is currently working on his PhD in Theology. His name is Seth. Seth has had a huge influence upon Avner. I know that it is only a matter of time before Avner gives his life to Christ because he is surrounded by on fire Christians. His roomate, Tatton, his neighbor, Greg, and his good friend, Seth. And now me.

University of Central Florida

2007-05-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

Today I evangelized in UCF (University of Central Florida). It think it's campus is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, I have ever seen. I arrived to the campus around 10:15 a.m., prayed a while, and began evangelizing around 11:00 a.m.

The first person I talked with was Jessica. She is a very sweet Catholic girl who politely listened to everything I had to say and kindly responded when I asked her questions. However, at the end of it all I asked her if she wanted to give her life to Jesus and repent of her sins, but she said that she had no sins to repent for. She clearly explained to me that she felt no need to repent because she doesn't feel that she sins. When I clarified what a sin was she just responded by saying that God knows her thoughts and doesn't need to repent.

After a couple rejections I met Amar. In my opinion it was the best talk of the day. Amar's mother is a full-time minister and he was forced to believe in Jesus his whole life although he confessed to me that he had never in his life personally made the decision to believe in Jesus, repent of his sins, and follow Him. He said that right now in college as his eyes are being opened to new ways of thinking he is completely confused and lost about his life and what to believe. However, when I explained to him the Gospel he hungrily ate up every word as if he had never heard it before (because maybe he hadn't). I am finding more and more as I talk to 'Christians' that even though they were raised in church they have no idea what the Gospel is. That is pathetic and that is entirely the church's fault. It is one thing if they are raised their entire life in church, know the Gospel, and choose to reject, but it is entirely different when a person is raised their whole life in church, quotes scripture after scripture, knows Christian doctrine up and down, but has no idea what the Gospel truly is. That shows that the churches these people were raised might have taught deep spiritual truths, but they never or rarely taught the most important truth of all, The Gospel.
So anyways, Amar readily recieved the Gospel and understood it. I asked him if he wanted to give his life to Christ, but he said that he needed some time to process it all because it truly seemed like it was the first time he had ever heard the clear and complete Gospel even though his mom is a minister. That is sad. I prayed for him and he was truly touched and grateful. I know he is going to come to the Lord.

Later on I met Kiribati, a guy from Andhar Pradesh, India. When he told me he was from India I asked him what state in India.
He replied, "You know the states?!".
I told him I knew some. He was really impressed.
He said, "Andhar."
I responded and said, "Andhar Pradesh?"
"Yes," he smiled.
He felt that I was someone that really respected India and appreciated him as an Indian and,well, he's right. God has given me a great love for India. I asked him if he had a relationship wiht God and he said that he didn't. So I explained to him the Gospel. He listened very intently, but when I began explaining the cross he made up an excuse to leave and bid me farewell. However, I know that something was planted in his heart.

The entire day I felt such oppression on the campus. Everyone seemed to be so into themselves: their accomplishments, their knowledge, their goals, their goodness, their career. The only humble people I spoke with today was Amar and one other red haired guy at the end of the day. Everyone else had such an obvious air of pride, self-righteousness, and independence from God. The problem didn't even seem to be skepticism. They just simply didn't care. They could care less about God. Their life is doing great without Him and they are already such morally 'good' people that they just don't need God. It's like their jsut walking around aimlessly in life with their eyes glazed over. I obviously can't judge everyone, but that is what I saw when I talked with the students and that is what I felt in the atmosphere from the moment I walked onto the campus.

So in the midst of feeling and thinking all these things I found a fresh black guy to talk to. Almost always when I speak to black people they always have the respect to at least listen with respect. However, Hugh was an exception. He was just as uncaring about God as the rest of the people I talked to. However, we still had a good conversation. He had two earrings on of Jesus' face, but he knew nothing about the Gospel. After I explained it to him he was impacted and amazed. He told me that he had never heard what I explained to him in his life even though he was raised in chruch!!! That makes me mad!!! How could this be!? However, all of a sudden, he asked me how he could trust that the Bible is true. I gave him some very well put explanations, but he just argued in circles and cirlces for about 40 minutes. He was just one of those people that doesn't believe in ancient history. Period. No amount of proof, ancient manuscripts, or archaelogy could ever convince him that ancient history is true. So the argument was futile. However, he taught me a big lesson. He told me that the Gospel message that I shared with him in the beginning changed his life, but my arguments about the Bible were pointless. He told me that he had only asked me to prove the Bible because he wanted to play devil's advocate to see my response. He expected my response to be, "It doesn't matter whether I could prove to you the Bible is true or not this (the Gospel) is the truth." But instead I went into an intellectual, historical argument about the Bible. This teaches me that many people are tired of intellectual arguments because they hear intellectuals debating and defeating each other all the time. They know that nothing can truly be proven merely by an intellectual argument. Many people just want to hear the truth; something that they can honestly recognize as real. The Gospel message. That's as real as it gets. At the end of the converstation, I humbly apologized for getting on an inellectual tangent and thanked him for the lesson he had taught me. I told him that what changed my life was the Gospel and not an intellectual argument about the Bible. He nodded his head in solemn acknowledgement. Then I prayed for him and we left on good terms.

I talked with several other people until about 4:30 p.m. because the students all go back to their dorms around that time. I had some good conversations that ended abruptly because they had to go to class.

I took the bus to the mall, but then it started pouring like it was the end of the world. One lightning bolt was so loud and close that I was literally able to feel electricity tingling on my skin. So I called Lourdes to pick me up while I waited under a bus stop covering.

Lourdes cooked up a storm and we ate like kings. Hallelujah!

The Art of Soul Winning

2007-05-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

Anh, me, and Greg

I didn't wake up to my alarm today so I woke up quite late. I bade farewell to everyone at Greg's house because today was the last day I would spend at his house. I preached the Gospel to two of his neighbors and they were very impacted. Then Greg and I went to downtown on the bus. I got up and preached on the bus and it was truly powerful. I saw that many people were listening intently and were truly touched. When I had sat down one guy got up from his seat in the back and came and sat by me. He was a backslidden Christian and he had really been touched by what I had preached. Several other people came to me to shack my hand and thank me before getting off the bus. It was wonderful. I was especially glad that no one interrupted me or stopped me from preaching.

We arrived at the central bus station in downtown and I just stayed there evangelizing all day. At any given time there are about 150 tp 200 people at the central bus station no matter what time of day it is, so it's a prime place to evangelize. Especially since everyone is sitting down doing absolutely nothing as they wait for the bus. I talked with numerous people throughout the day and not one person rejected me today. Everyone was very receptive and hungry for the Gospel message. One guy gave his life to the Lord and it was completely sincere. I spoke with a Buddhist and he was quite receptive, but in the end seemed to shrug it off.

The weirdest conversation I had was with Ashley, a extremely committed Baptist young woman. She had some crazy tattoo and was smoking. Her boyfriend is in prison, but she claims that he is such a good guy. She told me with such conviction how much she believed her father should be a pastor and then she told me right afterwards that this week he has been suffering withdrawal symptons from speed. I kept asking her if she lived in holiness and she insisted that she did. It was so weird. To this day she is a part of a church and loves it, but she doesn't know what it means to follow Jesus.

I've noticed that so many people claim to know the Gospel, but as soon as I explain the Gospel with the Law, God's judgement, God's mercy, the meaning of Jesus sacrifice on the cross, and the absolute necessity for true repentance everyone, without fail, realizes that they never really understood the Gospel and are convicted and amazed by my explanation of it.

Furthermore, the more I evangelize the more I realize that pushing people to do the sinner's prayer is not the way of the Kingdom of God. As humans we like to see results, especially immediate results. We like numbers. We want to count the number of souls we save, but I have come to realize that even that ambition is wrong. We will only truly know once we die and I am at peace with that. Even if I do convince someone to do the sinner's prayer it does not mean that they are saved. Salvation does not come through a simple prayer, but by a genuine faith and repentance that transforms someone heart and life. If the person is truly ready to give their life to Jesus right there on the spot then praise God; I'll pray the sinner's prayer for them right then and there. However, if the person is not ready I will not push them to make a decision they aren't gonna truly mean. Let me rephrase that. I will definitely push them to give their lives to Jesus, but if they are not ready to give their life to Christ that second I will not be discouraged. I will have faith that the Holy Spirit will do a work in that person and deal with that person in order to bring them to a place where they will give their whole life to Christ. He might bring them to that place the second I am speaking with them, an hour after, that night, a week later, a year later, or a decade later, but He is the one that will bring the person to true repentance and salvation, not me. I am merely a messenger. Someone might say, "But Joshua, if you don't get the person to do the sinner's prayer right then and there the Devil could come in immediately afterwards and snatch the seed." That's true. However, who ever said the sinner's prayer will save you? Furthermore, I know the devil has the power to snatch the seed, but I believe the Holy Spirit has a greater power to preserve and cultivate the seed until it bears fruit. Anyways, I'm saying all this to say that I have completely changed the way I look at the results of this trip. I will no longer judge the success of this trip based on how many people I convince to say the sinner's prayer with me because even if they do say the sinner's prayer I have no idea if they are saved. I will judge the success of this trip based on the fact that I know that it is God that sent me on this trip and it's success depends upon how much I obey or disobey His will. If I keep my side of the deal I know He will be faithful to keep His side of the deal, but if I break my part of the deal I don't know if He'll keep His side of it. In other words, if I preach the Gosel to everyone person, group, or crowd he tells me to with the heart and words He tells me to tell them with He will be faithful to convict them, bring them to salvation, and transform their lives. However, if I do not preach then He cannot touch anyone and even if I do preach, but I don't preach to the people He wants me to preach to and with the heart and words He wants me to speak with then He might not touch anyone's life. Thus, the success of this trip is not based on how many people say the sinner's prayer, but by my faith and obedience towards God. Moreover, I do not think that someone is less impacted if they are not ready to give their lives to Christ then someone that is ready to give their lives to Christ. Every person that has given their life to Jesus after I talk with them has already had God dealing with them for a good while. Those that hear the Gospel message for the first time are impacted and want to give their life to Jesus, but they want some more time to process everything and think about it more. So whether or not I bring someone to say the sinner's prayer I greatly rejoice because I know that I am doing my Father's will and He will be faithful to complete His part of the deal.

