Finale of Extreme Hunger Extreme Hope

As promised, here is the update of the last day of the outreach...

Thursday actually started out a little rough. I had gone to one of our proxe stations for a few hours and had no conversations. Most people would see us and try to avoid us by going around tables or turning and going back the way they came.

Since there were plenty of people to help with the proxe Jason and I decided to do some conversational evangelism. We went around the union scoping it our for people who we could talk to. We ended up talking to a woman who worked in the union and question what Christianity is. Unfortunately she had to leave to go back to work. From there we ended up talking to a guy named Chris. He help the belief of universalism and saw gods from all realigions as the same. We had a good conversation with him that lasted over an hour. We tried to help him see the differences and what makes Jesus the only way to heaven. I don't think he completely understands yet, but I noticed as we talked, he would really think about what we were saying. Seeds were planted. (Above Pic: Amy, me, and Kelly (cmu student) at the hunger . . wall proxe station)

After that time I went to another proxe station in the towers dorm. I had never done this proxe before, so I was a little nervous to be there, however there were several students with me, so I knew I needed to push myself so that they would engage others as well. I ended up talking to a Hindu girl that lived there for several minutes. She was very open to what I had to say, but very firm in her own beliefs. We had a nice conversation, sharing with each other our beliefs, however I felt myself stutter and stumble around as I tried to share the gospel with her. The conversation was very rigid and not particularly fluid, but the girl was very graceful to me. Once I was done I invited her to our talent show that evening and wanted to hide under a rock. I left there discouraged with feelings of inadequacy...as well as being exhausted from the week events.

I really didn't know what to expect for the talent show. It came to be 8pm and there were not many people in the room. It was getting a little discouraging, but I kept reminding myself that most people come to these things late. We had set up the room for 200 people. I really did not expect many people outside of the groups who were coming to perform to come. Ye of little faith!

As the talent show started people began coming. I was standing in the back of the room filimg te acts and I noticed there were a lot of people standing. We actually had to bring our more chairs to seat everyone! How exciting that was. The acts went on, and there were some amazing things performed that drew the attention of the audience. Once the talent portion was over the IV group performed their opening sword fight/movement piece to open the speaker. It was amusing listening to the crowd gasp as "Hunger" killed people, and chear as the defender came on stage with her sword. It was riveting.

Once the Hunger Duel was over Paul Hassell came on stage and began speaking on the issue of hunger, his own experiences that he witnessed, and what God had to say about it. He spoke the gospel of love and action, and gave an alter call for those who would want to know Christ. 1 woman stood up and accepted Jesus.

The day ended much better than it started. We were able to connect with other groups (non-christian and christian) and get to know the people in them. We came together to fight against hunger and bring awareness to the Pitt campus. But more inmportantly we spread the seed of the Gospel to a very hardened soil; some of which has taken root.

Here is the rundown of what happened during that week:

110+ students heard the gospel individually through proxe stations and conversational evangelism

190+ heard the gospel in a group setting at the broken bread meal and talent show

141 responded with a desire to get more deeply involved in investigating Jesus, hunger advocacy, or bible studies

35 desire to join a Jesus, Justice, and Poverty investigative study

26 desire to join a bible study on campus

4 committed to Christ (for sure)

18 more indicated a commitment to Christ (this is being followed up)

5 indicated a re-commitment to Christ

We also raised over $600 for World Vision from selling forks. With we were able to sponsor a 13 year old boy in Haiti named Pierre. He is a "Hope Child" which means that he is deeply affected by AIDS (not sure of his particular circumstances), and he is also considered a "Last Chance" child due to his age. Along with sponsoring Pierre we were also able to buy 1 goat, 2 chickens, and 1 business loan for 2 women to start their own business.

Thank you all for your prayers and support over this week. The enemy was fighting us every step of the way, but our God is bigger and your prayers were effective. Thank you!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we are now working hard on following up with all of the people who filled out cards to know more about Jesus, discussion groups, and Bible studies.

You can see the Hunger Duel and the other talents at http://www.youtube.com/user/XtremeHope