A Word of Thanks

Tonight I would like to say a word of thanks, or many words of thanks, and to many different people and for many different things. I would like to say a thank you to everyone, because without you tonight would have never happened.

 As I went to juvee tonight, as usual I sat down with the guys I've been with the past couple of weeks, and I quickly realized that God was at work tonight. I didn't even get through the message that I had prepared due to the plethora of questions that these guys had about everything and anything relating to Christianity and the Bible. I quickly realized that I was not there to give a message, but to answer these guys questions. I was asked questions about everything. From reincarnation, to salvation, to Revelation, to Hell, to Heaven, to Cain and Able, to death, everything was fair game tonight. The crazy thing was that I was able to answer every question! This is not something I would normally be able to do. I did not brush up on my evolution, theology, Christian history, archaeology or anything like that before I went in there. I did not prepare for anything like that, and yet God brought the answers to every single one of those questions to my mind from things that I had heard or read in the past! I was somehow able to remember obscure articles I had read online in the past, lectures I had attended, and theology movies I had seen in the past without hesitation, something I cannot normally do! This had nothing to do with me, it was entirely God! I am not that smart, I cannot remember minute details like I was given tonight! These guys had questions too! Tonight was a miracle! Anyway, these guys are intensely curious about the Gospel and what it has to do with them, and tonight would not have been anything like that without you guys help.

I would like to say thank you to all of you readers who read the last post with the prayer list and prayed through it this past week. Tonight was made possible by prayer. I would like to say thank you to my dad for providing me with some of the money to provide New Testaments for these guys. These guys read a ton, and they will read anything that they can get their hands on right now. I would like to say thank you to the church that brought these guys the entire Bible this past week. The past few weeks I've been telling these guys how much I wish that I could get them the Old Testament as well due to all the amazing stories in it of God's love and what He did for people, and tonight when I mentioned it the guys told me that a church brought Bibles in the past week and that they were reading them everyday and were loving the stories. I would like to say thank you to Eunchong because without your tips I would not have begun tonight with prayer, something that I believed truly made a difference. I would like to say thank you to Larry, Mr. Thomas, Jeremy, and Donald for all those years of putting me up there in front of people and helping me to be able to speak in front of people, because it was not that long ago that I would not have done anything like this, and it was you guys that helped me to be able to do it. I would like to say thank you to my theology and creation studies professors. Tonight I was asked so many questions about salvation, evolution, dinosaurs, etc. etc. that I would not have known the answers to had it not been for those classes. I would also like to say thank you to Matt. I was going to print off a paper that talked more about salvation to give to these guys, but right as I began to print them my printer ran out of ink. As I ran frantically from locked door to locked door on the hall I found Matt getting ready to leave. I asked if I could borrow his printer and he said sure. The guys were very excited to receive those papers, and had it not been for Matt they would have never gotten them.

Above all though I would like to say thank you to the Lord for tonight. Nothing would have happened tonight had it not been for Him. I slept and thought about lunch in half of my theology classes, how was I able to remember topics from lectures that I wasn't even paying attention to? I played poker and talked through half of my creation studies classes, how was I able to remember answers to some of those very serious questions without God's help? If I had taken my hapkido class this semester I would not have been able to be a part of this, because it was on a Wednesday close to this time. I was registered in the class, but the schedule got changed and I had to drop it instead. I applied to be a prayer leader, but wasn't accepted. If I had made it I wouldn't be doing this. There are too many coincidinces here.

These guys curiosity is piqued. They read the Bibles everyday, tell me their favorite verses and books, and have plenty of questions (including whether Jesus really wants us to cut out our tongues or not). I am full heartedly expecting many of these guys to come to know Christ as Lord very, very soon.

As far as prayer requests go this week, almost every guy wants us to pray for their court date and their family.  D wants us to pray for his mom to get better. Please continue to pray for these guys this week. They are very close to coming to know Christ and need all the prayer they can get. I would also like ya'll to pray for me to be able to find some more reading material to give them. These guys have some very difficult questions, and I would love to be able to get them some books by Lee Strobel or something like that, though those books can be very expensive. Pray for the ability to find something cheap to be able to help these guys out. These are people's souls we're talking about.

Thank you very much everybody. Tonight was an awesome night and I pray that you will pray with me that next week will be even better.