I woke up this morning with a smile on my face, still happy from yesterday. No Broadway show could ever offer me this. NOTHING in this world could ever fill up my heart like THIS joy. It is joy from the Lord and the deep, deep love of Jesus as I get to tell people about Him this summer in NYC at this new precious ministry.
We had planned to set up yesterday at 1:30, but Doug Pyle could not find free parking. We did not get to set up until 3:00, because he kept circling the area for free parking. He works as a full time missionary with Chosen People, and he said that parking fees are not in his budget. After praying about it this morning, I feel totally at peace in telling him that next Saturday if he does not find free parking before 10:00 A.M., LTW will pay for him to park in the parking garage with me (which covers 12 hours for 15.00, tax included). KEEP THE PRAYERS COMING. I KNOW MANY PEOPLE WERE PRAYING FOR US, AND GOD BROUGHT OVER ONE PERSON AFTER ANOTHER AND ANOTHER AND ANOTHER ALL DAY, open and seeking for God. Please continue to pray for us! We will be out again next weekend, so let me know if you can join us at the table to do some witnessing. I hope to get out there more this week. I have to stay organized and get a few things done today and tomorrow, but I can’t wait to get out there again…
Here is the update from yesterday:
These are the days of Elijah
Declaring the Word of the Lord
And these are the days of your servant Moses
Righteousness being restored
And these are the days of great trials
Of famine and darkness and sword
Still we are the voice in the desert crying
Prepare ye the way of the Lord
Behold He comes
Riding on the clouds
Shining like the sun
At the trumpet call
Lift your voice
It’s the year of Jubilee
And out of Zion’s hill salvation comes
We have been doing work today for all of eternity. And what glorious work it has been! God has really been at work here at our humble little booth alongside Central Park at Columbus Circle. At the end of the day as Doug Pyle helped me load my car I said, “Well, Doug, this has been one of the greatest days of my life.”
I have never felt more happiness. God brought over many Jewish people to the booth, and it was really sweet and powerful to hear Doug Pyle speaking Hebrew to them, quoting Psalm 23 in Hebrew. He would say, Everything about my faith is Jewish but me! and My forefathers worshipped idols, but I have been grafted in, and now my God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They would listen, and I prayed as Doug talked to them about Israel and how much God loves Israel…
One Jewish person after another walked up, as it was obvious to Doug and me that Jesus led them up to our booth, allowing them to walk away with books and Bibles in Hebrew and English to tell them the Good News of their Messiah. I kept humming quietly, These are the days of Jehovah…Prepare ye the Day of the Lord…Behold He comes…
It was a day full of joy. I realized that Broadway could never even come close to the JOY that I felt today telling New Yorkers about Jesus!
One man walked up to me sitting there at the table. He had a big smile and announced proudly, “I still have that Bible you gave me last week!” I smiled and thanked him for letting me know! I asked, “What was your name again?” He answered, “Frank.” I said, “I will pray for you, Frank. Thanks so much for stopping by again today, Frank.”
An African-American man was sitting quietly on the park bench behind me, observing us in conversation at the booth. I spotted him, walked over, sat beside him, and asked, “Would you like anything from the table? It is all free.” He answered seriously, “I am a Baptist.” I said, “Well, I am, too!” I said, “I have something you will really like,” and I picked up a copy of My Utmost for His Highest, donated from Theta Baptist Church. I wrote his name, Herald, in it. He said he would always treasure it. Every time I looked back around he was reading it there on the bench.
A big burly, tough looking man who said he was from the Bronx overheard us, and he joined in announcing, “I have been to a Baptist church down South a few times. I was even married in that Baptist church.” I said, “Well, we have sermons on our table from some Baptist preachers.” He asked in his thick NY accent, “Are they hell, fire, and brimstone preachers?” I paused and thought about it a second and answered, “Well, yes, I guess they are.” I continued, “But there is nothing wrong with that, though, because Jesus warned us about hell and spoke more about hell than He did heaven.” The man from the Bronx responded, “Oh, I believe in hell. I talk to the ‘man upstairs’ every night.”
