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Face-to-face with the truth; in the street, |
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Saturday,
May 31, 2008 Ah, the tourist season in Wisconsin! Memorial Day to Labor day (and
sometimes a little more). I was in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend,
so I didn't start this year's Dells ministry until today. Since my family
is in Italy, I nearly We arrived in Wisconsin Dells at about 7:00 p.m. Bars with drunks and shops with sleaze in the windows. Wow! What a family-oriented town! It had been extremely windy during the day, with gusts of up to 35 miles per hour, and I was thinking that it might be a challenge this night to hold on to the sign we brought (see the sign). But the wind had stopped dead, and the temperature was right a 70. Perfect. It could not have been better. I was taking the photos with my new phone, so I'm not in any of the photos. Even though the weather was beautiful, the Dells was not very busy. Partly because all schools had not let out yet, and I suspect that the gas prices may hold many back from traveling as much as they did even last year. We'll see as the summer progresses. Early on three young men came up to us. I remembered them from last year. They are sort of a team, and they go around acting silly. As they approached they said, "Hey!" and wanted us to do the "high five." I declined a response, leaving them with their hands in the air. Not that I'm unsociable, but it's just not my thing.
As we continued to minister to others during the evening, he and his buddies would drive by and yell at us from a car. We ignored them and they got tired of the harassment.
At one point during the evening I looked through the door into the bar we were in front of, for there was some commotion and a woman was on all fours with her drink still in her hand, and was so drunk that it took three people to get her to her feet again. Sometimes people sitting in the window of this bar get curious as to what we are doing and send an emissary to get some tracts from us. Sjoe had a long conversation with this fellow to the right who claimed to be a witch. He was very confused, from what words I could hear, and Sjoe ended up praying with him for wisdom and light. A 21-year-old Christian brother from Reedsburg named Christopher was suddenly sitting near us on a bench, and he joined in witnessing with us. He is now living and working at the Minneapolis airport driving luggage carts and guiding-in planes with those flashlight things. He was down here for a few days visiting his family. What a blessing it was to have him join us. He remembered me from two summers ago and even knew my name. We spent the next couple of hours together, and the three of us went out for a sandwich when we were finished. We look forward to many more nights in the Dells this summer. Things are different when their are crowds. People enjoy hearing what others' reactions to the debates will be. And, the person debating with us often stays longer because of the people. Very conducive to preaching God's truth. Join us if you can. You can always email us for info on ministry outings. Brother Charles KNOW
JESUS |
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had to go it alone, but I was graciously joined by Brother Sjoerd
(pronounced shoe-erd) from the church I attend. He is from Holland, hence
the interesting name. As I write this, he has traveled out to Billings, Montana so
that he and a church body can get to know each other, whether they will
have him as their pastor. Sjoe (pronounced "shoe") has a real
heart for evangelism, and it was refreshing to meet up with him.
While
his two buddies sat on the bench, the guy in green had a fat lip full of
chewing tobacco and kept spitting on the sidewalk. After a few minutes he
had contributed a brown puddle of sick brown ooze that no one wanted to
step on, especially me. Although the photos show him attentively looking
on a Sjoe shares the gospel, this was only temporary, and he soon became
quite rude and nasty. At one point, I was having a conversation with him,
and he was saying that there was no God. I was attempting to speak with
him, but he would never let me get a sentence out; he would interrupt me
halfway through each time. He was yelling, "My uncle died at age 67!
You wanna bring him back?! Does your God want to bring him back?!! You
don't know how much he meant to me!!!" I started to say, "Well,
it doesn't really matter, because we all die.... etc., etc." But as
soon as I said, "It doesn't matter..." he freaked out and
started yelling at me. He even turned and said to anyone within earshot
that, "He just told me that it means sh*t that my uncle died!!!"
He had a handful of tracts, and he suddenly torn them in four and bounced
the whole bunch off of my chest, littering the sidewalk with paper bits. I
tried to tell him, "I was just saying..." but he was in his own
little world of hate and resentment. A few minutes later he came back and
he got within six inches of my face and he yelled, "I just talked to
my dad, and he's willing to bail me out, so I don't even care if I hit you
right now, you m***** f*****!!! I demand an apology! Right now! I want to
hear an apology!" For a moment I thought, "Why should I
apologize to this punk; I didn't do anything." But then I thought
that it certainly couldn't hurt, and it might save me from getting punched
in the face, so I said, "I'm sorry if you were offended, but I was
just trying to say..." But he walked away without listening. I was
truly gentle with this guy. He was just out of control.
I
spoke with quite few people briefly and we passed out a couple hundred
tracts. I spoke with two teenaged girls (14 or 15?) for about a half hour.
The one girl kept trying to get her friend to leave, but her friend was
stuck on listening to the gospel and asking questions. It was a good
conversation, even though she at times would say things to try to shock me
(impossible).
