Hello all,
It's been awhile I know, and I apologize.
We've been to many places and spoken to many, many people.
So far we've been to Nashville, Chicago, a small town in Michigan, Boston, New York City, towns in Connecticut and New Jersey, Washington D.C. and a town in Maryland.
We still have Atlanta, Tampa, and Orlando to go!
To give you an idea of some of what we've been doing:
We've done manual labor and helped out with larger projects for churches. We've run services at churches, done tons of evangelism (particularly in the downtown areas of the different larger cities), ran prayer stations in subways, and done lots of praying for different people and for the cities as a whole.
It's been nuts how fast it seems to be going by. I suppose that happens when you're busy and having fun.
A few highlights thus far:
In Boston (the city I was leading-with two others as well), we focused predominantly on Evangelism. I was able to talk with this homeless guy for a long while. I bought him some stuff to eat and afterwards got to hear his story. I was able to help bring some clarity to some of what the gospel says. He was open to Christ and wanted Him. It was awesome how up front both of us were with one another, at and the end I told him what I tell everyone I go through the gospel with-"Get alone with God and cry out to Him, and don't stop until He saves you." But I did pray for the guy, and also to his shock and surprise, gave him a huge hug. When he went to shake my hand I just told him "Man, come give me a hug." to which he responded "You sure you wanna hug me?" Pointing to his dirty shirt, I simply responded "Man, I don't care about your shirt, come here". I gave him a huge hug and boy did it filled him up. His visage had changed noticeably from "Today sucks man" to a smiling "Thanks for everything." I felt like we were old friends when we left, and to be honest, I hope and pray to see him again.
In New York, we went to the busy Subway station and set up little prayer stations (which I wasn't crazy about at first) but when we got there and started it was awesome. I loved it, and it is one of my favorite things we've done. I got to pray for a bunch of people, and got into an awesome conversation with these two people. They reminded me of two awesome people back home-Laura and Will. You know when you just meet people and you think "wow, I wish these people and I were good friends". You just click and it's awesome you know? Thats what it was like. The girl-Vanessa- especially had this interest and hunger to know more about some things in Christianity, and was just about to leave to teach English in South Korea for a year. The guy had just got back from India and was writing a book on it. They both were kind of under the impression that Christianity was just another way to get to the same God. But in reality, there is one major thing that completely and totally separates it from all others-That it is not on our own merit that we are put back into right relationship with God. It was an awesome conversation, but at the end of it my heart hurt. Badly. Here I was meeting these awesome people, but at the end of the conversation they were still lost. I know God desires each person to come to repentance, and that it takes far more than any of my words to save a person. It's just that when I meet people that I know, really know and get to see a part of their original design from God, and yet aren't really walking in the life that will ultimately matter in the end. It hurts. It's interesting how much and often my heart has hurt-been torn for people. It's rough at times, but I have hope for them. I pray and trust God.
I hope all are doing well.
May God bless you and the remainder of your summer. Hopefully another update will happen in Atlanta.
-Nate
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Chicago and Boston
Hey all,
I was finally able to hop onto the internet long enough to post something! I hope everybody reading this is doing well.
So first of all, the team is now on outreach. We've been to Nashville, Chicago, a town in Michigan, and are just about to leave Boston. We are heading to New York City, Maryland/D.C area, and Atlanta.
We stay in each location for about 8 days or so, and do a variety of things, but the two main things are practical work and a lot of evangelism. It's absolutely nuts to see how much I am learning about evangelism, about people, about myself, and more recently, about leadership.
In Chicago, we did a lot of prayer-walks. Which to be totally honest, I used to think were lame. But it blows me away how much of a heart you can get for a place being in it while interceding for it. In the last year, my mind has definitely been changed about those. But the highlight was going to the gay pride parade. There were 500,000 homosexuals (men and women) in a couple of square blocks. I will never forget what I saw there and how it broke my heart. The majority down there were drunk or high, and many were semi-nude and all over each other. I've never been in a place that got as gross that area-and predominantly everything the homosexuality is what made it that way (alcohol, drugs, sex). After looking past the preliminary stuff, I almost cried because I looked around and saw a depth to a brokenness, I saw all of these people who all have a horrible story of something that happened to them, some reason they are where they are, and to see how far they have fallen from who they were created to be was hard to watch. I won't go into the depths of what God did in me in Chicago, but it was huge. We went down and 20 of us passed out 2200 water bottles for free and told people we were Christians and wanted to bless them, and that although we agree or support what they are doing there, we love them. I was able to have some really good, long conversations there as well. The next day we helped clean up the streets where the parade had gone.
