How is the end of the semester going?Mormon Easter Pageant!Happy Resurrection month! We have been so thankful for all the evangelism we have been able to do recently! What kind of evangelism, at what kind of event, you might ask? The Mormon Easter Pageant attracts close to 10,000 people PER NIGHT for 9 nights straight during the two weeks leading up to Easter! During this event, we were able to have so many evangelism conversations, which was SUCH a blessing! Here’s one highlight: Pray for five LDS girls who heard the Gospel! At first it was just three, then two more came up and let me explain the Law and the Gospel to them! They were very open to hear about the Gospel, and one of them in particular was saying that she didn’t know how she could make it into Heaven after I explained a couple of times how you can’t get into Heaven even if you commit one sin. I explained that religious practices can’t save you, and showed them the sufficiency of Christ, along with biblical evidence that you can’t follow the Book of Mormon. They seemed open to searching it out, and they said they had never heard the Gospel quite like I shared before. They can contact me if they want to. There are so many other highlights I could write about, from fun Gospel conversations on park slides to strangers with Taliah, to great fellowship with old church friends, to budding new friendships with the body of Christ, but most of all, we pray that God is glorified through all of it! Feel stressed because of the craziness of the world right now?Looks like you can have a quick-fix to your issues with a $2 stress ball! Kidding... The reason I included this picture, though, is to explain who we are...if this is the first blog you've read! My husband and I (along with our 1-year-old) are missionaries in training with Finisterre Vision. Daniel (my husband) is from Australia, and he moved out to America a couple years back to pursue training so we can share the Gospel to the unreached people groups of Papua New Guinea (an island just north of Australia). That's why most of his time is spent studying! Studying and park fun!Here is a picture of Daniel studying, along with a picture of him and Taliah before Taliah and I headed for the splash pad! Daniel is studying at Expositors' Seminary in a four year program, and he's almost finished with his first year! Yay! Taliah is getting excited about riding around in her stroller while I talk to people about the Gospel, and then getting to play in the water! But how does one start an evangelism conversation...? Gospel tracts!Gospel tracts are a great way to start out an evangelism conversation, and they're also great to leave various places if you don't have the opportunity to share the Gospel any other way. Can you spot the tracts in the bottom three pictures? Hint: they have Ronald Reagan on them...(they're anti-abortion tracts). Why did I take a picture of the first photo? It reminds me of the bridge analogy. If you've never heard of it before, the bridge analogy shows us that we need a Savior by showing a person on one side of a cliff with Heaven on the other side. The jump to the other side is too great for any human to be able to accomplish on their own merit, so once that's explained, the analogy then shows a cross "bridging the gap", because Jesus is the only way to Heaven. Anyway, I'm sure that's not what this artist was trying to convey, but I thought it looked cool, and it was a good reminder that we are so lost in our sins that we need a Savior to have any hope. Our idolatry, lying, coveting, and lack of loving God with everything we have is enough to not only keep us from a perfect, holy Heaven (because we could never corrupt a perfect Heaven), but it's enough to send us to Hell. That's why the cross is so amazing, and that's why repentance through Jesus Christ, the God-man, is necessary. Studying is necessary, too!I thought this picture could help illustrate the importance of studying. Why? Because the reason we are studying is for the sake of the Gospel, not anything else. In a world that is caught up in wrong, worldly ideas of what "love" is, true love is sharing truth with people in a way that is pleasing to God. I like how this sign has different languages all over it, and how it kind of forms a cross (though I'm sure that wasn't intentional). How many people groups still don't have the Gospel? About 1 in 5. More languages don't have Scripture than those that do. What could be more loving than going to share the Gospel with the lost? But for now...Gospel tract planting!I love these tracts! They're ideal for older people, or for older books! It's so crazy to think about how fast life goes... ...and so important to remember that your life is a vapor... So that's why we're sharing the Gospel and studying like there's no tomorrow - because tomorrow is not a guarantee. Studying hard!Taliah is learning to study too! I'm obviously kidding about Taliah reading one of Daniel's seminary books and my Greek textbooks, but she sure does love to read her board books! I wanted to highlight the book in the top pictures, "The Supremacy of God in Preaching". Even if you're not planning on becoming a pastor, it's a great read! As you can see...Taliah agrees! :) But now, on a more serious note, please read this next photo (a screenshot from my phone): Think about this."