Okay people, so I wrote a blog the other night but needed to touch it up before I posted it. But I just have to put it on the back burner so I can tell you what God has been doing in San Diego…cuz seriously, it’s unreal.
So first off, one of my boys in my growth group (the group of men I’m discipling in San Diego) is a total stud and loves to share his faith. His name is Jeremy Jones, and he is a student at the University of North Dakota. Anyway, I think it was only the third day on project and we were encouraged to share our faith while we were job searching for the students. We had pretty much looked at every potential option in our assigned shopping center, so attempting to be a good leader I encouraged my group to share the gospel with some people around us. I took two of my guys with me and got into a great conversation with a really sweet homeless man. We ended up riding the bus with him to a local church which provides dinner to the homeless. It was so cool just to live life with this man if even just for a few hours. But what was really cool was the conversation that Jeremy got in while the three of us were talking to our new friend.
Jeremy began talking with this man who pretty quickly opened up to him, I don’t want to ruin the story so I’ll have Jeremy tell it for me…
I met a man named Michael at a local park. He was a recovering alcoholic who had lost his wife and family to his addictions, and was desperately looking for an answer to his life. I was able to share with him some of my own struggles, and was able to share the Gospel with him. It was clear that Michael’s heart was incredibly moved. Tears filled both of our eyes as he accepted Christ as Savior and vowed to trust the Lord to free him from alcoholism.
So if that isn’t cool enough, Jeremy goes out the next day job searching and recognizes a man from the church we ate dinner at the day before. His name was Skye, and Jeremy was so excited to get the chance to sit and talk with another new friend. Once again, I don’t want to ruin the story so I’ll let Jeremy take this one as well…
Skye was a homeless man living day to day on the streets of San Diego. We got into conversation as I noticed that he had a guitar on him. After some playful jam sessions, I took him out to eat at a local restaurant. I was blessed to share with Skye the Gospel and the immensity of God’s love for him. I was able to ask him if he wanted to follow Christ and accept His payment for his sin. Skye gave the Lord his complete heart. We are now good friends and he has found deep love in our Lord, and happiness that goes well beyond his circumstances. God bless him
So yeah God is doing big things. But if that isn’t enough…
So flash forward a few weeks to this past Sunday. I am at church (The one I am going to in SD is called All Peoples Church and it is so sweet!) and chatting with one of the students on project. He is basically telling me how hard his time has been in SD because he has been dealing with the disappearance of his little sister. A little background…my friends name is Ashtin and he is from India, in fact his whole family lives in India and are Hindi. They sent Ashtin and his little sister to America for their education. Well his sister had gotten in trouble and was sent to a juvenile detention center, and about 7 months ago ran away from the center with her much older boyfriend. She has been missing for the last 7 months. The situation had gotten so severe that Ashtin’s parents and family had come to the United States to look for her. Police have been calling Ashtin nonstop in San Diego, and for a while it looked like he was going to have to leave. During these past 7 months, members of Ashtin’s family have been praying to their Hindi gods for the return of Ashtin’s sister. So Sunday night after Ashtin had told me this story and we had prayed for the situation, it turns out that 4 of Ashtin’s cousins decided to pray to Jesus that his sister would be found…and yesterday Ashtin’s sister was found and returned to her family. That same day those four Indian cousins rejected their Hindi gods and put their faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior.
I mean what else can you say. That just happened, a miracle. Christ is reigning supreme. What a testimony to the power and might of our King Jesus Christ. He is the one who is worthy, He is the only one worth living for. There have been soooo many stories of people coming to Christ and I wanted to tell some more but how can you follow that?? Jesus is moving, people are being saved, and the Lord is adding to our number daily. Praise Him, praise be to the King. The one who was, and is, and is to come. Man I love God ; )
