Open Air

Wowsers. What I anticipated to be the most nerve-wracking evenings of my life turned out to be one of the most wonderful evenings I have ever experienced.

This evening, all of the SM students and staff piled into vans and headed to inner-city St. Louis to do open-air evangelism to children. I was with a team of 12 other students and as we took the hour drive into St. Louis, I was working myself up into a nervous tizzy. It's not like I felt unprepared or unable to handle whatever situations may arise, but just the fact that everything was so unknown was driving me batty.

Our team went to a housing development in downtown St. Louis (I saw the Arch for the first time!) and as we drove through the development to get a feel for its layout, we saw tons and tons of kids. The place was swarming with them! We decided to divide up into smaller teams of four and then spread out through the development. My team got dropped off by a playground, and before our van had even driven away, a little boy rode up on his bike. "Hey, I know you," he said. "You were here last year and you told us stories about Jesus." We eagerly responded that we had come back to tell more about Jesus. He said, "Well, then, I'm going to be your first listener." As one of the girls on my team began to share the Wordless book with him, four or five other children joined to listen. Another girl from my team began to share with the new kids, while I went with the one and only guy on our team over to the playground.

We asked the kids if they would like to hear a story and before I could even finish my sentence, we had about ten kids gathered around us. I plopped down on the wood chips and began to share the Wordless Book. One amazing thing was that the majority of the children who were listening were pre-teen girls. They were full of hard questions about God, Heaven, Hell, and what does a person have to do to be saved. It was obvious that these girls were not getting the answers to these questions from any other source, and once they discovered that we could answer their questions, they fired them at us right and left. I absolutely LOVED answering their questions, and watching the relief in one girl's face when I explained confession and forgiveness of sins. I am rejoicing in the fact that FIVE children that heard the Wordless Book in that group received Jesus as their Savior. It was the most exhilarating experience! Praise the Lord!

I was able to speak one-on-one with another little girl, and it was clear that she already understood the message of salvation and had received Christ. I was able to give her assurance of her salvation, which was also really neat. We joined our two other teammates and realized that they had led FOUR children to Christ, including the first little boy who had talked to us. :-)

We were only able to do open-air for about an hour and a half, so we didn't have time to go over the Wordless Book in detail with another large group of kids. We did give them tracts with information on the Mailbox Club, as well as Wonder Devotional books. It was so amazing to look back down the street and see parents reading the Wonder Devotional books to their children. Imagine the impact that might have on entire families!

I could have done open-air in that development for HOURS. There were so many children, and they were all so hungry for attention and to hear the message of salvation. Now I am even more excited about going to Boston and working in those housing developments. YAY!!

Praise the Lord for protecting us and for giving us such a fruitful, fufilling evening. It's all to His Glory! Praise the Lord for each of these children who came to know Him as their personal Savior!

Pray for Jordan, Alexus, Aaliyan, Kevasha, Dasia and Deante - these were the kids in the first group who received Christ. Pray that they will send for their Mailbox Club lessons, and that they will continue to grow in Him despite their circumstances.

I need to scoot to bed, but I was so excited that I just had to share! More tomorrow (a free day - hooray!)