Monday, August 8, 2011

A crazy day of outreach

On Saturday we had outreach here in our own city, which was pretty normal. You'll know what I mean when I tell you where I went later, and outreach was NOT normal! We went door knocking in the morning and after that we had a teacher's meeting and training for children's church. Then I taught a Bible study to 2 sisters who have been coming with their mom to church. Their mom is a new convert and it is really cool to see her girls starting to seek God like they have been.

After the Bible study I had a chance to go up to Berkeley and help my friends with outreach. They pastor a small home missions church in such a crazy city! I knew Berkeley was wild, but wow, I was still in shock. We did outreach at the Flea Market next to the Ashby bart station. They had a little stand set up with invitations and stuff about Bible prophecies, ect. We had keyboard out there and sang some songs while people passed by. It was definitely an experience. There were people selling masks, idols, and burning incense. I don't think I've ever seen so many people with dreads in one place in my whole life! My friends invited one guy who was wearing black and had lots of tattoos. He looked at the invitation and asked "is this about Jesus?" When told that it was, he handed the invitation back and said "I'm on the other team." Wow. The other team is going to lose.

I wish I had pictures, but I don't. Maybe next time I go to help I will have some. But you just never know, in such a wicked place, there may be a few hungry souls. Two girls walked by holding hands while we were singing. The one who was dressed more like a guy slowed down, and you could see the interest on her face. She stopped, turned around, and came over to our stand, letting go of the the other girls hand. Her partner got REALLY upset about this, but the girl didn't even care. She seemed so hungry for God. You just never know who will want this and who won't.

There we literally people in trances and on drugs around a circle of drums. It is some type of African spiritual practice (evil spirits) where people for a circle with mostly hand drums and just beat the drums. It draws the weirdest crowd and people dance and do the craziest things because they are so out of their minds, and some of them I'm sure are demon possessed. You can see it in their eyes. It was a crazy thing to see.

I'm so thankful for the truth!!

1 comment:

John said...

Hey Jen, great post

Those of us in college tend to see some pretty crazy stuff like what you talked about. Seems like every other week there's a different "cultural" event going on. It's good to see people like that girl who, in the midst of all that, is hungry for God.

oh, and I meant to comment earlier but happy birthday to Paul. I hope he gets his pilots license someday