I will tag on this one last thing about the gay pride parade. The thing that upset me the most the whole day it took place was the other Christians there. There were two groups. The first all were yelling and telling them they were going to hell and they needed to repent-and while it is true they need to repent, and apart from true salvation through Christ, eternal separation from God is their punishment; they were not lovingly conveying that message at all, and in doing so were just a resounding gong (biblically speaking). However, shortly after all the repent signs and yelling Christians passed by, a really raunchy float passed by followed by 50 Churches in the Chicago area alone who were part of the parade and supported the Gay movement and were known as "Gay Churches". 50 CHURCHES. In the Chicago area alone. I mean I know that the church has well established a history of hating Gays, and that needs to be dealt with. But I had no idea that any church would honestly preach that God created some people Gay and God wants Gays to stay Gay. That is in direct opposition with the bible, and against the entire message of what the gospel says one must do with anything the bible calls sin.
Needless to say, Chicago exposed a lot of things to me that I had no idea were legitimate problems.
In Michigan we worked with a Church there for two days, did a good deal of manual labor and ran a church service until a storm knocked out the power.
I was on the team that led the Boston portion of the outreach, and it was a great time in this city. We did have a lot of opposition getting here-starting with a journey that turned from a 15 hour drive with food stops to a 24 hour straight drive with food on the road. But once here, we did a lot of evangelism, and I will hopefully will be able to throw a few stories up here soon. I am continuing to be broken by God and remade into what I know I have to become for God to get the glory He deserves out of my life. I've still got tons to learn, but God's being faithful to finish what He has started in me.
Thanks for the prayers, We-And especially me, need them.
We are heading to New York, and that's been a piece of work too, so please continue praying.
Love,
-Nate
I was finally able to hop onto the internet long enough to post something! I hope everybody reading this is doing well.
So first of all, the team is now on outreach. We've been to Nashville, Chicago, a town in Michigan, and are just about to leave Boston. We are heading to New York City, Maryland/D.C area, and Atlanta.
We stay in each location for about 8 days or so, and do a variety of things, but the two main things are practical work and a lot of evangelism. It's absolutely nuts to see how much I am learning about evangelism, about people, about myself, and more recently, about leadership.
In Chicago, we did a lot of prayer-walks. Which to be totally honest, I used to think were lame. But it blows me away how much of a heart you can get for a place being in it while interceding for it. In the last year, my mind has definitely been changed about those. But the highlight was going to the gay pride parade. There were 500,000 homosexuals (men and women) in a couple of square blocks. I will never forget what I saw there and how it broke my heart. The majority down there were drunk or high, and many were semi-nude and all over each other. I've never been in a place that got as gross that area-and predominantly everything the homosexuality is what made it that way (alcohol, drugs, sex). After looking past the preliminary stuff, I almost cried because I looked around and saw a depth to a brokenness, I saw all of these people who all have a horrible story of something that happened to them, some reason they are where they are, and to see how far they have fallen from who they were created to be was hard to watch. I won't go into the depths of what God did in me in Chicago, but it was huge. We went down and 20 of us passed out 2200 water bottles for free and told people we were Christians and wanted to bless them, and that although we agree or support what they are doing there, we love them. I was able to have some really good, long conversations there as well. The next day we helped clean up the streets where the parade had gone.
I will tag on this one last thing about the gay pride parade. The thing that upset me the most the whole day it took place was the other Christians there. There were two groups. The first all were yelling and telling them they were going to hell and they needed to repent-and while it is true they need to repent, and apart from true salvation through Christ, eternal separation from God is their punishment; they were not lovingly conveying that message at all, and in doing so were just a resounding gong (biblically speaking). However, shortly after all the repent signs and yelling Christians passed by, a really raunchy float passed by followed by 50 Churches in the Chicago area alone who were part of the parade and supported the Gay movement and were known as "Gay Churches". 50 CHURCHES. In the Chicago area alone. I mean I know that the church has well established a history of hating Gays, and that needs to be dealt with. But I had no idea that any church would honestly preach that God created some people Gay and God wants Gays to stay Gay. That is in direct opposition with the bible, and against the entire message of what the gospel says one must do with anything the bible calls sin.
Needless to say, Chicago exposed a lot of things to me that I had no idea were legitimate problems.
In Michigan we worked with a Church there for two days, did a good deal of manual labor and ran a church service until a storm knocked out the power.
I was on the team that led the Boston portion of the outreach, and it was a great time in this city. We did have a lot of opposition getting here-starting with a journey that turned from a 15 hour drive with food stops to a 24 hour straight drive with food on the road. But once here, we did a lot of evangelism, and I will hopefully will be able to throw a few stories up here soon. I am continuing to be broken by God and remade into what I know I have to become for God to get the glory He deserves out of my life. I've still got tons to learn, but God's being faithful to finish what He has started in me.
Thanks for the prayers, We-And especially me, need them.
We are heading to New York, and that's been a piece of work too, so please continue praying.
Love,
-Nate
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