Boise, ID
Click here to find a team or start one of your own!
The following story comes to us from team leader Lucy with our team in Boise, ID:
Unusually, we had three angry visitors in this one session. (Our usual experience is about one per year.)
A 50ish man on a bike stopped to say he did not want a Rosary, but wanted to say something. He then began to rant. His reaction to Chuck’s comments and questions was simply to get louder and angrier. Other people throughout the business park, even from nearly a block away, were beginning to glance over and look uncomfortable. It soon became apparent that our visitor hated his father, both for his being Christian and for holding political views that our visitor despised. When the evangelist said how sorry he was that the man had such a broken relationship with his father, he just became louder and more bellicose. A passing homeless man with a long white beard, evidently encouraged by the man’s yelling, shouted that religion is the source of all the evil in the world. Buoyed by the sympathetic voice, the man on the bike began bellowing at the top of his lungs, throwing out wild accusations and adding his political views. A passing man then yelled at the man on the bike, but again it only increased his anger. The evangelist told the passerby it was okay and to move on. Then two men, in their late 20s or early 30s, came to the table to take their turn at trying to end the confrontation. The evangelist told the man on the bike to leave, and stepped around the table to stand between him and the younger men. One of the younger men also told him to leave, but he bellowed, “I’ll do what I want!” But he did ride away. The young men commented on the situation, but the man on the bike overheard and circled back, yelling at us. He stopped at the table and, in an odd gesture, threw a “$100 bill” on the table and left. (What looked like money was actually a political message.) The two younger men were very concerned and even tried to give us a donation, which we declined. One man declined the offer of a Rosary and Chuck encouraged him to pray for the man on the bike. Lucy talked to the other man, who had been raised Catholic and gladly accepted a Rosary and its pamphlet. We thank God for the concern and support from those who witnessed the encounter. We also ask you to please pray for the man on the bike who is so filled with hate that he can’t believe a loving God exists. May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding find its way into this man’s heart.
Another man on a bike rolled up to Chuck, took his sunglasses off, and with quiet intensity told of a friend who had been abused by a priest and who later died by his own hand. When the evangelist expressed his sympathy and outrage at such evil, but the man didn’t want to hear it. Evidently believing that the Catholic Church promotes this evil, he proceeded to express his complete contempt for the Catholic Church and his determination to keep anything, even a Rosary, that is associated with the Catholic Church away from his family. He rode away before the evangelist could respond. Pray for healing for this man and for all who have suffered abuse in the Church, that the hard work of reform within the Catholic Church continues and that justice prevails.
Please pray for us again today? Ask God to send people with hearts prepared to perceive their need for Our Savior Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church, and that much good fruit for His Kingdom comes of today’s efforts.
God brings good out of even the greatest evil, and we thank and praise Him. We thank you, too, for your prayers and other support for this apostolate. In turn, may God protect and greatly bless you and all those you love!