The Family of God

2007-05-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

I want to tell you about two amazing people I have become good friends with on this trip: Greg and Lourdes.

This is how I met Greg on Thursday. After failing to preach the Gospel in Burger King, McDonalds, and the bus as the Lord had led me to do I sat in the bus station discouraged. I was praying for God to give me strength to continue preaching when a man in a wheelchair rolled up to me and started talking to me. He started by asking, "I saw your Bible there. So you follow the Lord?". I explained to him my mission trip and he responded, "Yeah. The Lord is calling His people to just stop being cowards." I felt so sharply rebuked by God through his statement.
Anyways, we ended up taking the same bus together and we talked for the rest of the day (about 5 or 6 hours). An hour into the conversation Greg told me that he didn't have much room in his apartment, but he would let me sleep on the couch if I wanted to. I joyfully accepted his offer. So I've been staying in his house ever since and we've become great friends. We've talked for several hours and he told me his whole life story pretty much.
Greg is on fire and he's only been following Christ for a year. He owes it all to Jesus and the teachings of the International Miracle Institute taught by Dr. Christian and Dr. Robin Harfouche. Before that he was raised in an atheist household with a drunkard father. He himseld wsa a drunkard for about 15 years. He's done pretty much every drug on the planet from weed to LSD to cocaine and even a little heroin. He was a crack addict for six years. Six years ago he got in an accident while he was drunk with a bunch of other drunk friends. He was in the bed of the truck as they drove through the windy roads of a forest. The truck flipped over and he flew 75 feet across the forest, hit a tree, and broke his neck. He's been paralyzed from the waist down ever since. However, him and I are both believing for his healing.
In this one year followong Christ he already seems like he's a veteran Christian. He brought in three homeless men to live with him in his small two bedroom one bathroom apartment. He's an amazing man that has a huge heart for the lost and I am so honored to have met him. He is a living example of one that serves the Lord even in the midst of daily suffering. He has taught me a lot. He also introduced me to two of his friends who are also paralyzed from the waist down, on fire for God, and believing for their healing. I have learned so much from them also. Their names are Ahn and Tatton.

Lourdes has become like my mother here in Orlando. She is so full of love even though she herself is still not a mother. I met her in the little (about 45 people) Hispanic Pentecostal church I went to on Wednesday night. The service was wonderful and so full of God's love and presence. The people were so friendly and loving. The pastor permitted me to speak for about five minutes concerning my mission trip, so I did so and I also challenged the people to evangelize in their communities. Afterwards, I talked to most of the people and they all pretty much understood that I was sleeping on the street. They gave me some money(which was extremely helpful), but no one offered me a place to stay. Honestly, I was shocked to see how such loving people could be impacted by my short message, befriend me, know that I am on a mission trip living by faith, and still allow me to go back and sleep on the streets. However, I didn't complain and I was determined not to ever ask anybody for anything and I left. That night I slept in an open field and the next day I met Greg and stayed with him.
However, Lourdes had come up to me after the church service and crying she told me about how deeply impacted she was by my short message and how it truly woke her up to the urgent need to evangelize. Several times she told me "Joshua, this is your home. If you need anything just know that this is your home." I thought she was the one that was going to offer me a place to stay and even after I had put on my backpack and was starting to walk away she came up to me crying saying "This is your home." What I didn't know that I later on found out was that she had no idea that I was on the streets. She thought that I was staying with another lady of the church because I had walked in with her. She freaked out when she saw me walk away with my backpack on, but it didn't click in her mind that I was going to sleep on the street until she saw me cross the street to go into the field. After seeing me cross the street she got into her car and went to get me so I can stay at her house, but she couldn't find me. I had gone deep into the field, so it would have been hard for anyone to find me. That was the whole point. I wanted to sleep somewhere where no one could spot me, especially the cops. Lourdes told me that she felt so horrible knowing that I was on the street and she had not done anything about it. She said that she felt as if I were her little brother and she had failed in helping me. She was so so worried about me. For the next two days she drove up and down the streets looking for me and went to the mall to see if I was evangelizing there, but she never foud me. When she saw me come in on Sunday morning the burden lifted from her and she was overjoyed to see that I was okay. She gave me some food for breakfast.
How can someone have such a deep love and worry for someone they do not even know? Only by the Holy Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit put that burden upon her because it was God's will for us to connect and become great friends. Also, I believe God did that in order for my needs to be provided for through her. I believe that that is how God will provide for me throughout this trip. Through people like Lourdes.
I ended up hanging out with Lourdes, her husband Franchie, and two youth of the church all day long. We really connected and became great friends. It felt like we had been friends for years. It was something truly supernatural.
Lourdes told me that meeting me has left a seal upon her heart and she would never be the same again. God has put on her a burden for evangelism through my life. Glory to God! I am amazed that such a little 5 minute message could change someone's life so deeply. This comes to show me that it has nothing to do with me nor my words, but only the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah!
Lourdes gave me $40, two loaves of Cuban bread, a big box of freshly baked pastries, and a sleeping bag to use in Greg's house. I might stay in her house from Wednesday to the end of the week.

I am truly overwhelmed to experience the love and reality of the family of God. It is truly a family. My friend Aldo put it best. He said,"The connection between brothers and sisters in Christ is deeper than the connection between blood relatives because our spirits connect. It is so true. Praise God!

Orlando

2007-05-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Orlando on Monday. I believed in God for Him to provide for me. Did He do so? Yes. But not in the way I expected.
My mom gave me $40 when I left Miami. When I arrived I preached to people all day and night long. However, no one offered me a place to stay, so I ended up sleeping in an abandoned lot in the middle of downtown Orlando. The second day I went to a church to ask for a place to stay. Only 3 or 4 people were there and they said they were sorry that they didn't have a place for me to stay, but they gave me $20. I found a lush field and slept in it. It was actually quite pleasant. The third day I kept on preaching and I found an abondoned tent in a forest. So that night I slept in the tent. On Thursday, as I was praying a man named Greg came up to me and started talking to me because he saw that I had a Bible. We ended up talking for several hours and he ended up allowing me to stay at his place. Also, on wednesday night I went to a small Pentecostal church and they allowed me to speak a little bit about my trip. Afterwards, none of them opened their home to me, but they gave me $25. I didn't beg or ask anyone for help.

So was God unfaithful in providing for me? No. Not at all. It was God's will for me to be homeless for the short while that I was. I've grown more than I could ever explain in these past few days both spiritually, socially, and as a man. I praise God for allowing me to go through what I went through. It was hard, but it was worth it.

Please pray for me to be obedient to God and to be as bold as a lion.I love you all. Thank you for your prayers.

