El Paso Day 3

These are photos of the UTEP campus. It has a very Southwest look to it.


First day of Evangelism

Today we got up early and ate at the Nelsons. We were all a bit nervous because this was our first day to share the Gospel. The South House went out in the morning to the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) to share their faith. The North House went to some west side neighborhoods and put Rio Church magnets on doors. It was a chilly morning, about 50 degrees and windy. We set out and quickly put nearly 3,000 magnets on doors. I was able to personally invite a few people to the Rio that I ran into. We then had lunch at the Nelsons.

Then we went to Franklin High School in El Paso. We passed out snickers with Rio business cards taped to them. Our plan was to approach the kids as they crossed the street for their lunch break. Unfortunately we ran out of Snickers pretty quickly. There were nearly 300+ kids that crossed over.

Right after that we headed to UTEP to share our faith. We split up into groups of 2 and headed out. I think we were all a little nervous. Misti and I were paired up. We went to a coffee shop near the campus. It was not a good place to share though. Everyone was on their computers facing the wall with their head phones on. We left and were discouraged that somehow a hour had gone by. We were both frustrated and decided to pray quickly and just start approaching people. We headed to the Union where we started. Misti approached 2 girls and shared the Gospel. They were interested, but didn't pray with us. I approached a guy and shared with him. We talked to a few other people, then met 2 guys on a bench. We shared the complete Gospel and one of the guys, Abe was very interested in salvation through faith. They both prayed with us to receive Christ. I'm not sure they both completely understood, but I hope we planted a seed.

There were a lot of good stories from the rest of the team. The total for the day for both House Churches was: 65 people we approached and 33 we shared the Gospel with. I think those were some encouraging numbers for our first day. After UTEP we rested and hung out at the Nelsons. We had dinner and then had some worship and prayer time. It was really awesome hearing the day's stories from everyone on the team. After that the majority of us went to Toby's and watched some of the NCAA championship game.

We had a good day. We are doing about the same thing the next few days. We will also start doing the Pay it Forward project. We will be passing out gift cards and things and then asking people to pay it forward to 3 people. We have signs and shirt we will wear as well.