Hawaii Witnessing (part 1)

We had a great week in Hawaii.

 We got to enjoy activities with the family by BBQing, snorkeling, hiking, zip-lining, making our way to waterfalls, got to see a black sand beach, we attended a Hawaiian Christian worship service and enjoyed a Christian based Luau (that we think was part of a YWAM organization). 

But we also were able to leave tracts at places we went, gave them to those who lead our tours and activities, and also we planned for spending one afternoon on the streets with a couple we met on through a Christian ministry. On Thursday morning we put on our sun block, got ready, ate breakfast, sorted our tracts, and headed out to the place we were going to meet with a couple of believers in Kona, Hawaii. We found our way down the main strip on Ali'i (ah-lee-E) drive to a free parking area. We walked down to the church area where we met. 

The church is a place that the couple witnesses outside of regularly on Wednesday's as the huge cruise ships pull into the port a block from there and they tend to get a bunch of those people on this main road heading to the "sites" (this church is popular for historical things), and to the souvenir shops along the water front and to enjoy lunch at the restaurants on the street that have breezy window free buildings to enjoy the scenery and the wind to cool you down.

I contacted them on my cell they had arrived already. I waited until we got out of the car before explaining to my nephew, who has never gone out with me to hand out tracts or talk to people about Jesus, that "we might run into people who do not want them, or they might yell or be mean, but it is only because they do not understand what we are trying to tell them about Jesus. So I told him not to feel bad if people act that way or if he see people behaving like that to anyone in our group." I didn't want to tell him this before we went or he would feel scared, so I just shared it as information for him to be aware of, once we got there. Especially since he has hardly ever been to church unless my mom brings him, and he might not understand various reasons why people might be hostile towards God and Jesus. Though she has conversations with him about Jesus since he was young. And we had shared a gospel children's book with him, so maybe he might understand it a little bit. But he wanted to come with us, and that would be a good experience for him. 

I walked toward the church with my parents and my 7 year old nephew, (who looks older than and is twice as tall as the others in his 1st grade class).  As we got closer to the meet up place I saw them in front of the church, and they were engaged in conversations already. Glory to God!  He had a cowboy hat on and a stack of tracts in his hand, she had some items in hers as well, and that is how I confirmed "they were them", lol. We hung back until they were done with the conversations and then we all were introduced. We prayed over the things the Lord would use us for that day in reaching out to those who are not saved, giving us the words to share and thanked him for the opportunity to come together and reach the lost. 

Then we took some group photos before we started.... 

They showed us some tracts and materials they had there, and offered that if we felt moved to share them with those we talked to we could. They showed us a neat gospel tract post card that they published this year. I think it is a good one. Plus, whoever sends these in the mail, no one will ever know who sent it to them, so it shouldn't cause anyone to be afraid to reach others for Christ. Then they showed us the celebrity millions, which I had not seen before "in real life", and wondered if they would actually work. Would they be a stumbling block or would they be useful in reaching people? We'd find out.

My dad sat down to observe how we witnessed, as he has not participated in sharing tracts in public yet and is a little introverted. It took me a couple years from learning WOTM material before I stepped out, so I am just glad that they came along, even just to watch and see how conversations happen in real life.

The last few years in Los Vegas I have been unable to get them to come with me on the streets, to observe (and be there because there is safety in numbers, esp. in that town). My mom has handed out some tracts to children at VBS when she was a teacher in it at their Church. She then moved on to showing the curved tract to children in restaurants in the last few years whenever she felt bold enough to do it. They do leave MDB's and other tracts at restaurants. Their favorite was the large Quarter sized tract Living Waters made.

Well, I wondered if she was going to step out and hand tracts to people today. I wanted to pair them with the couple, mom with her, and dad with him, so they could see how people minister in conversations, but we ended up doing all our own thing.