Divine Appointments

2007-04-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 7 a.m. today, ran a mile and a half, did 150 sit-ups, and 50 push-ups. I did the same thing yesterday. I hope to establish this as a discipline throughout my trip. I find that when I discipline my body it is much easier to discipline my soul, mind, and spirit too. I become more focuse and less lazy in everything I do and I have more energy throughout the day.
Since I am at home I have found myself getting more and more lazy and procrastinating in everything I do. I go to sleep around 2 a.m. every night, wake up around 8 or 9 a.m., pray and read until noon or so, get distracted by something else sometime in between, get asked to do a favor, and before I know it it is one, two, or even three o' clock and I still have not even left my house to preach. I truly am ashamed of myself.
So today I woke up early and left at 9 a.m. with my brother to the Greyhound bus station to drop off Jean and keep him company until he leaves to Jacksonville at 10:40 a.m. While Iwas there I spent my time with the Lord which was much better then doing it at home because there were no distraction, I wouldn't start daydreaming or get sleepy, and I was outside in the sun as opposed to inside a man-made building.
Once Jean left (Jean ended up staying with us for a month, but he wasn't able to get back on his feet and, thus, decide to go back to Jacksonville) I began walking to the metro bus station so that I can take the bus to the 163rd Mall. As I was walking I met McGracey. McGracey was born and raised in New Orleans and before Hurricane Katrina struck he evacuated to Atlanta, but his mom decided to stay. When he returned to the city he discovered that his mother had died in the Hurricane. She was the only family member he had. He had a father that lived in Florida, but he never really knew him and they had a mutual dislike for each other. He moved in with his friends godmother and lived with her for nearly two years. He finished high school and was about to get a job as an electrician when his father called and asked if he could come live with him in Miami and build up his life here. So McGracey arrived in Miami, but his dad never showed up at the bus stop. He called his dad countless times, but his dad never picked up. The next day the phone was disconnected. So McGracey went to The HAC, a great homeless shelter that hooks you up with a job and food and shelter for two months, and in two days he got a job working in a moving company getting paid $10.50 and hour. However, he had to leave his huge suitcase at the greyhound station because he couldn't lug it around while he looked for a shelter. Now he had to pay $10 in order to get it back, but he had no money. So he was trying to sell his brand new pair of Nike's (he had an extra pair of shoes) for $20, but he was too shy to ask people to buy it. I tried to pay the $10 for him, but they did not accept credit and that's all I had. So I helped him go sell the shoes since he was too shy to do it. After askng about seven people one lady gave us $10 to get his suitcase. So we got it and it was a big suitcase. I talked with him about God a lot. He told me that he truly used to be a bad kid in the past, but last week he got saved and he wants to follow Jesus. I gave him all my contact info and invited him to become a part of our church. I told him that even though he has no family we'll be his family. He was extremely grateful and touched and promised to get in touch with me soon and come to church. Hallelujah! I had the privelege of helping Jesus today.
On the bus, I did not have the courage to preach, so I just read a book. A man asked me where I bought my pants because he really liked them. This opened up a conversation with him. Luis is a 71-year-old wealthy man from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic who was in Miami on vacation. As I talked with him I could not think of a way to lead into a converation about Christ because he was a very proffesional man and I knew if I jst mentioned Jesus he would immediately close up. Suddenly, I remembered that I had just prayed for the DR today in Operation World. I told him that and from there the conversation bloomed. I told him many things about my relationship with God, the meaning of life, and the Gospel. He told me that he doesn't believe in anything and he has no reason why he doesn't believe. He just doesn't. One of his best friends is a pastor and many people have told him about Christ, but he just can't believe. After speaking to him he still was unable to believe. I asked him why he doesn't believe and he sid that he has no idea why he can't believe. He said, "Maybe when I get older I'll believe." He's already 71 and he still saying that. Amazing! But I know God is working on him.
I met a woman with tons of piercings, but she turned out to be a true Christian. It was strange, but interesting.
I met Lucy also. She is an elderly woman from Suriname who had a broken knee and even with healthcare she needed another $120 to pay for its treatment. However, she had no money, so she was sitting on the side of a shopping cart begging for money. She lives with her family, but they won't help her so she goes out and begs. Wal-Mart has already threatened to press charges against her for begging on private property, so she begs in a secluded place. I wish I had cash to help her, but I didn't. She was a born again, God-loving Christian. Praise God!
In the mall, I spoke with some young guys about Jesus. When I was talking a woman overheard and came and began speaking about Christ and telling her testimony. When the guys left I spoke with her. It turns out she born and raised as a dedicated Hindu in Trinidad. Her family is Indian and they are all dedicated Hindus. Every time she would read the Bible she would get mad and deeply offended because it constantly spoke against worshipping idols and that's what her reiligion is all about. Around the age of 19 and 20 she began to seek God and asked Him, "God, reveal yourself to me. I want to know who you are so that I may I know who I am praying to and serve you. If you are Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, or anyone else please show me. One day when she was visiting a church she had a vision of a cross and huge pipes of water and blood being poured down upon her and te world. She got saved. Then, one night, when she was sleeping with her husband Jesus walked through the wall into the room, touched her head. and she was baptized with the Holy Spirit. A flame of fire came upon her head and she began to speak in tongues. Since then, a few of her family members have been saved and she recently went back to Trinidad in order to tell her family about Jesus, but they stubbornly rejected.
I met many more great people and had many more great conversations, but I only have so much time to write.

A Day With Punks

2007-04-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today was great! I went to Aventura Mall to preach, but the first few people I spoke with were all Christians. One guy was even an evangelist and he preached to me for about half an hour.
Suddenly, I saw an old friend of mine from high school. He's a total punk with a mohawk and he's Wiccan. I went up to him and began talking with him. He was with five other friends who were also all punks and he introduced me to them all. He and his girlfriend left, but I stayed hanging out with his friends. They all sat down in the food court and talked about pointless things or just stared off into space.
I sat next to Scott and began talking with him. He told me that he was so pissed off because his x-girlfriend was with another guy and had already experienced several anxiety attacks because of it. I asked him what he does to relieve his stress. He said he doesn't know what to do anymore. I told him how I relieve my stress through prayer to God and that's how I led into a one hour long conversation with him about God. He was raised Jewish and had also visited some churches, but was wierded out by them. However, for the past few years he has been atheist and his father is atheist as well. We talked about several aspects of Jesus and Christianity and I was able to preach the full length Gospel to him. It was awesome. He said this is the first peaceful conversation he has ever had about God. He said that usually he would yell at the person he was speaking with, cuss them out, or throw somehting at them. He hates talking with people about God, but for some strange reason he was kind to me and listened intently to everything I said. Hallelujah! At the end of it all he said that everything he said that everything I said was nice, but even if he saw Jesus crucifxion and miracles right in front of him he would still not believe. He hates being told what to do. That's why he's a punk with a mohawk that believes in anarchy. He loves sin and never wants to change his lifestyle. However, even though he said all these things I could see that he was truly impacted and impressed by everything I told him and the manner with which I presented it to him.
Scott then left and I struck up a conversation with Johnny, who is homosexual and has a boyfriend, and Tristynn, who was crying earlier because her boyfriend had left her and was now engaged with another girl. They had heard me speaking with Scott, so I immediately asked them if they had a relationship with God and what they thought about Jesus. They had no relationship with God and were completely ignorant of Jesus. I asked them if I can tell them why I believe in Jesus and they said 'of course'. They listened very intently. I preached the Gospel entirely and at the end of it all I asked them,"Do you see why Jesus is the only way to Heaven and why we must believe in Him?"
They both responded, "Yeah, I understand. I never had someone sit down and explain to me everything about Jesus and your analogies really helped me understand it better. The way you put it all makes total sense."
I asked them if they wanted to give their lives to Jesus. They said they think they would, but they were not ready yet.
Scott returned as soon as we finished and he asked me a bunch of questions about the Bible such as the virgin birth and the end of the world.
We all went to the bus stop together and there I spoke a little bit with Alison, but she soon had to leave. However, she was truly fascinated by Jesus and wanted to know more about him.
Suddenly, Eddie, one of their punk friends, came by. I had talked with him a little bit earlier, but he had left. Upon his return, I spoke with him for a while and began preaching the Gospel to him. Right when I finished speaking about the law and God's judgement my bus arrived and I had to leave. However, I got his phone number and everyone else's number too. They all asked me when we could hang out again. I hung out with them for about four hours.

