Dear praying friends,

I’ve got GREAT news, God is still in the business of saving the Lost, and I’m so so glad!!!

I love love love LOVE Evening Beach Evangelism!

Please warm yourself up with this update on the outstanding things God did!

Lots and lots of people from around the world and all different ages gathered around and listened to the gospel message, many staying around afterwards for one-on-one discussions! We gave out thousands of gospel tracts! Very exciting!!!

Also, Beach Evangelism is a great place to train and build up the Church! We had Christians from a number of different local churches come out this summer to participate and hone their evangelism skills! (And find out that it’s not so terrifying after all.)

I’ll let the photos tell much of the story…

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In addition to the people in the photos, some other people who stood out are:

• Brad and Ian: Brad and Ian are a couple of young men who thought they were good enough to go to Heaven. I took through “The Good Person Test.” After a little bit into it they said, “There’s nobody good enough. We’re all sinners.” Now that’s a great place to start the gospel!

• John and Stephanie: John and Stephanie wanted me to prove to them that God exists. Of course, I believe from Romans 1 that everyone already believes, but suppresses that truth. So I try to demonstrate to them what they already know. And God provided professionally sculpted sandcastles for the job! (Please see the photo of the sandcastles above.) I asked them if they could believe that those sandcastles were formed by a sandstorm, and they said, “No.” And then I pointed out some of the complex and amazing ways we’re made, and said, “compared to you, those sandcastles are literally a pile of dirt. Of course you have a Maker.” And one of them, I forget which one, said, “It’s easy to believe when you say it like that.” You know, it IS easy to believe. The hard part is to follow Jesus because it goes against our pride. And we talked about that.

• Dillon and Nate: It was pretty obvious that Dillon and Nate were “stoned.” But they seemed very open to knowing the truth, despite the chemicals in their bloodstream.

• Amelia and Hailey: Amelia didn’t like my message on cancer (see YouTube video below). She was very polite, and thought it was mean to talk about sin or Cancer. It was upsetting to her. I apologized for upsetting her, and assured her that wasn’t my intention. But if someone were dying of Cancer, the most loving thing you could do is to warn them so they’ll seek a cure.

• Jaylen: When we go through our “riddles” messages, usually it takes a few minutes for someone in the crowd to get the right answers. Not with Jaylen! Jaylen is a 10-year-old little genius who got all the riddles nearly immediately before any of the adults could get them. Actually,
  a sweet kid.

• Chris and Briana: Some people really make an impression on you, but you don’t realize it right away. Chris was a man in his 40s who didn’t seem all that different than most people I talk to. But he was saying that he doesn’t need God and God isn’t necessary for him. And I said that it’s very serious to reject God. And that’s when Chris began to cry. He told me all about himself, and how he can’t see his 14-year-old daughter, Briana. He loves her, but is separated from her. He told me so much. And he was much more open once he began to tear up.

• Kisstrell: Kisstrell is a free-spirited young lady who said she didn’t believe in anything. But she wasn’t close-minded. She heard me out and took more information from me to read later.

• Ray and Landon: Ray and Landon are two teenagers who came to chat. They said, “We have a lot to think about.” Indeed they do!

If you’d like to see for yourself what an open air message at the beach looks like, here’s a video of one for you to watch:

We love you and thank Jesus for you!

Thank you so much for your prayers, financial support, and notes of encouragement, without which we would not be able to reach the Lost for Jesus Christ!

Please contact us anytime and let us know how we can pray for you!

And please feel free to forward this to anyone you think would be blessed by it!

For Christ and His gospel,

Mark, Shelby, Vivienne, Juliana, Caleb, and Gabriella

P.S. If you want to know what’s going on for beach ministry NEXT summer, please let me know and I’ll email you when I begin planning that out next year. Summer 2018 will be here faster than you think! You can also keep an eye out for http://beach.Luke-15.org, as I’ll post news there.