speechless :)

December 29, 2002

i cannot describe in mere words how amazed and in awe of God i am. it's three days into the conference now and much has taken place. i still haven't had the opportunity to meet the CCC people much, though now they are more familiar that i exist and vice versa. perhaps in the next two days that'll change :)

i've been trying to keep an open and positive attitude while i've been here, and it's been hard. i haven't found the main speaker to be all that challenging to be completely honest. there's this one guy, gregg, who's the national director of crusades in atlanta, georgia (there's something about preachers from atlanta! ahem.. louie) who's a pretty cool guy.. i really enjoy how he speaks and the things that he's been talking about :)

today we had our day of outreach. basically it was just a time to hit the streets of toronto and share the Gospel with people. i'm no joe evangelist so i was worrying about what would happen, would i would do. before we went out, gregg spoke to us and the line that i remember from it was this: as we multiply, God is glorified. it was really challenging and motivating before we left to hit the streets. and we also went through the 4 Spiritual laws too. it was a good reminder for me since i have no idea what i'm doing :)

anyway, i got placed in a group with a bunch of caucasian girls that i didn't know. there was one asian guy, but he didn't come with us (i have no idea why - maybe he came to the wrong group initially). we ended up going to erin mills town centre (good ol sauga!) and i got paired up with a girl named jillian. a 4th year physiotherapy student at dalhousie (halifax). we talked briefly before we began and prayed with one another.

and then it began! we had about 3 hours to spend in the mall sharing with people. we were given a Christmas survey to use to transition to the four spiritual laws. it was a pretty effective tool to get people into the booklet. VERY effective. i think it'd be cool to make something like that for a general purpose use :)

the first guy we met was named shane and he was totally open to and wililng to hear what we had to say. jillian was talking and i just sat beside her praying for her. she got up to the end of the booklet and to the prayer but he wasn't ready to commit at that time and his parents had arrived, so he left. but that was really encouraging for us. just how open he was and everything :) it was really cool!! and so with that we kept at it. we met a few Christians and some other non-Christians. basically EVERYONE was open to hearing what we had to say. and we basically gave out all most of our four spiritual laws booklet.

after a while, we started getting discouraged because the way we split up the mall, there wasn't a lot of space to walk around and so we didn't really find a lot of people just sitting around that we could approach. we finally spotted a teen listening to music and we approached him. it was the coolest thing in the world. he was a grade 12 student from winnipeg, mainitoba by the name of matthew. and we went through the entire booklet with him! and at the END, he was like yeah, i want to accept Christ. i think i died right there! but he was kind of like yeah, sure why not. and at that point i was like "uhhh" (in my head of course) - jillian picked up on it and went through it again, making sure he understood FULLY what he was doing. after we prayed with him, his mom came, but unlike most parents she let him talk with us some more so she left. we basically gave him everything we had, a Bible, a satisfied? booklet, the 4 spiritual laws booklet and our contact information.

the coolest part of all of this, is that we really didn't do anything at all. we had to do was be available for God and He did all the work - we opened our mouths, He filled them with His words. we opened our minds, He filled them with wisdom. isn't it awesome that God would choose even the most unsuitable people (ie. me) to do His work? that's amazing. that we are able to be a part of furthering God's Kingdom!! WE are able to be a part of furthering God's Kingdom!! that's crazy man. :)

after all of this, jillian and i were just completely in awe. this was the first time in my life that i've ever been a part of leading someone to Christ (of course i didn't do anything, it was all Jesus). but i'm just so thankful that God's allowed me to part of this today. praise Him, for He is holy :)

with such positive experiences today, i have a definite urge to do some outreach at york. i think it'd be awesome to like just start witnessing to people there. i mean, that's why i'm there right? to spread the love of Jesus. it's not that piece of paper. i don't even want it. so i'm thinking that i can get some of the CCC people to join me to do it. i mean, they DO it anyways! so i can probably just join them and do that. :) it'd be such an amazing thing if God just swept york with His love, His presence :) if the campus of york began turning to Christ, what a wonderful sight that would be.

i'm hoping that our small group in design can start living sold out lives for Jesus and affect the lives of the students around us. :) if we could start doing things in our program for the other students, that would be really cool. or just somehow get on the conversation about Jesus. if somehow everyone in the program could hear of Jesus by the time we graduate, i think that would be the coolest thing. maybe now it's time to think of how we can go about and make that happen :)

two more days left here. we'll see what God has in store for me :)

Posted by Leo Chan at December 29, 2002 7:35 PM