South Beach

2007-04-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

I love South Beach! How could I love South Beach? Because if Jesus were here today I believe it would be a place where He would go to preach. I absolutely hate the sin and it grieves me to see so many people lost, but it's the perfect place to preach because 99.9% of the people there are radically lost. I read a motto of a preacher that said: "Let the Devil gather them, and we'll preach to them." So South Beach is essentially a hot bed of sin waiting to be evangelized. You see, I don't have to do an outreach, a special event, search for lost people, or make any type of effort to gather or find the lost, because all I need to do is go to South Beach and all the sinners of South Florida are there every weekend. In that sense, it great! In every other sense it's deplorable.
So every Saturday night I've been evangelizing in South Beach and every time (except the first time because I was too afraid to preach) one person has given been saved! Hallelujah!
I went along with Brooke and Michael Vergara this time. It was loads of fun. First, I didn't have the courage to approach anyone so Brooke walked up to two black guys that were smoking cigars and drinking (what a woman!). As soon as we mentioned the name "Jesus", one of the men shouted, "Oh no! I'm in trouble!" I laughed and said, "God caught you red-handed." They seemed to not be able to bear the guilt of having us preach to them while they sinned, so they desperately walked away from us. But they were truly convicted.
Immediately, I turned around and began talking with a middle-aged white American couple. As soon as we mentioned Jesus the woman stepped back, but the man curiously spoke with Michael and I. As soon as I asked him if he had a relationship with God a man that was somewhat next to him (we hadn't noticed or talked to him) exclaimed, "I don't want to hear about this! Don't talk to me about God!"
I responded,"Sir, we aren't talking with you. We are talking with him."
The man snapped back, "He's my cousin. He doesn't want to hear you. He's just being polite. Leave him alone."
I could see the struggle going on in the man's spirit because he wanted to be respectful and was a bit curious to talk with us, but he didn't want to disrespect his cousin. He muttered a few words to us quickly, but then a group of about six people joined them and one of the men (probably in his 40's) loudly joked, "I am God. I'm my own God. Ha Ha Ha." So the man we were speaking with us looked at us apologetically and turned around and left with his friends. I was shocked that a middle-aged, educated man would ever utter such a blasphemous, disrespectful statement. And I bet you he condones tolerance. I bet you. Yet he has no tolerance for Christianity.
I hate the devil! He's a punk!
Brooke was talking with another guy individually, so Michael and I continued walking. Michael approached an elderly man seated on a bench while I spoke with a man that was dressed in a mini-skirt, bikini top, pink shoes, and had a feminine haircut. He, Charles, was very friendly and we sat down together and began talking. Michael quickly joined us because the man he was speaking with rejected him. He kindly listened as we spoke about Jesus and even made remarks that he loved God and Jesus. Eventually, Brooke joined us too. A few minutes later, a group of about seven guys in their 20's ganged up around us and began demanding that Charles pay them back the forty bucks that he stole from them. Charles told them that he never doesn't have forty bucks and he never stole anything from them. One of the guys began threatening him saying that if he didn't pay it pack in five seconds they would beat him up. The guy took off his shirt and was getting ready to swing at Charles when I stood up and said, "Hey! What are you doing. Leave him alone. Do you think this is worth forty bucks? You wanna go to jail just because of forty bucks?"
I have no idea what effect that statement made on the guys, but the one guy that was threatening Charles put his shirt back on and yelled, "If I see you again I'll put a bullet in your head!"
Another guy said, "Next time we see you you better have the forty bucks!"
I took the opportunity to talk with the group of guys and said, "Hey! Could I asked you guys a question? We've been telling people about God tonight and I want to ask you if you were to die tonight where would you go?" They all walked away and shouted with disgust such things like "I don't care about God!", "I don't believe in God!", and "Ahh!". The most shocking thing to me was that all of these guys seemed to be preppy, well-educated individuals that are most likely college graduates or students. This goes to show that neither education nor financial prosperity causes people to become civilized and 'good'. Only God in someone's life can truly accomplish this. Someone can be civilized and educated 95% percent of the time and sinful 5% of the time, but that 5% is what destroys the world. That is why we all so desperately need God.
Charles asked me to please walk with him all the way to the bus stop, so that he could leave and get out of Miami-Dade County. He was scared for his life. He said that was not the first time that those guys had messed with him, but it was the first time that they had threatened to beat him up and even kill him. He said that they knew he lived in Hialeah, so he wanted to move all the way up to West Palm Beach tonight. It was a long walk, but it was great because I got to talk to him a bunch. I preached the Gospel to him and he truly was hungry for God , but I saw that he was full of pain, loneliness, and emptiness. He asked me why God allowed his mother to die and he told me that he had no family except for an aunt. He told me that he made money by being tipped for dancing in front of bars, clubs, and businesses and he had made several friends that way, but I'm sure they were merely acquaintances. I can't imagine how lonely Charles is. He has no family, no friends, he's constantly harassed and made fun of, and everyone looks at him and treats him like a freak. From spending time with him I saw that all he needed and wanted was love and healing. I implored him to find a good church to be a part of, but inside of me I wept for him because I knew that practically no church would ever accept him because he was a 'freak'. But if anyone took the time to talk with him they would see that he was not a freak at all, but only a lonely, hurt boy looking for people to love and be loved by. I believe that if he were loved and accepted by a godly group of believers God would heal him, restore him, transform him. He would exchange the emptiness of homosexuality for the fullness and love of Jesus. But churches need to be willing to love, accept, be patient with, and pray for these type of people just like they have learned to do with drug addicts and gangsters. His bus arrived before I was able to offer the him the opportunity to give his life to Jesus, but I know that God did his work and that Charles will never forget us. Praise God I was still able to pray for him. He was extremely grateful for us being there with him and for saving him from those guys because he believed if it weren't for us he would've been dead right now or in the hospital. He even said, "Now I know that God really loves me because He sent you guys to save my life."
When Charles left I joined up again with Michael and Brooke. Michael was talking with two teenagers and Brooke was talking with a really old homeless man. I went up to a woman there and attempted to talk with her, but she did not even look at me or say a word. After persisting a bit she finally told me to get away from her because she was super pissed off. So I left her and began talking with a homosexual, homeless man named Glen who was sitting next to Brooke. He was pretty drunk, but as we talked his responses showed that he was following and comprehending everything I was saying. He claimed to be Catholic and a member of a Catholic church. I preached the entire Gospel to him as he listened attentively. The moment I said that Jesus died on the cross in order to pay the penalty for his sin he began to cry and cry. I asked him if he wanted to believe in Jesus and repent of his sins and he wept saying, "Yes! Yes! Oh yes I do!" So we prayed together and he gave his life to the Lord. Feeling that he hadn't understood what repentance meant I explained it to him further and asked him if he truly wants to repent of drinking, smoking, illicit sex, cursing, etc. and he said 'yes'. Now, he was drunk. I honestly do not know if he was saved at all, if he will ever remember our conversation, or if he understood what the decision was that he just made. Only God knows. However, I have faith that God truly did touch him and save him. Also, Brooke mentioned that even his face looked totally different after I spoke with him from when she had first seen him. Praise God!
On our way back to the car we walked into an open gay bar and began talking with two of the guys. Brooke and Michael talked with a man from Bulgaria while I spoke with Marcelo from Brazil. Marcelo just cursed God, the Bible, faith, prayer, Jesus, and everything else you can imagine the whole time. He claimed to be his own God. Every time I tried to say something he would just begin cussing and blaspheming God. The Bulgarian man was suspicious of Brooke and Michael the whole time and thought they were part of a strange cult, so he didn't really talk with them that much. Then we left.
I'm seriously thinking of one day starting a church in South Beach. And if not South Beach, then somewhere equally or more sinful like Hollywood, Amsterdam, San Francisco, or New York.

Door-to-Door

2007-04-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

In the past three days, I went door-to-door to over 100 houses in my neighborhood talking to people about Jesus and inviting them to mine and my parent's cell group. It was awesome! I truly enjoy going door-to-door and all my false fears about this type of evangelism were totally disproved. Most people were friendly and respectful and I had a number of good conversations. Also, I made quite a few friends since they all live in my neighborhood.
Furthermore, I think my neighborhood is one of the most Christian neighborhoods I've ever seen or heard of. And I'm talking about committed, Bible-reading, church-going, Jesus-loving Christians. I met three pastors, a deacon, a worship leader, and several committed church members. I met Baptists, Adventists, Methodist, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Messianic Jews and many people from independent churches. Honestly, I only met about 14 or 15 unsaved families and most of them go to church sporadically or on a regular basis, so about 85% to 90% of our neighbors are true Christians. Praise God! And I sure do have some amazing neighbors. One of my neighbors is the Dean of the New World School of the Arts, another won the lottery, another owns a big studio and is in charge of organizing huge concerts in Miami such as Ultra Fest, and I have neighbors from Eritrea (guess where that is). Only one man bluntly closed the door on me, several others were busy eating, sleeping, in the bathroom, etc., but most people were kind and listened.
Out of all the conversations I had the best was with Calvin because he gave his life to Jesus at the end of it! After preaching the Gospel to him he realized that he was lost, so when I asked him if he wanted to commit his life to Jesus he responded, "Yeah. What do I gotta do?" (That's the modern "What must I do to be saved?"). So I led him into the sinners prayer and then prayed for him personally. One man my mother and I talked to almost burst into tears after we prayed for his nephew with muscular dystrophy and my mom told him her testimony of how she was healed of an incurable disease when she was a child. He was deeply moved and asked us to please return. Another man asked me to please come to his house because he loves to study the Bible and wanted me to give him a Bible study. Also, I received a lot of encouragement from many of the Christians I spoke with.
Something else that I learned about my neighborhood was that it is almost entirely black. I don't say African-American, because only some were African-American. Others were Haitian, Bahamian, African, Trini, and Jamaican. Out of more than 100 houses only three were white American and three were Latino, including us. So more than 95% of our neighborhood is black and I love it! I've lived in Hispanic, White, and Jewish neighborhoods and for the past three years now we've lived in black neighborhoods. And you know what is totally ironic? The two times we've been robbed it was by a White American and a Hungarian Gypsy (who is now saved! Hallelujah!). This proves how wrong stereotypes truly are. This neighborhood is a middle to upper-middle class neighborhood. Most of the houses have 4,5, or 6 bedrooms and the population is more than 95% black. This proves that many blacks are prosperous, educated, respectful, law-abiding citizens that deserve respect and should not be victims of a stereotype.
I want to encourage everyone reading this to do door-to-door evangelism in your neighborhood because there is truly nothing to fear because even if you are rejected the Bible says you are blessed when you are rejected. It is truly fun. You get to know your neighbors and they would listen to you much more then they would someone else merely because you live in the same neighborhood. Before you toss out the idea try it first and you'll see how fun it is. All we would say is, "Hello, we are your neighbors. We live in such and such street in such and such house and we just wanted to invite you to come to our house for a meeting where we worship God, read the Bible, and pray for one another." After chatting a bit we would ask, "Do you have a relationship with God?" and from there the conversation would soar. So just do it! It's not nearly as hard as you think. Oh and it's easier with a partner then alone although I did it alone and it was great.

Additionally, on Saturday night I went evangelizing in South Beach with Brooke and a Venezuelan man committed his life to Christ. Woo-hoo! I preached the Gospel to him and he truly was ashamed at how much of a sinner he was especially since he was in his 40's and I was so young and righteous. In the middle of the conversation he stopped me and asked me for my phone number because he wanted to go to my church and at the end of it all I asked him if he wanted to commit his life to Jesus and he said, "What do I have to do?". So we prayed together and as soon as I said "Amen" his bus arrived. Praise God! He is in control!
A Mexican man I spoke with who was not a Christian and did not go to any church asked me for my phone number and church information because he said what I said was beautiful and he wants to come to my church. He had to go back to work, so I couldn't pray with him.