The guy went across the street and so did my nephew. He handed tracts out pretty boldly, even about 20 yards away from those who were coming our direction. I don't know that anyone refused a tract from him. Kids are kind of cute that way, no one wants to hurt their feelings.

The lady said the area is usually very hard to witness in and they are always encountering spiritual warfare there pretty intensely; which Mom would later find out to be true. She and I stayed on the side of the church and my mom hung out near us by the church, (as a tourist pretending to be a tourist, lol). We handed out tracts and people took them.

It was a little weird with the celebrity tracts whenever I tried using them. I had my own stash of tracts that I brought the living waters million dollar bill, a couple good person tracts from fellowshiptractleague.org, and the your moment of truth tract, (which are good to use because if you don't finish your conversation, they'll read it later and end up with all the things you wanted to share with them, and there is more information on the website the tract points to).

The guy ended up in a good long conversation with a big guy across the street and he took a full sized Bible with him. I hope he shares that encounter with us, because I overheard him telling the lady and my mom parts of it, as I passed out tracts a few feet away while trying to start conversations with people. Not a lot of people stopped to talk to us, but some did take tracts. Others didn't want them.

The Your Moment of Truth tracts worked pretty well and they enabled me to get a foot in the door to a conversation for a minute. However, regardless of the tract we used to start a conversation most people walked away not wanting to talk to us about religious things. It was a little hard to get people into conversations with the celebrity bills than with the other tracts. People did not seem as interested in them as the million dollar bill. I don't think I am going to offer them to people, even in my own area (Hollywood, CA). But maybe because it was Hawaii instead of Hollywood blvd the other tracts worked better.

We handed tracts out to college age and older adults, and also to a few locals who might be homeless. A Korean lady with a stroller and her little 2 year old boy walking next to her stopped to let me show the boy something neat. I held up the two curved tracts & asked him which one is bigger? He pointed to the pink one, then I switched them and looked at his mom for a split second and asked him again "which one is bigger?" he pointed to the blue one. I told him "they are both the same size. They just look like they are bigger." And then I said "you can have this for free to take home with you" and he took them and started running gleefully down the pathway while his mom was still surprised by the illusion and smiled at me while she chased after him. He was like the happiest kid ever, it was so cute!  

Two more parts to the witnessing in Hawaii can be found below....

part 2 

Witnessing in Hawaii (part 2)

In Part one of our Hawaii witnessing blog… I shared how we got to Hawaii, and pre-arranged to meet with local believers there, to share the gospel in the main touristy area.

After handing out tracts for a while I saw three girls coming down the pathway. Two were preoccupied, with one having an ipod zombie-ing her out, the other was fidgeting with things in her hands, and the third one was not incapacitated so when they came by I had three MDB’s in my hand to give to them. One thing I like to do is to have two different kinds of tracts with me so that when I hand them out, their friends get a different design then they do, so it occupies them for a few minutes when they walk away. I handed them to her and told her they were million dollar bills and there was one for each of her friends there too. They walked away and Rhonda and I talked for a minute awaiting others to come by. The girls came back after reading them, and said they were “giving them back to me, because they were theology students and didn’t want them”. I told her “Oh, well there is good information on the back that they should at least consider” and I said something else to that effect as well. They didn’t want them. When they walked away I was perplexed as to why I was unable to move into a spiritual discussion with them. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was telling me not to continue. They were closed to the conversation, and I think they think they are “good to go with God” and are closed minded right now. When they walked away I told Rhonda that I originally though they came over as those who think they are intellectual because they go to college, and I thought they said they were “Philosophy majors” but really they said “Theology majors”. I couldn’t believe I made that error. Though I was glad to say what I did in hindsight, because both unsaved Philosophy and unsaved Theology students still need to be saved. 

 It was hot out, and Rhonda and I talked about how thankful we are for the trees that were there to shade us (between the walk way and the street). We then walked over to the other side of the street and Virgil traded places with us. I had hoped Virgil would get my dad to stand next to him, but he was so close to Virgil anyway, he could still hear any conversations. It might take a while for him to move into conversations with people, because he is really introverted.  Mom has come out of her shell a little more, he hasn't yet. I think he had a good time there though, and the experience. But I hope one day he will get a little bit bolder. 

