Revival in the Public Works Department

I don't know what it is, but God is doing things in the Public Works Department here in Salem.  In a way, I guess you could say there is an ongoing revival happening.  This past week, a man named Anthony who works for the city reading parking meters was riding his work bike passing bye.  I stopped him and asked if he had a second to talk about our question of the day which was, "Who do you think Jesus was?"  The next 20 minutes I was able to share the Gospel with Anthony, and in the end, he surrendered his life to Christ. This conversation was what I would call "Textbook".  He was seeking, he was open, he was humble, and he wanted salvation and new life.  Holy Spirit had already been working on his heart for a while, and we got the privaledge to lead him to Christ.  On top of Stevens amazing story, my co worker Ryan has been following up with another young man from the same department named Charles.  If you will remember, years ago when we started the GGN we saw a few people come to Christ in that department.  God is doing things!  Pray for Anthony.  I will be having coffee with him this week.  Pray for Charles as well, and my friend Ryan will be doing follow up with him. Pray for more to come to Christ in the Public Works Department of Salem!  

Table Talks

i have been so encouraged by our weekly Table Talks we have been having on Thursdays.  Two weeks ago we spoke to a lady from a local Unity Path Center on "Who..or What...is God".  Then, this past week we spent time with a man who is a "licensed" spiritualist.  Both our discussions were very good, and also heart breaking at the same time.  Pray for Barbara from Unity Path Center.  She is a nice lady but so deceived.  Everything in her worldview is metaphysical.  She is a very bright lady and sure in her views.  The interesting thing is that when we asked her if she would eve r be open to the possibility that Jesus was who He actually said He was her answer was there was no way.  We also ask you to pray fro Steven, the spiritualist.  Steven's father was a Satanist, and when Steven was 7 he was provoked in a ceremony to try and murder his family.  He spent some time in a state hospital because of that.  Long story short, he is searching deeply for meaning in life, and he will not find it in spirituality.  Pray for God to open his heart.  He definitely is seeking.

Exposing Students to Worldviews

Every Friday we take our Winter DTS students on outreach.  This quarter, we are alternating between doing Gospel Guy and taking them on our "Temple Tours".  This past week they got to visit the local Sikh Temple and hear about the Sikh religion.  For all of them, it was their first time in a Sikh Temple and it was awesome to see what God taught them and how He broke their hearts for them.  We look forward to the many Temple Tours we will take them on this quarter.

The Importance of Follow Up

Our end of the month training time we focused on the importance of Follow Up.  This is one area we are really focusing on this year with the GGN.  A few pointers that came out of this teaching time...1) Follow Up starts before someone comes to know Christ, 2)Follow up starts with you...not your church, and 3) Be persistant and patient.  It is so encouraging to see how our follow up has increased this year already.  We typically have about 3-4 follow up conversations a week with individuals we have met on the street.

Winter Wonderland Fun

Over New Years, we took a two day trip up to the mountains and had a great time enjoying the snow.  We did sledding, ice skating, and snow shoeing.  What a great time!

Sarah and older kids ice skated...I hung out with Annie and Alistair

Snowshoeing is a new Walter family favorite

Abby trecking through the snow

Follow Up-Conversations with Bryant the Atheist

As I mentioned in our last update, one of the goals we are striving to improve on and focus on this year is in our follow up.  This week I had my second conversation over coffee with Bryant the Atheist.  We are reading The Case for Christ together, and he is being challenged, but also challenging me.  Please be praying for Bryant.  Our last discussion was centered on the question he posed, "Why is God relevant to me now, when I have lived 30 years without him?"  Great question.  We discussed the morality issue as well. Bryant believes society creates morals.  The homework assignment I left him with is to continue reading Case for Christ, the Gospel of John, and I asked him also to read the sermon on the mount and tell me if he finds anything in there that is not good for society.  His challenge to me was to prove the relevance of God.  Pray for Bryant and that he would one day come to know Jesus. 

An Encouraging Reminder

This past week I arrived early to our downtown office one morning and found a letter on our floor. It was put into our mail slot we have.  When I opened it and read it, it brought tears to me eyes.  It is so life giving to be reminded of why we do the ministry we are called to.  Encouraging words are so amazing to receive.  Please take time to read the above letter that this young man Timo wrote to us. I hope you can read it on the blog clearly.  If not, let me know. Understand as well, through all your prayers and financial support of our family, this letter is as much to you as it is to us!

Transit Testimonies

 

A few months ago, the Lord spoke to me an challenged me to do something a bit different.  You see, we do conversational evangelism every day of the week on the streets.  It has become a familiar place for me, and to be honest at times a comfortable place.  That is when God always interrupts my life and stretches my faith.  He asked me to simply go on our city buses and preach the Gospel.  Simply stand up and in 3-5 minutes preach the Gospel message. Needless to say, this sounded a bit to intimidating for me, so like always, I put it on the backburner of my "I'll get to that later God" items.  Every now and then, the Lord would ask me, "Tim, have you gotten on the buses yet?"  Ah! The persistence of Holy Spirit!  So this past Monday, after hearing a challenging word form a friend who works in the Muslim world about obedience, I looked at my co workers Ryan and Daniel during our morning prayer time and said, "Guys, today we are going on the buses." So we went.  We prayed for God to give us favor with whoever the bus driver would be.  The bus driver ended up being a Christian...and he told us it was about time someone brought the Gospel to his bus!  Long story short, our time was amazing.  We preached, and then sat down and had amazing discussions with people on the bus.  We prayed for people. We encouraged people.  We were rebuked through the looks of scorn and the bowing of heads, and the putting on of headphones.  It was awesome.  We will continue to do this every so often, and plan to do it with our Mission Adventures groups this spring break and summer.  

M y co worker Daniel from Brazil preaching.  The bald man sitting there said if Daniel, "That guy has guts."

Mission Adventures 2015 Changed Lives

2015 was a great year for Mission Adventures around the globe.  Every year, we tally up some numbers of how many students came through, etc... In 2015, we say 3,411 high school students go on mission trips with us, and that entailed around 184 different youth groups. We got numbers from 24 MA operating locations, so that number is not expressive of all the students who ended up going through Mission Adventures.  It is that time of year again for me to begin to think about Mission Adventures as we have spring break coming up.  We already have our three weeks of Spring Break groups booked so it is looking to be a great start here in Salem for Mission Adventures in 2016!