He continued to refer to God as “the big guy” in the sky and “the man upstairs” as we had conversation. I stopped him after a few times of this sort of referral and nicely suggested, “We want to honor God as our Lord and Savior and King. Let’s call Him ‘God.’ He wants to be your Father.” He answered, “…Well, He has me here for a reason…but I don’t really know why I am here. I have almost died several times,” and he showed me some of his scars. I told him that it was no accident that we were having this conversation, and I told him God wants a relationship with him. He is here to know God and bring glory to Him. I explained that God wants to be his closest Friend, and then I told him how to be saved.
He took a sermon by Tommy Fox called “God as Father” and a few tracts on the Bible. Then, his eyes lit up when he saw our materials for Catholics. He said he had been “beaten up a few times by the nuns” and kept telling me over and over that the Catholic tract was his favorite. As I was telling him how to be saved and more about Jesus, the big burly man covered in tattoos and scars interrupted and added, “Dwayna, I could cry right now listening to you talk. It just seems so real.” I said, “It’s not me. That is the Holy Spirit, and He is real and pure.”
He seemed to have one obstacle: trusting the Bible as God’s Word. We talked about the Bible and how it makes us clean (Psalm 119) and pure and gives us wisdom and protects us, and I told him that to criticize the Bible is to hurt Jesus, because He is the Incarnate Word, and I quoted him John 1:2, pointing out that “He” was in the beginning with God, not “it.” I looked at him, and he had tears in his eyes.
As I continued to talk to people, I would overhear him using a little profanity as he seemed to be giving another man tips on how to win a street fight behind me. He saw me looking at him and said warmly, “I am sorry, Dwayna.” I just smiled and said, “It’s ok.” He continued, “I am trying to teach this man how to survive.” I just smiled. I could tell the young man he was “training” knew about it far too well from his answers. As we packed up they both came over to help. The young man was named John. Doug Pyle said, “That’s a great name.” I added, “It sure is.” He helped me get everything on the dolly with the bungee cords. All of their gangster type friends gathered around to help. One looked at me very intently and asked sincerely, “Do you need help with anything else, Dwayna?” I thanked them, and I told them that we could get everything back to the car with no problem.
It had started to sprinkle rain, but even while we were tearing everything down, God just kept bringing up more people. They were open, and it was just like a little bit of heaven. I turned to say goodbye to my new friends. The guys from the Bronx and an artist sketching faces alongside the park who had taken tracts in Chinese all warmly waved goodbye and said they would see me next weekend.
This is how I felt when I first started the ministry in Venice Beach, asking God to please let me have more time with the people there.
Once or twice a week is not enough. I want to get out here more often this summer. I have Doug scheduled to meet me next Saturday to set up, and my Christian friend, Monet, is going to help me set up on Sundays. It was a perfect day in NYC. Doug had trouble finding parking, and we were later in setting up than we had planned. I walked to get the first load from my car by myself and waited on him to come…I went ahead and put the materials out before my second run with the signs and the table cloth, and we were so busy I had no time to get the table cloth on the table today! One person after another walked up to the booth. As soon as Doug arrived, the Lord had him speaking to a Hebrew couple from Israel. The Jewish couple said, “I understand why the Gentiles hate us.” Doug and I look bewildered and replied,” We don’t.” They said, “Jewish people are arrogant.” Doug said, “But when God wanted to show His love to the whole world, He chose the Jews to do it.” They left with a book Doug gave them written in Hebrew.
We walked back, each with a dolly full of materials, and one of the horse carriages didn’t stop at the light. I looked up at the man as I started out with my dolly. He said nicely, “I am sorry, but sometimes the horses don’t stop.” I thought, “Thank you, God, for letting me do this in NYC. What a place for such a ministry here!”
I told the guys in the parking garage at Columbus Circle about our ministry, and they said, “You are kidding, a Christian ministry alongside Central Park?” I nodded and answered with a smile, “I am not kidding. It is a lot of trouble loading and unloading, but it is worth it to get to offer Bibles and books about Jesus and sermons to people for free. God loves the people so much here that He has started a ministry to reach them.” The parking attendant smiled and said, “Well, that’s alright.” We both smiled. I hope to have the chance next week to talk to him more about Jesus and at least give him a tract about salvation.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord…Behold He comes…
Grafted in (Romans 11),
Dwayna
