There have been some cool things going on in SC. This last Saturday, Valentine’s Day, we did an outreach with another church in town, Faith Community Church, & handed out 485 (some got broken!) carnations around town. On each flower was a tag that said: “Jesus thinks you’re awesome & so do we.” We have been doing this for years before moving to SC & think it’s a great idea still. I was really blessed to see how many people from our church actually turned out for this (about 45%--15/17 peeps). This was great & shows me we aren’t creating a culture of spectators, but people who really desire to know Him & make Him known. We broke up into 3 groups & went: Downtown, UCSC, & around the Rio Theatre (“Mid-Town” to the locals). Everyone had a great time & they were genuinely surprised at: (a) how easy it is to share your faith in a very practical way; & (b) how receptive people were to what we were doing. As I was talking to Laben the other morning I told him that, although 480 people got to hear a portion of the gospel, everyone who was involved became more emboldened to share the gospel , which will have wonderful results.


Our next outreach will be April 20th aka. 4:20. Stoners around the world smoke pot each day at 4:20pm & on April 20th they all get together & light up at the same time. In SC a huge group of students gets together on campus to light up at the same time. What a great opportunity to tell them about Jesus. We want to pass out, what I’m calling right now: “Stoner survival packets,” which will include: water, candy, snack, & a card that says, “Jesus thinks you’re awesome & so do we.” It’s my hope we can pass out 1000 of these.


If you want to be involved, please come down; we will need all the help we can get.


Later that night Jeff, Janine, Linda, & I all went out for dinner. Randy K (who is an incredible coach) gave my wife & I some money for Valentines, so we all went to sushi. Our waiter, Jeff, is the owner’s son & when we got our food we told him we were about to pray & asked if he needed prayer for anything. Not really sure what to do (I don’t think many Christians offer to pray for their waiters) he said, “Pray for better business.” We did, had a great time, & left him a $100 tip. We’ll go back & see him again. When we got into the car I called Randy & told him what we did with his money. I’m not sure if he’s gonna’ send more or less after hearing about that.
On Sundays we continue to see more homeless people in our service. This is great, but many of them leave after realizing we aren’t going to feed them physically. However, some stay. Lori is a wonderful Asian woman who “dropped out” after her 14 month old girl was kidnapped. This was her second time joining us, so after praying for her (she’s huge into Asian medicine & not prayer) my wife invited her to come over the next day to eat & clean up. So, the next day she arrived at our house & took an Asian herbal bath (milk, sage, & rosemary) & ate some of our Turkey soup. It was great to have her over & my kids were playing with her the whole time. Before leaving she mentioned that after living in SC for 7yrs, no one had ever invited her to their house. This is interesting to me; is it interesting to you?

About a year ago we passed out flyers at UCSC for a free BBQ. We had close to 100 students show up & we played games & ate food. At the BBQ two Japanese students came & have been hanging out ever since. Often they walk into our mtgs late, which is really funny, but they show up on a regular basis. Last night the guys invited one of the two guys, Tader, to hang out & watch the Jesus video in Japanese (what a resource that is). Tader confessed Jesus & we will baptize him in March.

This last Sunday a new girl came to our service. She is philosophy major at UCSC & we had a chance to speak afterwards. I’m always blown away at how ignorant (not stupid, but unknowing) people are concerning Jesus. Now much of this is perpetrated by the church, but pop-culture does its work too. She mentioned many subjects to me including: imperialism; ethics, values, etc. (Basically Christianity sucks--& in many cases I agree) One thing she said was Jesus’ primary focus was ethics; I told her Jesus wasn’t concerned with ethics (at least not what she meant, i.e. a list of external do’s & don’ts) & she was kinda’ stunned by this statement saying, “Jesus didn’t teach ethics?!” I said, “Jesus was not a teacher of ethics; however, when a person is transformed by God they become much more ethical. Jesus was, & is, concerned with people being transformed by His love, not conformed to a set of rules.” How many people’s view of God would be totally rearranged if they really understood this one truth?

That's a lot of pictures!
Blessings,