We had our second outreach of the summer Saturday evening. We nicknamed it the "community walkabout" outreach. We sent students and staff in groups/pairs to various areas of the city to initiate conversations with people, asking about them and the city, and talking about spiritual issues.
I was sent to the wharf with a student named Aaron. We walked down off the wharf to a dock where people were looking at all the sea lions that hang out underneath the wharf. There is literally a step down to the dock where they are; you could reach out and touch them. In fact, while we were there, two obnoxious guys did just that and harassed the sea lions for a minute, which is a felony.
Anyways, Aaron and I stood at the rail, and we began to ask questions of this older gentleman, Dan. Dan told us a lot of things about the sea lions, the Santa Cruz area. He knew about the Campus Crusade students. We had a long conversation with him and talked about some spiritual issues, but he was very hesitant to describe himself spiritually. About half an hour in, we transitioned to talking to another guy who was next to me named Mandel. He started telling us a few things about the sea lions, and demonstrated quite a knowledge of marine life. Come to find out, he works for a non-profit oceanography research company. His regular job is law enforcement, but he helps do research on the side and that's what he really loves to do; he started diving when he was 12. His ultimate goal is to film the great white shark mating, which is one of the few things left in the world not captured on video and so there is still an element of mystery to it.
We must have talked to Mandel for quite some time before the conversation drifted to why we were in Santa Cruz and spiritual things. Mandel described himself over the course of the conversation as believing in God, but not really understanding him. He had read portions of the bible at difficult points in his life, but he was not really a spiritual person necessarily. Although his girlfriend was involved in bible studies and church, Mandel viewed Christianity as many people do today - in the realm of a "belief" or "sentiment" and not as something true to be discovered about the world. But it was an excellent conversation in which we were able to share not only the gospel but Aaron's testimony, which was very honest and powerful. It was a great time of sharing; we were in that same spot for almost two hours. We left him with a booklet on how to know God personally, and he asked for my email address. We pray that God will use that conversation to draw him a step closer to him.
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