Heresy in the Midst of Christianity

2007-04-12T21:42:00.000-07:00

I've determined that I want to focus on helping my mom, dad, leader, and disciple start cell groups so I am going to focus on evangelism in their areas. My parents are going to start one cell in English and one in Spanish, Adrian (my leader) is going to receive the youth I talk with in Sawgrass Mills, and the other youth I talk with in Broward County will go with David (my disciple).
Today it persistently rained until about 2 p.m., so I wasn't able to leave the house until then. I preached to three construction workers on their break. They were very impacted and I got their phone number to go to my dad's cell group. I then went door-to-door around the neighborhood, but I am truly amazed to see how many people in our neighborhood are genuine Christians. It's amazing! I don't know if I've ever seen such a Christian neighborhood before.
Out of all the people I spoke with today V--- was the most interesting/shocking conversation. V--- is a Texan from Dallas that read the Bible cover to cover for the first time when she was nine-years-old and has read it may more times since then. She has been a fully active member and tither of the Methodist Church for several years and loves God. However, her theology and interpretation of the Bible was so twisted that I would've sworn she was in a cult, but she wasn't. She was an active and proud member of the Methodist Church. That's what shocked me. She claimed with utmost conviction that Methodism, John Wesley, John Wesley's mother, and her firmly hold the following beliefs:

1. Everyone in the world is saved whether they know it or not. There is no need to ever convert anyone because all are saved because Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. It's like a parent making a decision for their child whether the child understands it or not. That is what the Father did for his "children" of the world through Jesus' sacrifice.

2. Hell does not exist. Jesus never truly talked about hell. It was parents that wanted to terrify their children in order for them to submit that invented the idea of hell.

3. We are not supposed to worry about the afterlife, but only the present life. In other words, do not be eternally minded, be earthly minded.

V--- said many more off the wall statements about what the Methodist Church believes. Now, I am certain that neither John Wesley nor the Methodist Church believes these things, but from what she was saying it sure did seem like some pastors and their congregations believed them. In fact, V--- taught Sunday school and Vacation Bible School for several years and she was always specifically told not to make any hint of an attempt to convert anyone because no one needs to be converted. Frankly, I think Mormon's and Jehovah's Witnesses are closer to the truth then Christians that believe such deceptive doctrine because the M's and JW's at least believe that one can only be saved if he believes in Jesus and repents of his sins. But what's scary is that this is not the first time I have heart of Christians believing these false doctrines and that because many of these pastors and Christians are in mainline denominations they are still respected, listened to, and believed to be true Christians. That's sad.

Anyways, continue praying for me please. My parents asked me to finish working on the apartment with them on Wednesday and we were there until 8 p.m., so I didn't get to preach at all yesterday.

Conversations With Men

2007-04-10T07:28:00.000-07:00

This Easter weekend I barely preached at all. Friday, my parents asked me to help them remodel the apartment and this is truly an urgent issue with our family right now, so I helped them. Friday night and all day Saturday our church had a re-encounter and since I am still under authority I obediently and joyfully attended. Sunday was Easter, so I spent most of the day with my family and when I was about to go evangelize my parents told me that they urgently needed my help with the apartment, so I joyfully obeyed.
Thus, today was totally awesome, but it took me a little while to get back into evangelism mode. On my way walking to the bus I saw five construction workers on their lunch break, so I went and preached to them as they quietly ate. They were all Guatemalan, so I spoke in Spanish. They listened to everything very initently and truly seemed impacted by everything I said, but when I asked them if they wanted to give their lives to God they all kept quiet and would not respond. In the end, no one said yes or no to God, they just remained quiet and pensive. I prayed for them and they thanked me.
On the bus, I talked to a young man and he listened to everything I said. He seemed to desire to believe in what I said, but had chosen to completely reject Christianity because he had "a lifestyle that God did not approve of." I believe he was talking about homosexuality although he didn't mention it.
In Aventura Mall, I spoke with a Colombian from Bogota on vacation. I truly spoke to him with all of my heart and he was deeply attentive and impressed by everything I said. He was a Catholic that prayed to the Virgin Guadalupe and Virgen Carmen and I kindly explained to him why Christians believe praying and/or worshipping the virigins and saints is idolatry. I asked him if he agreed with what I said concerning idolatry and he said that it makes sense and he had never put much though into it, especially from the angle I pointed out from it. He didn't want to give his life to God, but he was truly impacted from all that I said and thanked me.
After this conversation I hesitated for about forty minutes to speak with anyone else. I don't know why. I wasn't scared this time, but I still didn't preach to many people I wanted to speak too because of hesitiation. I was extremely exhausted this whole day though. Then I repeated to myself what I had learned from "One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven" and I mustered up the boldness to speak.
I went up to a tall, big young man and began talking with him and it turned out that he had just become a Christian in the past year or two. He was homeless in Las Vegas, California, and Mexico for over two years and has tons of crazy stories, but now he's doing great working in the film industry in Miami and going to a great church that essentially does G12 also. He said TBN has been asking him for a while to testify on telivision here in Miami, but he doesn't feel ready yet.
I spoke with a old Cuban man and it turned out that he too was a true follower of Jesus. He is Catholic, but he has many Pentecostal friends, has often gone to their churches, and attending Christian churches. He truly loved God. We talked for about 45 minutes and he told me all about Cuba because he lived there before it fell into Communism and still visits the country frerquently. He encouraged me to be a missionary there because although I would be persecuted by the government the people are so hungry for God right now. He told me that in the past few years many new churches have been established and they are all packed with people. Every time he visits people ask him to bring them Bibles. The people are truly hungry for God. Also, he told me that Cuba had the best economy in all of Latin America in 1958 and now it has one of the worst, if not the worst.
Next, I listened to a Haitian man vent and tell me all of his problems for an hour or so. I felt like a psychologist that just sits and listens to a patient. As soon I came up to him and told him that I just wanted to talk to him about Jesus he rejected me bluntly and told me not to speak to him, but I urgently pleaded with him, "Do you know God? Do you follow Him with all your heart?." When I asked that he put down his guard and opened up. He confessed that he was a Baptist, but had not been to church in a long time. He was completely alone in life. His wife died due to cocaine. His wife's family took his children away from him. Everyone in his family hates him and is jealous of him even his own brothers and mother. The girlfriend he's had for the past few years who is a church-goer he just broke up with because he discovered that she had been secretly using cocaine also. So now he's completely alone. That's why this grown man poured out his heart to me for an hour. I tried to speak sometimes, but he would just continue speaking over me. So I only spoke when he would rest from talking. I prayed for him and he seemed to be comforted at the end of it all.
Waiting for the bus I met a 22-year-old Costa Rican who ended up being a true Christian. He was Catholic, but his aunt was Christian and had lots of influence on him and he never prayed to the saints or Mary. He truly loved God. It was really encouraging to meet several people today that were truly saved.
I spoke with a few other people, but today seemed to be the day of good, long conversations with men. I spoke mostly with men because at the mall it seems like the youth walk around and have a good time, the women shop like crazy, and the men just sit outside on benches doing absolutely nothing waiting for their wives to finish shopping. So the men are the easiest people to talk to.

I've come to realize that evangelism is one of the most fun activities a person could ever do. I've met so many amazing people and had so many wonderful conversations. Even if I was a friend, co-worker, or classmate of these people and frequently had friendly conversations they would never tell me the things they tell me when I evangelize. It seems that when I speak to them about God, show genuine interest for their soul and life, and prove to be a trustworthy, sincere person they confide in me more then they would a close friend and tell me all about their lives, problems, and deepest struggles. It's truly awesome! This is so much more fun, exciting, and educational then any other activity or hobby I can have. Also, it has that element of adventure, uncertainty, and surprise that I so love, and there is always a risk of getting into trouble. Fun, fun, fun! It's even more fun then cliff diving. If you've never done it before or rarely do it I encourage you to do it wholeheartedly.

No Fear

2007-04-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

Today I overcame fear! Hallelujah! I did not hesitate once to preach the Gospel to anyone God compelled me to speak to no matter what age, race, gender, or social status they were. Praise God!
Why such a drastic change? Well, Brooke gave me a book called "One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven" by Mark Cahill and the chapter I read today completely changed my mentality towards evangelism. I encourage everyone to read this book. I've only read three chapters and my mindset towards evangelism has already changed. I have been truly impacted by it. Thanks Mr. Cahill. The chapter I read taught that every time we witness we are winning. If someone is saved we win; if we plant a seed in someone's heart we win; and if we are rejected by people we win. How is rejection by people winning? Because 1 Peter 4:14 says, "If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified." Whoa! That verse rocked me! Every time someone rejects me because of Jesus the Spirit of God and glory of God rests upon me and God is glorified. I want as much of the Spirit and glory of God I can possibly receive and I want God to be glorified as much as possible, so keep on rejecting me all you want it's only gonna bless me. Hallelujah! It's a win win win situation.
This revelation greatly encouraged me and it caused me to evangelize joyfully and with no fear. Even though I am very sad to see someone reject Christ I become overjoyed because God is glorified and I will have more of God's glory and Spirit in order to save more souls and glorify God even more. Woo-Hoo! I preached to a dread-locked young Christian man, a very friendly country man, an elderly man, a devout Jewish man, a backslidden Colombian Christian, a tattooed rocker, an elderly Christian man, an elderly Catholic organist who went to seminary, an old friend from high school who is now married and has a baby, two strong Christian teenagers, two immature freshman girls, three preppy Brazilian brothers, and a strong Christian who was blind. At 5 p.m. I went on the bus and preached on the bus to about 25 people. It was awesome! It was the best bus preaching God has ever prompted me to do. Praise God! No one was saved, but the people truly listened and I know they were impacted. One lady even left her seat in the back and came to the front just to hear me better and she constantly yelled out "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!".
I only have time to speak about a few of my encounters. I was amazed at my talk with the first elderly man. I think he was Jewish, but he didn't say. I asked him if he had ever given his life to God and he said no. I asked him what held him back and he replied,"that's a good question." I then preached the Gospel to him and once I was finished I asked him if he wanted to believe in Jesus. He said "nope". Did he want to repent of his sins? "Nope." Do he want to give his life to God? "Nope."
Shocked at his rash answers I asked him, "So when you go before God's throne and He looks into you eyes and asks you why should He allow you to have eternal life in Heaven what will you say?"
He replied, "That's a good question."
"So do you want to repent of your sins? For all the sins you've committed in your lifetime?"
"Nope," he quickly responded. I was truly shocked that such a wonderful, kind old man could so quickly and thoughtlessly reject Jesus, God, and repentance all at once.
I've run out of time. But the backslidden Colombian committed to giving his life back to God and promised to come to the cell group tomorrow.
I led worship and preached at David's cell group. It was awesome. I ended up preaching for one hour and twenty five minutes, but it honestly did not feel like it and everyone agreed that it truly didn't feel like it at all. That's when you know the Holy Spirit is in control and everyone hearing is hungry. The only person that noticed and kind of complained was Jean and that was because he was not too interested in the preaching and wanted to watch the Miami Heat game. David's cousins are awesome. His female cousin wants to be a missionary to India and, principally, Morocco. Praise God!!!
What a day!

