This week we started our student evangelism at the main University herein Vienna. We decided to go all out creative and fun as this is what attracts students and it allowed us to be more ourselves. Our focus was FREE DAY. We had free encouragements, free prayer, free lolli-pops, free msuic, free fun, free anything we coudl think of. We really wanted to change the atmosphere in the place and our hope to bring a postive view of God back to peoples lives. Below are some fun pictures and videos which should give an idea of what madness we got up.
This is a little taster of the kind of thing me and this guy called Stefan did to grab attention at the University. A little unorthodox but it worked and people had a lot of fun as did we. We had the pleasure of bringing joy to peoples day.
Testimony about an open Catholic Student
Mark and Sharee met a guy name Joachim and surprisingly he led most of the conversation. We told him what we were all about and that we were Evangelical Christians.He asked us how we felt about people here who are so against God and the church. He explained to us that he was involved in a Catholic church where he was from in upper Austria and helped out with youth-group there, but didn't share the churches beliefs. He just believed that it was a good thing and could add up his good deeds. He seemed really open to discussing religion, but freely explained that he chooses not to be a follower of any religion. He comes from upper Austria, and really enjoyed talking to us. He even offered us his phone number to contact him if we wanted to get together and travel :) It was encouraging to see how open he was to talking about all areas of life.
Testimony about reconnecting friends
Sharee walked up to 3 girls sitting watching the lolli-pop guys :) Vera, Ellen, and Christine are all studying English at the University. They were curious as to why we were passing things out, "it seemed a little suspicious" they said. :) I explained that we came with a Christian organization and were giving away free encouragement, conversation, candy, and prayer :) I got to share with them where I came from, how we were sharing the love of God throughout the city of Vienna, shared encouragement in the area of waiting for God's timing, how I met my husband, and much more. One of the girls Ellen, said that she was a Christian, and it as it ends up she knows Nadine from CIG, and wants to connect with her again :) What a small world! They were very curious and open to what we were doing in Vienna and I got to invite them to join any of the Starbucks bible studies. They seemed excited about it and I really think they will come. Such sweet curious girls with so much potential in knowing more about the love that Christ offers freely.
Testimony about 2 girls and a film about chasing an onion
The week before this student evangelism we had a talk at church about something called the 15 min revolution, where we allow God to take 15 mins of our day to show the kindness and goodness of God to another. So there we were playing music and handing out loli-pops when 2 girls we have never seen before walked up to us and asked us if we could be in a film about a business man chasing the onion. We were supposed to go home but we decided it would be a bit of fun, we were asked to be in the background posing as musicans. We went to meet them and waited over an hour before they showed up and then we started filming for about 3 hours. It was a lot of fun, they asked us what we were doing in Vienna so we got to share about what we were doing. No big conversations came out of it but it was an honor to be able to be love some people and be inconvenienced by them and to support people in their passions.
What struck me most about that week of evangelism actually came through a conversation I had with someone wanting a lolli pop. I told him that Gods love is too good to keep for ourselves so we want to show you that God likes you a lot today through the medium of free stuff. His response was "I really wasn't expecting you guys to be Christians, they don't do that kind of thing". So I carried on explaining how there is a lot of bad perceptions of Christians and as a result there is also a bad perception of God. I told him we are here to set that the record straight. He left and was really blessed and encouraged, but it got me thinking that this was the very thing thatGod has been doing with me on this outreach, he has been showing me in fresh ways the kind of God he is, the loving, encouraging, giving, dancing, singing over us, fun, blessing, never giving up, patient, truthful and faithful God. In the same way God has been setting the record straight with me so that is what we do in evgangelism, we are there to set the record straight. God is good and he likes you today.
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