Hi everyone! Feels like it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these 😅

I thought I’d take some time this week to do a special email update, to cover some of my team’s activity and results from the gospel these past two months~

Our team is unique in that we mainly preach the gospel to high schoolers - every week we rotate between five high schools, and try to talk to the students as they are coming out of school.

Because most of them are minors, we have to take certain precautions, the biggest of being that we can’t ask for their contact information. Because of this, it is difficult to really follow up with any of them… However, we have faith that many of these seeds we’ve planted will end up being harvested, even if we are not the ones to do it!

> **1 Cor. 3:6** I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.

As always, feel free to read as little or as much as you’d like (I’ve underlined the names of a lot of our notable contacts to pray for; and bolded the highlight experiences :)). Also, please send me your updates and items for prayer! They are always very refreshing.

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🐣 9/13 - Approached: 4, Tracts: ~1-2, Received the Lord: 1*

First time on the gospel (Irvine High School) - me and Waseem were de-rusting a little bit when it came to cold-contacting people, especially me since I had never preached the gospel to high-schoolers before. We were also trying to find our flow when it came to our coordination, and what to talk about.

We ended up having three ok conversations (Matthew, Amir, and Stephen), and then we had one great conversation with Nathan who called on the name of the Lord with us. “That was awesome!” he said.

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🚦9/20 - Approached: 13, Tracts: 9, Received the Lord: 1*

This time, my GP Waseem had his wisdom teeth taken out, so he was out (him being out was a bit of a common theme 😅; hopefully we’ll be back in action again next week!). This time, I went out with Benji, and we had several great conversations.

Next on our rotation was Woodbridge HS, where there isn’t a very good spot to catch a student and have a long conversation (we’re not allowed to go on campus). Instead, we just stayed on the side of a street near an intersection, and had some conversations with the students as they were waiting to cross. It was good for our practice of preaching the gospel in a shorter time-frame ;)

As a result, we were able to get a lot of conversations, and hand out a lot of tracts, but there was not much response... Afterwards, we moved to a nearby plaza, where Benji had the anointing to approach a car-wash employee named Carlos, and he got saved!

One thing I appreciated/picked up from Benji was that he likes to use some verses from the Bible (particularly Rom. 10:13), and share from his experience to lead people to call on the name of the Lord…

> **Rom. 10:13** For "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

With Carlos, it was particularly effective, and we could tell that he definitely touched something of life after calling with us :)

We we also able to have a conversation with a high-schooler named Farris - a believer. In coordination that day, we had some fellowship in regards to how to approach believers on the gospel (mainly just to fellowship with them). So… that is what we did with Farris - we just had some fellowship, and it was really sweet! He ended up opening up about certain things happening in his family, how his mother was a Christian, but his father, Samir, was from a middle-eastern country, and was not a believer.

We told him that we would pray for him and his family, and also called on the name of the Lord together... Lord, gain a household salvation through Farris!

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🌿 9/27 - Approached: 5, Tracts: 3, Received the Lord: 1*

Waseem was out again, this time for a couple’s weekend, so me and Bill got to preach the gospel for the first time together 😁

We were back at Irvine HS, where there was a nice park the high-schoolers walked through after leaving school, so we were able to have a few nice conversations.

One who we contacted was Samuel, a nominal Christian. He was very open to fellowshipping with us, and even called on the name of the Lord with us!

Another, named Roy, also said that he went to church, but that he hadn’t received the Lord. We had a long conversation with him, after which we led him to call on the Lord together with us! Even after calling on the Lord with him, Bill had the anointing to keep the conversation going, and after bringing him through the mystery of human life tract, Bill led him to pray to receive the Lord as his life and savior!

Praise the Lord for Roy! May the Lord grant him a much more salvation :))

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🍇 10/4 - Approached: 10, Tracts: 5, Received the Lord: ~5*

This time we were back in Woodbridge; Waseem was out, so me, Bill, and Benji teamed up and rotated in pairs to contact the YP. The Lord really blessed us this time, and I think we had started to get the hang of the short-form gospel, as a lot of the high-schoolers ended up calling on the Lord with us and getting saved.

At the street intersection, we were able to get six conversations, of which four called on the name of the Lord! We weren’t sure, of the one’s who weren’t regenerated, how many genuinely believed in their heart - but we have faith that there were some who received the Lord.

> **Rom. 10:9** That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

After our time outside the high school, we transitioned to the plaza, where we handed out a few tracts, and after taking a break to pray, Bill and Benji had an awesome conversation with a recent graduate named Andy from Taiwan. He had been applying for jobs and hadn’t heard back, so Benji shared Matthew 11:28 with him, and asked him to call on the Lord, then prayed with him to receive the Lord!

> **Matt. 11:28** Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest.

Bill got his contact information, and shared a bit with him about the small groups, so we are hopeful that we will get a chance to meet with him again. Pray to release a second contact with Andy!

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📖 10/5 - YP meeting*

This past YP meeting, I had an awesome experience getting to know a new one, Alan! He is in tenth grade, and it was his first time attending the YP meeting - one of his friends who was a YP invited him.

Although we didn’t have much in common, once we started talking about the Bible, he opened right up! Basically, he had started volunteering at a church in Irvine recently, and even though he had initially just been doing it for the volunteer hours, eventually a pastor preached the gospel to him and he got saved!

Even though he had only been saved for about a week, he had already been having a lot of new experiences, and had been reading his Bible ever since. We went over the mystery of human life together, and afterwards he had a bunch of really good questions…

Since he was reading Matthew, he asked me how it was possible to fulfill all the requirements of the law, saying that he felt like some of the things in chapter five were impossible. He showed me the version of the Bible he had been reading from, which said in verse 48 that “we *must* therefore be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect…”

> **Matt. 5:48** You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Our topic in the YP meeting happened to be about the difference between the Old Testament with the law and works, and the New Testament with grace and faith. I talked to him a little about how we are no longer justified by works, but by faith, and showed him the recovery version translation of verse 48 with the word *shall*. Regardless of whether we try to be perfect, or we don’t, in the end we shall be perfect. When we received the Lord, we became genuine sons of God - it is by this heavenly DNA that we will become like our heavenly Father, whether we like it or not!

We ended up talking about several other topics: he learned how to call on the Lord, and confess his sins (1 John 1:9); we talked about prayer, and what it really is to pray; we talked about having a personal relationship with the Lord, and that the Bible is actually a divine romance; and we even talked a little about the ground of oneness, and why we meet on the ground of locality…

> **1 John 1:9** If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Overall, it was a very positive interaction! I got him a recovery version Bible, and gave him my contact so that he could reach out if he ever had any more questions or wanted to get a time together. He seemed very open to meeting with us again, and even texted me after with a few of his questions. ***Pray to release a second contact with Alan, and that he’d fully enter into the church life!***

Sorry again for the long update, here are some photos to wrap up :)

Much grace,

Tim Haynes

Letter from Timothy Haynes

Letter from Tofunmi Sodeinde