Today our outreach group consisted of five interns and two leaders. It was a way smaller group than normal, but God wasn’t a bit intimidated. We went to the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Well, no corpses or demons turned up, but we did see a number of healings and did plenty of preaching.
We split into a few small groups to head out over the campus. I was with the same girl I was with last week, and we headed out with very little direction at all. I’m totally fine with talking to people and praying for them, but straight up “preaching the gospel” is NOT normal for me. I was praying hard for opportunity and boldness, etc. The first girl we talked to was a very friendly freshman who told us she believes in some sort of higher power but mostly just believes in the good in humanity. We talked to her for fifteen minutes or so, praying for her and sharing the gospel a bit.
We went into a building looking for a water fountain, and I immediately saw a girl wearing red sandals. As it happened, “red sandals” was the first item on my treasure hunt list. I showed her the list and she got excited and said I could pray for her. I did, and afterwards she and her friend (they were both Muslims, although the first girl was pretty secular and agnostic) started asking us questions about hearing God’s voice and the difference between Muslim and Christian beliefs, etc. They actually mentioned Isa the prophet (their view of Jesus) before we did. We stood there talking for about thirty minutes, then they invited us to sit down and we talked for another thirty minutes. We covered everything from justification to the Trinity to prophecy. It was a really good conversation. At one point one of our leaders walked by, then came back and asked if he could demonstrate that Jesus is God by growing out the first girl’s leg. She claimed her legs were just fine, but he sat her down, and we could clearly see the difference in length. He commanded the leg to grow – and it did – but the girl still denied that it happened and said it was all psychological. Overall, though, it was a really good conversation, and God’s definitely after their hearts. The leader who joined our conversation said that talking for an hour to Muslims is an unusual kind of favour. I’m pretty in awe at how that happened too, and I’m definitely going to keep praying for them.
The other groups in our team saw three legs grow out, a toothache healed, and had several awesome conversations with students. They met two guys who were passing out flyers together; one was a Christian and the other was a Muslim. The Muslim guy didn’t want to listen to them, but they talked to the Christian guy and encouraged him to share the gospel with his friends on campus, because their salvation may depend on it. Pray for him. He’s there for such a time as this.
I love UMKC. I really hope we can go back more often. College students are very willing to have these kinds of conversations, and it’s easier for me to talk to people who are basically my peers. God is doing big things on that campus, and one of these days all heaven is going to break loose there. 🙂