I got a lot of strange looks standing on top of a park bench in the middle of Derby with a bucket of candy yelling "FREE SWEETS!" And people were surprisingly less interested in them than I thought/would have been.
There was over 100 of us young, irresponsible, and smelly YWAMers gathered in the city of Derby to have lectures on evangelism and put it into practice. My outreach that day was to hand out sweets and try to get people to answer a question we had come up with on a large white board. The board had in big letters "Before I die..." at the top and many small scribbles of "travel the world" or "be married" or "get a tattoo" written below. I think about this question all the time. My list of life adventures includes:
- motorcycle across South America
- swim with whales
- skydive over/near Grand Canyon
- hike in Patagonia
We were doing it because we wanted to talk to people, not necessarily about Jesus, but just to talk. About an hour in, a very dark skinned man came over and wrote Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow on the board. Confused because that answer has nothing to do with the question, I asked him what it meant. He responded with "well, in my religion..." and went on to say how yesterday is gone, and that today he has to do good things so that tomorrow he will go to a good place. After I let him explain himself a little bit, he gave me time to talk too, and it was the perfect chance to tell him what grace and Jesus meant for us. He didn't end up praying any prayers or repenting or anything, but seeds were sown and it was awesome. He later told me the he was a Somalian Muslim asylum seeker studying at the university.
So many awesome things happened last week in Derby and around 30 people from the city gave their lives to the Lord. I met tons of inspiring and world changing young people from all over and learned a lot.
Ok, that is all. Over and out.