Conversation With A Philanthropist

2007-04-02T18:48:00.000-07:00

Today was tough. I started out late and got rejected by everyone I spoke to. Not one person wanted God. Part of it has to do with me, but most of it has to do with them. It hurts a lot, but I can't even imagine how God feels being rejected by the ones for whom He died.

I had an amazing conversation with a wealthy philanthropist today. He looked totally American and spoke flawless English, but turned out to be Brazilian. He went to college in the USA, but he's lived in Brazil his entire life. By the way he spoke he gave me the impression that he is a multimillionaire philanthropist that helps thousands of people in countless ways. He was extremely humble and only disclosed these things to me once we were well into our conversation. He said that he literally gives away 90% of his income and only lives off of 10%. Now for a man that was well-dressed, shopping freely in Aventura Mall, living in Sao Paulo, and on a vacation in Miami that 10% must be a pretty large sum of money. He named off several organizations he donates to and said that he is paying for the college education of four of his nephews. Oh and his wife is Jewish, so he must be rich (it's a joke). As a spoke with him I saw that he was a man that genuinely loved people to the point that he feels their pain and is able to weep with them. He longs to help the world and is completely unselfish. I definitely admired him for all of that. He was Catholic, but he hasn't gone to church in decades, doesn't read the Bible, and thinks that religion is a waste of time and money. He saw religion as something that just distracts people from what is truly important in life and sucks out billions of dollars from them to do so. He doesn't see religion as something helping the world, but something further corrupting and dividing it.

I told him that I, in part, I definitely agreed with him. Religion could be a problem, but God is the solution to all things.

Then he said that he is bitter and angry towards all the evil and suffering in the world and does not understand how God could ignore it all.

I told him that the vast majority of the world's suffering is caused by people themselves and I gave Africa as an example. Europeans, Americans, and Arabs raped Africa of its natural resources, bound millions of people into slavery, and colonized the continent. Moreover, now the Africans themselves are extremely violent towards one another and are constantly engaged in civil war, coup de 'etats, genocides, militant dictatorships, and revolutions. Witchcraft, promiscuity, and pollution are out of control and are main reasons for rampant spreads of diseases. I could go on and on.
Then I showed him that God has indeed intervened through the Bible, his prophets, modern-day preachers, miracles, and, ultimately, Jesus Christ.

I told him that God created us for a purpose and loves us all. Then I preached the Gospel to him with all my heart. Few times have I ever so eloquently and passionately preached the Gospel to an individual. He listened intently the entire time.

Once I finished he said that all that I had said was very interesting and curious. However, he found it frustrating that a relationship with God is not mutual, but merely us expressing ourselves to Him with nothing in return. I described to Him my relationship with God and shared one of my deep encounters with Him. He was impressed.

At the end of it all, I asked him if he desired to give his life to God today or at all. He was frank with me and said he struggles with believing in the existence of God because of all the suffering he sees in the world. He said if he ever lives for God it would be years from now. He politely thanked me for the conversation and went to look for his wife. We had talked for at least 40 minutes, perhaps more.

I was shocked. After telling the Gospel to this man with my entire being and truly feeling that the Holy Spirit was speaking through me and answering all his questions all he could do was shrug and say, "I don't want to follow God. Thanks for the conversation." This caused me to glimpse things from God's perspective for a quick moment in time. This man wholly gives himself to help others, yet thinks that he is helping people and loves people more than God. He sees God as the unjust forsaker of all mankind and views himself and other people like him as the saviors and hope of all mankind. He sincerely believes that he knows more about the world and is better than God.

Yet did he ever create the world and mankind from his very being? Did he ever make such an effort to provide mankind with commands that would make their lives happy and satisfy their empty and lost souls? Has not God sent forth countless prophets and preachers from Adam until now to teach mankind His ways and establish righteousness in the nations? Has not God performed countless miracles throughout all of existence? He even had to harden the heart of the Pharaoh in order to perform such miraculous signs just so that the nations would know, fear, and seek Him. Isn't Jesus the one that brought all the commands of helping the poor in such extreme ways as selling all one's possessions and giving it all to the poor? Isn't Jesus the one that taught the world to love one's enemies, to forgive everyone, and be a servant of all? Didn't God love the world so much that He sent His only Son to be brutally murdered and rejected by His own creation in order to justify them and save them despite their rebellion? So who are you oh great philanthropist to denounce God and exalt yourself along with all other philanthropists? How dare you doubt God's existence because you think He has abandoned the world when He has given everything he can to mankind? How dare you say that God (religion) is one of the world's greatest problems when He is its Creator and only solution? Who are you mere man to go against God?

Today I have felt a taste of the wrath of God in my own heart. Before, I had sometimes struggled with the thought of how God can send an agnostic or atheist philanthropists to hell such as this man and many others I have met in my life. It would hurt me to think how could God condemn a person that has dedicated their entire lives to benevolence and selflessly helping others. But today I have been able to see a bit of the reason why God still condemns even the greatest of philanthropists that do not follow Him. Today I have understood why unbelief is truly the greatest sin of all.

For what does it profit a man if he helps the whole world, but forsakes God and loses his soul?

Police Threat

2007-03-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night, after an entire day of open heavens, I experienced my first glimpse of persecution on my trip. The heavens remained opened despite opposition.

Jean (a young man that had just become homeless that I brought to our hose to help) and I took the bus home from Sawgrass Mills. On the bus I stood up and began speaking about Jesus and this is what happened:

I stood up and said, "How's everybody doing? My name is Joshua and I just wanted to talk you guys about Jesus."
As soon as the word Jesus came out my mouth the bus driver yelled, "Sit down!"'
I politely said, "I will sir. As soon as I finish." So I continued speaking.
"Sit down, now!," he exclaimed.
"Okay. I will," I said, " I'll just speak sitting down." I sat down and kept preaching.
"Haven't you ever heard of separation of church and state," he snapped.
"Yes, I have," I replied, "but I've also heard of freedom of speech." And I continued speaking.
"This is against seperation of church and state," he declared.
I responded, "I believe freedom of speech surpasses separation of church and state, sir." I continued once again.
Then suddenly he angrily shouted, "Shut up, kid!"
"I won't sir," I kindly replied.
"No one wants to hear what you're saying," he flared.
"Really," I questioned frankly,"Does anyone here not want to hear what I am saying," I asked the people. No one raised their hand. "There's no one who doesn't want to hear what I'm saying sir. It looks like you're the only one sir." I continued preaching and the bus driver stayed quiet for a while.
Then he threatened, "If you don't stop I'll call the police."
"No problem," I calmly responded.
I continued preaching and he called the cops. When the people saw that he was really calling the cops a few people took out their phones and started calling their parents and friends to tell them that they'd be home late or to comeand pick them up. Eventually, he stopped the bus, walked outside, lit a cigarrette, and continued talking with the police. That's when almost everyone began calling their friends and family. No one was mad. It was more like they were throwing their hands in the air and sighing,"Oh great!" Others were saying, "Man, what's up with that bus driver? What's his problem?" A few were somewhat irritated with me too, but it seemed more like the people respected me, but were irritated by the situation.
Seeing this scene I felt somewhat guilty. I had thought that the driver would kick me off the bus or have me arrested, but I didn't think he would hold up the whole bus. So I stopped preaching, went outside, and told the bus driver that I would go outside and wait for the cops to come, but to please not hold up the whole bus. He said that it doesn't matter now. He would wait for the police whether I continued preaching or not.
Then he yelled, "It's because of people like you that what is happening right now in Iraq is taking place."
I felt like retaliating, but I held my tongue. I went back into the bus and told the people that I was sorry for the hold up and that the bus driver would wait for the cops regardless of whether I continued preaching or not. So I told them that I would continue preaching. So I did. There was still some commotion on the bus, but everyone was listening. At the end, I prayed for everyone and for the bus driver and I believe that many people were at least somewhat impacted. One thing is for sure, they will remember this night for the rest of their lives and because of that they will remember at least a few specific phrases I preached. Thus, those words will continually come to their memory and eventually bring them to Christ. Hallelujah!
When I finished preaching and praying I got off the bus and waited for the cops to come. However, eventually, the bus driver threw down his ciggarette, walked into the bus, and left without us. What a night I tell ya. What a night.
By the time the next bus showed up it was past 10 p.m., so a lot of the people were sleeping in the bus. I didn't stand up and preach, but I spoke to the girl next to me. She came to the brink of giving her life to Jesus, but, in the end, she didn't.
What a wonderful, adventurous night. Praise the Lord!

