this past week we have been learning about 'The Father Heart of God' which has been a quite intense week and fiull week for alot of us students. In the past two weeks we have also done four local outreaches, two have been on the Las Vegas strip outside of the Bellagio hotel, the other two have been kind of different.
One of those outreaches was at a women's shelter where we did crafts with them and had the opportunity to talk with them. The second one was at the 'Walter Hoving Home' which was a Drug & Rehab centre for young women, and it a very biblical based center. All women are required to have a relationship with God in order to enter the program.After doing these two we pick one solid one that we will comit to to go to each week.
After doing both outreaches, i have found it very difficult to start conversation and find things to talk about. Doing the strip outreach many people had hardened hearts and the overall response from people was ''actually i grew up in church! but religion and God just ISNT for me...' It was very discouraging at first, but when just one person said 'yes-i want prayer' and one person felt open to hearing God and hearing Truth [even though we never got to pray for them] it made up for the entire night. I felt like I wanted to go out and reach EVERYBODY and i wouldnt care if they said no or yes, unfortunately it was time to go back to the van... LOL
One very important thing i needed to realize for myself and that our leaders told us before was 'doing Evangelism is NOT about trying to impress God...' It's not about going out there with your bible and trying to shove Jesus down people's throats either. It's being genuine with people and showing them the truth of the gospel-which is LOVE, NOT 'rules' NOT 'i am holier than you because im a christian. i will not sit on the ground with you and talk to you because your homeless, etc.'
Jesus would have done that, so why shouldnt we to spread his love? Evangelism is just spreading Gods love in everything we do, its living out the Gospel in our everyday lives. Dont judge whether youve had a succesful night whether you get a person saved or pray for somebody.... its not impressing God! you just being genuinely nice to that person might have made their ENTIRE day!
so there you have it~
the first local outreach we did at the strip, many of the night people had hardened hearts but we had breakthrough towards the end!
please pray for me to make a solid decision of where to commit to going each week for my local outreaches, these outreaches will take place with half of our group will go to the womens shleter (The Shade Tree), this outreach is more focused on sharing the gospel through building relationships with the women there. The Walter Hoving Home is more focused on people who already know God, but don't have a relationship with him. We will be growing in relationships with them as well as discipling them.
Please pray for spiritual guidance and that I make the right decision on which outreach to commit to.
I also need to pray and decide which international outreach I am going to, either Thailand or India.
I appreciate all of your prayers & support!
here are some photos from our local outreach at the strip!
(below photo: Marissa, Meredith & Sadie before we went on Outreach!
at the top of the Bellagio Hotel parking Lot)
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