Update from D.C.

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