Open Heavens

2007-03-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

What a glorious day! Praise God for breakthrough! Thank you all so much for all your prayers! Prayer truly makes all the difference.

Our church is buying the Broward Christian School property, so when we were there yesterday I asked one of the main teachers if there was a possibiblity to preach to the kids in the school. Immediately, he invited me to speak in his Bible class that day. I went and spoke to about twelve middle school kids(i.e. all the middle school kids) and it was awesome. They all were impacted and committed themselves to spend at least half an hour a day with God. The teacher liked the message so much that he said I can speak in all the Bible classes of the school. So this morning I spoke to the high school girls (about 9) and it was great. Afterwards, I hung out with them at lunch and it turned out that one of the girls has a very, very strong prophetic gift of visions and dreams, but she had no idea what it was. Many of her friends thought she was crazy, but I showed her that it was a gift from God that would grow by dwelling in His presence. Furthermore, I spoke again to some of the high school guys (about 8) in the afternoon. It was great. I challenged them to be salt and light and be radical Christians. Afterwards, I talked to one of the guys for a good while and he really felt challenged. He was still quite worldy and hadn't had a church for a while, so I invited him to our church and he gladly said he would come. I see great potential in him to become a strong man of God.

Around 5 p.m. I went to Sawgrass Mills to evangelize and I encountered absolutely no opposition. Praise the Lord! The Holy Spirit would guide me to every person he wanted me to talk to. It was all so easy! First, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to speak to a young man in the parking lot, but when I came close to him I saw he was talking on the phone, so I passed him and continued walking. Five or six minutes later he drove past me and parked directly in front of me. When God wants you to talk to someone sometimes He'll go the extra step to make sure it happens. So it turns out that he was a Christian that had been away from God for a while. I challenged him, encouraged him, and prayed over him and he was greatly appreciative.

In the mall, I spotted another young man and sat by him on a bench. I began reading my Bible and God gave me a word for him. It was so clear and powerful. It was about the wedding feast of the Lamb, the Father inviting guests, the guests being too busy for God, God rejecting them, and selecting others. I told Frederico that God spoke to me to give him this word. I was straight up with him. I told him that God is inviting him to His party and He wants him to know Him, but he is too busy for God. If he continues to reject God's invitation because he is too busy then God will reject him and pick someone else. Frederico was truly impacted. He is from Ecuador and was only on vacation here in Miami for a short time. He is Catholic and told me that he doesn't know or follow God except that he goes to mass sporadically. After speaking with him I asked him if he wanted to give his whole life to Jesus and serve Him with all of his heart and he responded with red, teary eyes, "After what you said, yes, I do." I asked him if I could pray wih him for him to give his life to God, but I hadn't noticed that his whole family had been patiently waiting for him for several minutes already. So he said he didn't want to hold them up any longer and he left with them, but I know that this night or the next he will give his life to God.

Next, I met Alex, a teenager that was a true Christian. He was saved a year and a half ago and was part of a church. So I just challenged him to be radical and save souls. Then I prayed for him and he told me come by again.

I told God, "Lord, I've only spoken to youth so far. Challenge me. I want to speak to grown men." Immediately I spotted a man (50 years old or so) happily sitting down. I went over to him with a big smile and we began talking jovially. He only spoke Spanish and was from Medellin, Colombia. When I told him that I had been to Bogota he told me that he had gone to Rio De Janiero for Carnival, but pointed out that I had probably never been to Carnaval because I was carrying a Bible. I told him he was right. Then he unashamedly exclaimed that the beautiful black women of Brasil are the best to have sex with. I told him, "I guarantee you that I will have better sex then you've ever had because I will be able to look into my wife's eyes and tell her that I loved her so much that I waited and kept myself my whole life just so that my body and love could be fully hers." He laughed and said that the best sex is in youth and when I get married I will no longer have my youth. He told me to have sex with all the women I desire to because my wife will never know. I'm pretty sure he spoke from experience. This is a 50 year old man speaking! Could you believe this? I asked him if he had any fear of God. He said that of course he does because ho goes to mass sometimes and has repented for his sins. I told him that God is not stupid. He know that he did not repent from his heart, but merely with his lips and God will not forgive him until he is truly ashamed of his sin. I said that he will one day die and will be judged by God for every sin he has ever committed about it whether his wife knew about it or not. I urged him to repent. Laughing he walked away and wished me a good night. My prayer is that these words would torture his mind until he is brought to his knees in repentance.

Then I walked up a guy named Steven working in a T-Mobile kiosk. Here is our conversation:

me: Before I ask you about a phone (I really wanted a phone) could a ask you another question.
him: sure.
m:Have you ever read this book (the Bible).
h: No.
m: This is the greatest history book in the world. Every year it is the number one bestseller worldwide.
h: really? wow.
m: Do you know God Steven? Do you follow him with all your heart?
h:nope.

I told him about the Bible and why he needs to read it and urged him to genuinely seek God.

m: Let me tell you about how I came to follow God. First, I realized that He truly was real and so I decided that if He was real I should follow Him.
h: How did you come to know he was real?

So I talked on and on giving all the reasons I knew He was real. Steven was pretty impressed with the response. The entire time he was extremely receptive, humble, and honest. At the end of the conversation I asked if he wanted to give his whole life to Jesus and follow him with all of his heart and he said "YES!" Hallelujah!!! When I told him to do it right now he told me that it was just too awkward while he is on the job with people talking all around him in the middle of a mall. But he would make the decision for sure he said. He didn't go to church so I invited him to my church and cell group and he quickly agreed to come. Then I prayed for him and his friends and got his information.

What was really sad was that this totally non-Christian guy had two friends with him that claimed to be true Christians and truly were committed to a church. One goes to James Kennedy's church. However, one friend was just checking out girls and talking about their bodies the whole time and Steven seriously claimed that the other one was the most immoral person in the whole mall. What a sad, sad state much of the Christian church is in today.

Thank you all for your prayers. They truly have made all the difference. Also, today I was much more joyful, rested, and at peace because I realized that the battle belongs to the Lord and not o my efforts. I can evanglize all day in my one zeal and save no one, but if I just listen to God's voice and trust in Him He will work through me all day without me feeling stressed or overwhelmed at all. Hallelujah! God is faithful!

Plowing Hard Ground

2007-03-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

I had a glorious time in prayer this morning. I was so fired up I felt like I can preach to the whole world.
Walking to the bus, I talked to Jorge, a construction worker from Honduras, about Jesus. He was very kind and open and asked me to come around more often. At the bus stop, I spoke to a girl about Christ, but she didn't want to follow Him because He has too many rules.
There were twelve people on the bus and I got up and preached to all of them with confidence. They didn't seem to have been very impacted, but they listened intently and I pray that the seed that was planted in them would bear fruit. No one gave their
life to Christ. But Praise God! I preached on a bus! That's a breakthrough.
On the second bus stop there was a Haitan man singing and preaching there to several people. He was truly a fool for Christ. I was actually somewhat weirded out by him myself, but when He began speaking about His testimony everyone listened and respected him and his joy and shamelessness was so wonderful that one was able to sense how much people wanted that same joy.
On the second bus I didn't obey God. I didn't preach. I hesitated for too long and by the time I decided to preach the bus had already reached its destination.
In downtown, I tried to preach in the metromovers, but I was too scared again. The cars were jam packed with people and it was quite awkward and intimidating to preach, but there is no excuse.
I spoke with a Hare Krishna guru man that seems to be the main Hare Krishna guy in downtown. But it was quite strange because he said that he believed that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of his soul and that through Him he is forgiven of his sin. He said that Krishna is just another name for the Father God. That was quite strange to me because then he would technically be a Christian if he truly believed that. I don't know if that's his own version of his faith, if he was just trying to get me off his back, or if that's really what his faith teaches (which I highly doubt).
I bought food for a homeless man and prayed for his healing because his leg is severely swollen due to no blood circulation. He was truly a wonderful fellow and he is an official member of the Central Baptist Church in downtown.
Later on, I preached to three guys playing cards. They were all attentive, but one of them in particular was very open and he asked me if he can come to one of my Bible studies. He was definitely the most open person today even though he didn't want to give his life to God.
On the way home I preached in the bus with all my heart and several people were listening attentitively. Three people in front seemed to be truly hungry for what I was saying. One boy that was probably 13 or 14 seemed to amazed by me and all that I was saying and an Arabic looking woman seemed to be very intrigued and perplexed by everything I said. Both of their eyes were wide open looking at me the entire time. However, no one gave their life to Jesus, but I do believe the people were impacted especially those three individuals.
At the mall, I spoke to a young guy named Eric. He was very cool and agreed with much of what I said, but he had to go back to work so I couldn't really preach the Gospel to him.
The second bus never showed up, so my brother ended up picking me up. A young man named Jean told me a little bit about his situation, so, basically, he is sleeping in our house tonight. I pray that we could help him and God could help him.

