Mission Possible Week 4 Kelowna and Vancouver

Mission Possible Week 4

Open Air Ministry in Kelowna and Vancouver

“Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this." So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.”

Acts 17:32-34 

Ministering to both poor and rich, we have had a great last week of ministry with different responses to the Gospel, “I have good Karma”, “I’’m keeping the laws”, “All we need to do is love and the world will have peace”, “I used to be a Christian”, “I’m a good person” and “I’ve been thinking about that lately”.  We have had responses anywhere from running away from being under conviction, another was challenged in their Christian faith, some walls were broken and gained ears to listen, others were softened by the power of God’s word, one that was demon possessed was in turmoil by our presence, and some said I have never thought of it that way before and wanted to hear more. The good news of the Gospel has gone out in truth and love and seeds have been sown, watered, and fertilized in the power and glory of God. - CA

A New Bible

Wednesday we went to a Christian book store and I was looking for a new bible to buy. So I needed to exchange more money to buy it, but thankfully Max lended me money until I could exchange and pay him back. Unfortunately, I was 2 dollars short, but the cashier was kind and payed the 2 dollars for me. So I got the Bible and in a conversation later the same day, Christian was talking to a lady. When Christian pulled out his green Bible she said “No, no, I only believe black Bibles are true Bibles.” So I happened to be listening to the conversation and was like, “Hey I just bought a black bible today!”. So Christian was able to use my new Bible to show the verses he wanted, and she accepted them. I don't know what was going on in her life, but God led me to buy that Bible and used it for his will in that conversation and God’s word never returns void. - Garrett

God’s Forgiveness of Sins

Wednesday night my dad, Paul Adams, was doing a gospel message on the sketch-board and towards the end, two people came and watched the message. As the message ended, Garrett Bradley and I walked up to them and Garrett started to explain the whole message that was given. As Garrett shared the message with them, you could almost see a sparkle in their eyes and you could tell they seemed very interested. Then we explained the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how God sent his perfect son Jesus down to earth to die for our sins so that we didn't have to. They didn't seem to understand how He only died once, but paid for all sins, so we explained that he died for everybody who has lived, living and will live on earth (Past, Present, and Future). Soon after the man was telling us that he's a bad man and that he's done/does bad things sometimes, and I simply said we have all sinned and made mistakes in our every day life and that's why God sent his son Jesus down to take our sins away, but that this didn't mean we could just do bad things now that we are saved from our sins, but that we should strive to live a life like Jesus did and be like Him. - Cameron

Cherry Picker

I spoke to a guy who came to Kelwona to pick cherries to get more money for schooling, because he wanted to be a real estate agent. He claimed to be a believer on Monday night, who believes that everyone who worships a god worships the same god. He was raised catholic and baptized when he was 15. He said that he was born again when he was baptized. I explained to him that you have to have salvation to be born again, not just be baptized. I explained to him that there's only one God, and that's Jesus Christ. If you're muslim, Allah isn't the same thing as Jesus Christ. He said that he follows his mom to whatever church she goes to. They both go to a church that focus on the Holy Ghost. I explained to him that many churches now-a-days just pick and choose from the Bible what they want their church to believe. He was really surprised to see us teenagers out preaching, and that we were actually talking to people about faith. I encouraged him to stay for the message, and he actually did. It's easy to assume that people are believers when they say they are, but you have to dig deeper and see what they actually believe. They could actually just be cherry pickers, just picking and choosing what they want to from the Bible to fit their beliefs. - Kathryn

A Whole New World 

We spent our last week of ministry in Canada in the city of Vancouver and it was so different than the ministry in Calgary. One of the things that was different was a place that we went to called Gastown where almost everyone that heard the Gospel was homeless. We preached in a small square with benches that were filled up with people smoking weed and even doing heroin in public. It was a different experience, and we later were told by a man that the government was giving out heroin to lower the crime rate, but that didn't really seem to make things much better. We got all different kinds of responses to the Gospel.

Some people were calm and understanding and others were yelling and cursing us out. I talked to a man named Luis, who claimed to be a Catholic, but he didn't even believe in many things that Catholics believe in, like Heaven. He screamed at us and told us that we are all going to hell. We met another man who actually knew Luis and he told us that he was a very successful business man who came from Israel, but he got into drugs and lost everything: his kids, wife, money, job, everything. It was sad to see what happens firsthand when someone gets addicted to drugs. We went back to the square two days later and handed out sandwiches to all the homeless people. I had one last sandwich left and put it next to a man who was sleeping on a bench hoping that nobody stole it so he could eat it. During ministry a man tried to pickpocket me, but all he grabbed from my back pocket was a Gospel track. I saw him crumble it and throw it away once he figured that it wasn't anything he wanted. There was a couple doing cocaine on a bench and another man peed right next to a road. I thought that since I live close to Washington D.C., I have seen it all, but I hadn't and it was a blessing that I got to talk about the Gospel with several of the homeless people. I just pray that they take what I said to heart and read that booklets they got. - Katie

God’s Perfect Timing

On Monday night, we were doing open air ministry in the beautiful city of Kelowna. After 8 hours of sitting in the car, we weren't very excited about doing it, but God gave us the endurance and courage. When we went out and started, we only expected to stay for a couple hours, but God had a different plan. After I presented the fifth message, we expected to clean up and head out (at this point it was about 9:30). However, the leaders fortunately decided to let Jonathan do one last message. Jonathan decided to present a math-based message. In it, he disregards the rules of math, and gets a wrong answer. After he finished his message, a group of teenage girls walked by and noticed the faulty math problems on the board. They decided to walk up and correct Jonathan, which led to Jonathan being able to share the Gospel with them. I joined the conversation after he was done recapping the message, and the girls were impressed that people their own age were out on the streets doing this kind of stuff. After walking them through repentance, faith, and the Bible multiple times, we learned that they were raised Christian and some even attended Bible camps every summer. The way they led their lives did not reflect God or a Biblical worldview at all. I am glad that we were able to talk to them.  We sent them home with booklets on how to get saved and an app that they could download to read more Christian content (this one excited them the most). Just to think, if we had packed up one message earlier this would have never happened. - Christian

We are so thankful to the Lord for Greg and Caroline Barclay, OAC Canada.  We appreciate their hospitality, patience, grace through the rough spots, their tender care and for making us feel like we were a part of the family.

Devotions in a park in Vancouver