...a huge part of the world still hasn't heard the message of redemption..." Yes, a very huge part of the world - countless thousands per day die without access to God's Word, without any means of getting a solid church. Isn't that convicting? That's why we pray we can reach some! Ready for more from the Living Waters blog? Living Waters Blog link: www.livingwaters.com/read/ Would you rather listen to something? Living Waters Podcast link: www.livingwaters.com/podcast/ More studying...?Yes...more studying! Here Daniel is doing some Hebrew! It's so exciting to watch him learning so much all at once! Hebrew is one of his favorite classes (which isn't what he expected). So thankful for his amazing professor! But...we can't forget about evangelism! Park evangelism!!Want an encouraging evangelism highlight? We have one!! Taliah and I go to one specific park in Phoenix, called Desert Breeze (clever name), because we know that there's a middle school right next door where (on Wednesday's) they have "early release day", which means that the park gets flooded with teenagers who are usually open to the Gospel! Last time we went, I was able to talk with two teenage girls about the Gospel, and, since it took a few minutes to set up the conversation, I was ecstatic when three more teenagers came up right at the perfect time in the conversation so that I could explain the Law and the Gospel to all of them! On top of that, I had exactly five comic-based tracts left (with free movies...FullyFreeFilms.com) in my pocket, the same number of teenagers I was talking with, so it was perfect! Yay! Yes! It should be!!Are you "accustomed to speak the good news about God"? Honestly ask yourself that. Though I try to do lots of evangelism, I find this convincing myself, because I know that I fall short of speaking of God enough - and that's why we need Christ! Isn't that so convicting, as well as edifying? But what is this picture from? It's a Bible Translation post from an awesome website (link to website at the end of this description) that exists to give little tidbits of info about (random) Bible translations around the world. Before you go spend countless hours on it though, I must note one thing: Potentially due to lack of knowledge regarding each translation, I feel like some of the "translation insights" seem a little far-fetched...but with that said I know nothing about the actual translation...I just need to put a word of warning that I'm not condoning this ministry whole-heartedly. But honestly...if I had lots of time to specifically spend on bingeing any random website on the Internet (not that I could justify doing that)...it would definitely be this website! It could be useful in the tribe one day though! Bible Translation Insights Website: tips.translation.bible/ Door-to-door evangelism!Door-to-door has been a little dry, but it's still been great going! Though the doors are usually (literally) closed, we are so thankful to still be able to be involved with this ministry, and we pray for fruit! One thing we learned about evangelism that has helped us recently (when someone answers) is that it can be helpful to ask people if they want prayer for anything. In the right context, and in the right way, asking people that with genuine concern for their soul can really open them up for the Gospel! Which is so exciting! IKEA tract planting!Taliah is certainly excited! She loves going to IKEA! We have gone to IKEA since she was crawling, so it's been so fun to watch her grow physically through walking as we plant tracts in (hopefully) creative places! Can you find the tract in all the (non-Taliah) pictures? Next question: how many of these languages can you read? Languages of the world...One language? Two? Three? Five? Believe it or not, many people in foreign countries grow up speaking two or three (or more) languages. Yet, over half of the languages of the world have no completed Scripture. Can you imagine learning four or five languages and still not having any biblical text you can understand because no one has done the work to translate it for you? That's why study is so important... A highlight from seminary.So...here's a really amazing thing Daniel has been learning through Hebrew class, simply put. What does this word mean? Just guess! The correct answer is salvation, or deliverance. This word is the same root of the name Jesus (which makes sense). Anyway, what's so cool about this particular word root is that it's used through-out the Old Testament, which means that the people of Israel were (and still do) say the Name of Jesus frequently (at least when quoting the Old Testament). Another interesting fact: The first occurrence of this word is in Exodus 14, where God parted the Red Sea through Moses! Isn't that awesome? Catholic truth?What is this? I have never seen Catholics "evangelize" like this. Warning! The doctrine of the Catholic church is not the true Gospel! Please turn from it; understand that you can be saved by grace through faith alone, not by any works, including the works of the Catholic church. People who don't have the true Gospel are stepping up their game! Christians - we need to get in the fight too! What's another way we're trying to do that...? A book about people running towards a cliff? Who would write something like that?This is a very short teaser...I won't give much more information, other than the fact that Daniel has been helping me with a fictional story that I'm working on for the cause of the Gospel. Why a cliff? Because people are running off a cliff to their destruction as you're reading this... ...keep reading the blog for further updates... ...but in the meantime... Millions of millions!!Hand out these! A while back Living Waters had a massive giveaway of Million Dollar Gospel of John's! We love these so much, so excited to get to use them. The ones we have given out so far have been received really well! Ready to get yours? Million Dollar Gospel of John Living Waters link: store.livingwaters.com/million-dollar-gospel-of-john.html Growing and growing!Taliah with one of her favorite stuffed animals, along with some piano practice! It's awesome to watch Taliah grow, but as it goes by so quickly it reminds me of how transcient our lives are! Soon our time will be up, and we will have to give an account for everything we've ever said, thought, and done before the Lord. That's why it's so important to shine our lights as believers, and redeem the time as much as possible, because the days are evil (Eph. 5:16). You can't put a price tag on eternity. How precious is your time this Resurrection month?If you're interested in using your time to help us with training, or going to the mission field yourself...email us ([email protected]), or see this website!
Finisterre Vision Website link: www.finisterrevision.org/donate/
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AuthorsDaniel and Sarah Bruce desire to be missionaries to the unreached peoples of the world. Daniel is from Australia and Sarah is from Detroit, MI. They reside in Phoenix, AZ, where they are members at Shepherd's House Bible Church in Chandler, AZ. Archives
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