Rejection and Failure

2007-03-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

Today was officially the first day of my trip. It was a day of rejection and failure, but I have faith that the seeds I planted will grow and bear fruit.
I woke up at 6a.m. and prayed from 7:00 to 9:30, but around 8:45 I became extremely sleepy because I only slept 5 hours and the night before I had only slept three and a half hours.
I left for downtown at 11:45a.m. with my brother. I preached in Miami-Dade College to about 12 people over the span of about twoand a half hours, but no one received Jesus. Two people straight up rejected Jesus: an atheist Uruguayan girl and a Haitian guy who seriously practices voodoo; eight people 'believed' in Jesus, but loved their sinful lifestyles and had no desire to repent; and four people were open to God, but weren't ready to give their lives to Him. One girl was very hostile when I began talking with her, but she listened the entire time and, at the end, thanked me for speaking with her.
I then left and went to the gigantic federal prison of Miami to see what I have to do to preach there. They gave me the number of the chaplain and told me I have to complete a two week long process of background checks and paperwork. So I'm going to go forward with that and I pray that the doors will open for me to speak there.
Afterwards, I went to Bayside and began talking with a man named Robert who turned out to be homeless. He was one of the most honest and respectable homeless men I ever met. I asked him if he had a relationship with God, but he just began telling me about his problems and how God nor anything or anyone else has ever helped him. Immediately, I thought of Isaiah 58 because I was fasting today, so I went and took him to McDonald's because it was the only restaurant that accepted homeless people. There I talked with him about God and he listened to everything
and I ended up hanging out with him for about three and a half hours. He told me his story. His parents were the only family or friends he had in this world and four years ago they died in a car accident. Ever since then he sees no reason for living. He stopped working and paying his bills just out of sheer depression and he ended up on the streets. He's been there for four years. He said he's tired of living and has contemplated suicide several times. He has completely stopped begging for money or food and he just sits down all day eating nothing waiting for his life to waste away, so he can die. I asked him why he doesn't go to the homeless shelter and he said it's because all the black guys gang up on him and beat him up and/or rob him. I offered
to buy him clothes, but he said it was no good to buy him clothes if he can't take a good shower first. So I invited him to live in our house for a while, but he said that he still has pride and he won't accept my offer because he feels ashamed to enter a clean house with a dirty body and clothes. At the end of it all he clearly rejected giving his life to God.
This was the part of the day that consisted of rejection.
Leaving Robert, I went on the metromover(free public transporter in downtown) to preach to crowds because all day I had only spoken to individuals or pairs. I went on the metromover six times and never once did I have the guts to speak up and preach. Each time I entered prayed up, but as soon as I entered the car I would become spiritually paralyzed with fear. Then I took the bus home and it was totally packed. I thought that I would surely preach on the bus because it was a one hour and a half ride, but as soon as I entered it I was paralyzed with fear. While I waited for the second at the mall I was so discouraged that I didn't speak with anyone. On the second bus I felt totally capable of preaching and I did not have fear, but I just kept putting excuses in the way.
This was the part of the day that consisted of failure.
I am truly ashamed and embarrassed to write all of this after making such bold claims that this itinerant preaching trip would be the beginning of a spiritual revolution in America, but I guess God has His ways of showing us that we are nothing and must completely depend on Him. Also, I do not believe it is fair or honest to only speak of the highlights and not mention the failures and monotonous, uneventful times.
However, I am not discouraged at all. Tomorrow I will go back to downtown and go on the bus and metromover until I am fearlessly preaching like a mad man.
The only way to overcome my fears is to face them.

Barber Shop

2007-03-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

I preached in a barber shop today!!! Isn't that nuts?!
After going door to door in my neighborhood I decided to go to the 163rd Mall with Serge to evangelize. So I picked up Serge and we went. In the mall I preached to a Hindu man from India, but just when I was finishing his boss came and I had to stop talking to him. Then we spoke to a Haitian family, but I was doing all the talking because it was Serge's first time to ever go evangelizing. As I was speaking to them Serge mustered up some boldness to go preach to someone else by himself. So by the time I was done speaking to the family he had just gotten into his first conversation. I began to look for someone else to preach to, but the mall was completely deserted.
Then, as I walked by a barber shop I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to preach there. At first, I was somewhat hesitant, so I sat down to pray about it. But I kept feeling to go and preach to them. So I just decided to obey God and believe He would back me up. I went into the shop, introduced myself to one of the barbers, and asked if I could preach to everyone in the shop. He said 'no problem' and he turned down the volume of the t.v.
I introduced myself to everyone (about 14 people) adn began saying,"I want to ask all of you a question. Do you know God? Do you have a relationship with Him? Or do you just know about God?" From there I began preaching with all of my heart and was paying utmost attention to everything I said. One of the barbers kept asking me questions and I would quickly answer them. But then he posed the question," What happened to all the people who lived before Jesus came to save the world?". Even though a couple weeks ago I had been deeply struggling with the same question, the Holy Spirit just began to flow through me with such authority and I answered all his questions so well that I was impressed with the responses myself. Twice, as I was presenting an explanation he would exclaim, "I don't believe that. Prove it to me! Show me exactly where it says that in the Bible!" At that moment I realized how important it was to memorize Scripture because both of the Scriptures he had demanded out of me I had memorized and one of them I had just memorized in my 40 day fast. He was pretty impressed when I found and read the Bible verses. This side discussion was negative because it caused some of the people to lose focus on the Gospel message, but it was positive because everyone was very impressed by my answers and by how much I knew the Scriptures, so they paid attention all the more. Anyways, I returned to the Gospel message and when I finished three people gave their lives Jesus! Hallelujah!!!!!!!!! The three bowed their heads and repeated the sinners prayer after me in a loud voice. Then I prayed over everyone in the shop and everyone bowed their heads including the barbers. I got their information and invited everyone to church. Then I asked one of the barbers who was very attentive why he did not want to follow Jesus with his whole heart and why he did not go to church. He said that he works there seven days a week without any vacation except on Christmas and Thanksgiving. The other barber began asking me more questions and as we discussed everyone in the shop continued to listen. Suddenly, the barber who said he worked a lot yelled form the other side of the room,"Hey! We can't go to your church, but you can come here every week and preach to us. In fact, Wednesday's are perfect because business is slow and we can pay close attention to everything you say. And go ahead and preach to everyone who comes here to get haircuts too!" I told them that I was going to go on a mission trip in a month, but while I was still here I would come and preach to them every week. Then the questioning barber (who isn't a Christian) exclaimed,"This is your mission! You cannot go on your mission until you have completed this mission! We are your mission!" I responded, "Alright. Alright."
So I just got a new cell group with almost all Jamaicans in a barber shop at the 163rd Mall! Isn't that so so so awesome!!!! YEAH BABY!!! Talk about making in impact in the community. I believe this event is a foreshadowing of all that God is going to do through me in this trip. AMEN! Now you "go and do likewise" (Luke 10:37b).

Training

2007-03-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

My father asked me to help in the reconstruction of our apartment , so I helped for a few hours. After praying and reading my Bible I went with my disciple Michael to evangelize door-to-door in my neighborhood. It turns out that literally everyone that lives on my street are true Christians. Praise God! In one house the father is a worship leader; in another the father is studying in seminary to be a Pentecostal pastor; another had very Christian grandparents with their grandchildren; another had a man that was Jehovah's Witness and is now a Baptist; and another had a Greek Orthodox family from Eritrea (guess where that is.). Isn't that awesome?! We have neighbors from Eritrea! No way! Although they were Orthodox the daughter we spoke with was very Christian. Praise God! The only people that seem lukewarm are our neighbors directly next to us, but both of their kids are going to our cell group and really want to go to the Encounter, so we got them covered. Also, we talked to a man that lives one street down from us who is the pastor's son of missionary pastor's in Germany. He was backslidden for many years and only recently has become strongly committed to Christ once again. He works in the music industry and organizes most of the biggest concerts of Miami including Ultrafest. In fact, this Saturday he's the organizer of a concert for The Cure here in Miami. However, he's feeling called back into the ministry.
As soon as we left our street the first house we went to we found a very lost sheep. A person answered the door, but I was not sure if the person was a man or a woman. After a while, I settled that the individual was a woman. However, after talking with him/her for a long time he/she said his/her name was Cory and also referred to himself as a 'he'. I was surprised, but, indeed, he was a man. Also, his uncle is the Pastor of Agape Christian Center in Fort Lauderdale and most of his family is very involved in the ministry. He was very friendly and invited us in his house and we ended up talking with him for at least an hour. He was extremely convicted and touched by everything Michael and I said to him. He was amazed at everything we said and truly showed a deep desire to change. I read him Hebrews 10:26-31(read it) and he asked me to write it down for him, so he can read it independently. We prayed for him and he asked us to come by everyday if we wanted to and to pray for him every day. Also, he owns a shoe store and has an extremely cool, artsy house.
By the time we left Cory's house it was already 8:05, so we went back to my house and Michael, Andre, Christian, Rasheed, and I worshipped for an hour and a half and we ate some brownies that I baked. What a wonderful day! I feel like starting a church.