 Rhonda and I stood on the other side of the street and not many people came by at all, so we decided to split up the group (there were too many of us there in one place anyway), and we headed down the (land based) board walk. I grabbed some tracts and caught up with Rhonda. We went over to a shop there and she got coffee and I got a lemonade drink. When I paid for the drink I told the guy I would put this (a million dollar bill tract) in the jar but he was right there so I handed it to him. We chatted for a minute and then I left to catch up with Rhonda. 

She had walked over to a couple and was starting to hand them a 10 commandment coin (tract item). And we found out they were from Egypt. Since YWAM (Youth With a Mission [that’s not about the gospel]) has a university kind of school thing nearby we assumed they were visiting to go there for a training course. I realized they had Egyptian Bible’s open and were studying something because there were papers or notebooks around them. We told them we go out on the streets to share the gospel with people and we hand them gospel tracts to start conversations. She gave them a couple million dollar bill and your moment of truth tracts. They took them and said they would keep one and give the duplicates away. We encouraged them to do so. We talked for a minute and then went on our way. 

 When we were almost leaving the boardwalk we ran into two girls at the corner retail shack (its an open air one with no windows). One worked there and the other one was shopping. I handed them a YMOT tract and we talked about the tv show your moment of truth for a minute. I shared with her about the girl on there who answered the question “are you a good person” wrong. Her conscience told her she was not a good person, though she thought she was. Because of that belief she lost everything. The information in the tract tells us that we are not good people and that if we think we are we will lose everything when we stand before God, that we will lose our soul and end up in Hell, but that Jesus did something for us so we don’t have to go to hell. They agreed about that and thanked us for talking with them. 

We went back past our group and down the waterway path and ran into a homeless looking Rastafarian guy (a colorful character with a few missing teeth) came by us holding a ukulele (guitar). Rhonda offered him a tract and the guy told us he believed in God. He stopped for a minute and we attempted to strike up a conversation with him and ended up asking him about his ukulele. He said he plays “backyard style” which means he just strums on it. So we asked him to play something and he strummed a little. I told him he “played really well.” I also mentioned that it appears one “doesn’t need to know how to play that instrument to make beautiful music” (it truly is beautiful). Then he asked us which church we go to. Rhonda told him where she goes and I told him I am here on vacation and go to a church in Los Angeles, California. So he then broke out in song with the ukulele paying “Amazing Grace”. And Rhonda started humming and singing along so I joined in and then before I knew it she was recording us singing. I’m not sure if you will find that popping up on Utube, but if you do… forgive my voice it’s just a joyful noise box. 

Short Video Clip of bits and pieces of the outing :)

We also spoke to a Hawaiian native on the street who then talked to us briefly too, cause he was sitting near where we talked to a homeless guy. I had given him a gospel tract earlier to take with him as he seemed in a hurry at the time. 

I love the your moment of truth tract because is great for situations like that! Whether you talk to them, only get part of a conversation with them, or just hand it to them…it has the complete gospel in it. (link)

So the young guy spoke to us a few minutes but we didn’t get anywhere in the conversation. At least he had the tract I gave him from earlier. He was with his mom who was next to us weaving baskets from palm leaves, as she sells them for a living. 

 Tune in next time for the rest of the witnessing trip… you don’t want to miss it!

Part 3 

Hawaii Evangelism pt 3

Witnessing in Hawaii, the Conclusion....

Rhonda and I walked on and ran into a mother and daughter sitting on a curb outside a shaved ice store. They were waiting for her husband to come out with their cool snack. It was pretty hot out. I walked up to her and offered them each a regular million dollar bill tract and told them it was free.

I asked the mom if she had a religious background. She said yes, catholic. And I told her the back of the million dollar bill asks an important question. Will you go to heaven when you die. I asked if she could name any of the 10 commandments. She said she couldn’t think of any. I told her I’m sure she could remember at least one. (I tried to get her motivated to talk with me). She said she couldn’t, and she really didn’t want to talk to me about religious things. It’s a personal thing for her.

I shared we are out today talking with people, because we know its important to make sure we know where we are going when we die. She was adamantly in her attitude, not really nice, and kind of non responsive (I could tell she did not want to talk). She wasn’t rude or mean, just in a weird way just not wanting to talk. Her preteen daughter was sitting with her and so, I tried to encourage her to read the back of the million dollar bill because its important. I felt like that was a swing and a miss. At least they had the tract, that is the great thing about it. The gospel does the work it is meant to do, by the power of God. So when they read it, hopefully what I was trying to say, would make sense after she read the tract.

We went back to our meeting spot with the group and attempted to give out a few other tracts. Some college age guys took some from me, a few younger girls, and a couple who were walking by.

When the couple was approaching, I wanted to call him a bit closer to us, and then my nephew reached out and offered the Million dollar bill tract. The lady nicely asked him what it was. He looked at me for a second and wasnt sure what to say or do, so he quickly flipped it over and showed her the text on the back. And read he it right out to her “the million dollar question: Will you go to heaven when you die?” She said yes and then they and I talked a minute.

She said her and her husband go to a church down the road from here [so they are locals] and that they know people at YWAM. We talked for about 10 minutes. We shared with them that we are on vacation and are out with a local couple who witness there to the locals and those who come off of the cruise lines. We told them how we share the gospel and etc. It was a nice conversation.

While we were with the others when witnessing (safety first), at one point a creepy older homeless guy (white but very tan, with long blond dreadlocks) came our way. We decided to try to talk to him briefly, to at least hand a tract, he was just not interested in talking. Then I spoke to another native Hawaiian lady who also appeared homeless and had a local friend with her. Most of the people there are Hawaiian natives, white, or tourists.

Later on we packed up and headed back to meet up with the rest of our family. I’m sure we were out for about 3 hours and that was a pretty long time for my parents’ first street “outing.” And I was glad to hear that my mom had been handing out tracts in the walkway in front of the church. After we got back to the resort, she told me she had the hardest people come past her when the other lady and I had shortly walked down the boardwalk.

She said she handed out to a few people as they were walking by and they took the tract and didn’t stop, others turned their face and snubbed her or would not only refuse the tract, (either thinking it was cult material or because they were anti-Christian), but they would also speak rudely to her or say “No” in a very mean way. She tried to hand a large 100 dollar bill to a mother of a couple young children who were walking by, offering it as “play money” and the mother grabbed her little children by the arm and dragged them away as she firmly said in a rude and aggressively way “NO!” Her kids didn’t understand and she treated her children badly because of her (the mom’s) behavior.

My mom told the believer she was teamed up with at the moment that she couldn’t understand how the mother would react that way since the kids can’t even read. When she told me, I mentioned that there could be many reasons; It could be due to a situation in her life where she is mad at God right now, had a pushy family member or someone else she knows try to get her to church, or she had a bad experience with someone who professed to be a Christian and ended up causing her to walk away from spiritual things. No one knows but God, and at least my mom tried. She did her part to share the gospel, even after several people treated her like that.

After we returned home from Hawaii the ones who lived there and joined up with us to share the gospel, had went back to see if the Egyptian couple was still there, so they could talk to them, and encourage them. They were there, and they had a great conversation! The very next day they ran into that couple in a local store and had mentioned to the witnessing couple that they were greatly encouraged by all of us to share the gospel. That was an encouragement to us because we’ve found it’s rare to get a YWAM’er interested in sharing the gospel. I look forward to hearing about their witnessing encounters from this outing too.

Praise God for all the opportunities we had to talk to people, and hand out tracts.