This month is filled with a lot of family friendly events for the fall (even if it doesn’t feel like fall in Florida!) which are held in public parks. The majority of the fall festivals bring a large crowd of people who casually stroll along the parks admiring local art and taking in whatever ideas are put on display by vendors. Taking this opportunity, we headed out on a sunday to a local park in an area called Winter Park. The Autumn Art Festival held a competition of local artists who filled the park with vibrant colors. For a sunday morning, there was already a good sized crowd beginning to walk around the park. We prayed near the central fountain as usual and began exploring as we waited for the Holy Spirit to lead us to people.
We walked over to a booth that was near the front of the festival because we noticed it had a local catholic school sign on the side of it for face painting. I was greeted by a friendly woman with her child who began talking to us! I offered her a miraculous medal for her and her child which she gracefully accepted. I explained to her the meaning of the medal and that we were Catholics on a mission to share about Jesus. Talking with her, it seemed that her husband was very interested in becoming catholic and had started attending masses in the area. I asked if she had any interest in Catholicism and how she felt generally towards the Faith. She mentioned that she had no inclination for or against Catholicism and that she was sure her husband would enter the Church and they would all follow as a family. It turns out that another evangelist had befriended her husband and made the connection. We extended the invitation to join the local parish and look forward to seeing each other again in the near future. In the booth we met a local Dentist and his lovely wife who were active Catholics in the area. We had some great conversations about the faith and gave out some more miraculous medals.
I was walking along the booths with another evangelist who offered a rosary to a man nearby. He turned down the offer, but with the push of the Spirit I asked if he wanted a miraculous medal that we were giving away for free. He also turned us down. We only took a few steps when the woman who seemed to be his wife asked him “what did they say they were giving away?” I turned back and showed her the miraculous medal. She hesitated, saying she was Catholic. I quickly began to explain that we too were local Catholics and that the medal was known for Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. She then breathed a sigh of relief and graciously accepted the medal as I began to explain the story of the medal. We had a lovely conversation about being active in our faith (she was impressed that we looked so young) and that we would be praying for her to continue her faith journey. We said goodbye to her and her husband and continued on our way.
I walked along the tents admiring so many local creative artists that came to showcase their works for the day. I was looking intently at one of the tents and again felt called to strike up a conversation with the artist sitting nearby. I introduced myself and began talking to this woman named Katrina who told me about her creative process and inspirations. While I did not have the medals in my hand to offer her at the moment, I continued the conversation and began sharing about my own creative process with music and how beauty affected my everyday life. On the subject of beauty I mentioned my inspiration that came from my faith and asked her if she had any inspirations when it came to her artwork. She told me she believed in God and that it was a very personal relationship. From there she shared with me about her faith growing up in a protestant family and trying to follow Jesus. I shared with her how God revealed his beauty in his creation and longed for us to be a part of a community of believers that would marvel at his glory. We talked about miracles and I told her of the many miracles I had witnessed in my lifetime and how the Kingdom of God was really at hand in our world. But this message calls us to be responsible, even as artists, to show the world it needed to stop and consider where it was heading. I continued to share about my faith as a catholic and offered her my contact as well as a catholic audio talks card I had with me, and thanked her for her time and openness to share about her life. I left, realizing the Holy Spirit had really opened up our hearts to share with one another because I had been in that conversation for almost thirty minutes!
I grabbed some medals in my hand and continued walking along a few tents where there were less crowds. One of the artist’s tents really got my attention with its large paintings of people. I almost didn’t stop walking until I again felt a small tug to go in and introduce myself. This time I walked into the tent where the gentleman was sitting and told him that I greatly admired his painting styles because they were very different from the other artists. He smiled and thanked me, to which I asked how long it took to paint the pictures and where he seemed to get his inspiration from. He introduced himself as Jordan and said that he was not particularly inspired with any of his paintings. It was a short conversation so before leaving I told him I was a missionary and I was giving out free miraculous medals to people, so I offered him one. He politely declined but wanted to know what it was about. So I told him the background of the medal and asked him if he was Christian. Jordan talked about having a worldview of religions and so I asked him to explain what he meant. He said he had studied many religions and did not see one as better than the other (he was describing a new age type of religion) and that he got his ideas from a man he found online that taught these things. I asked him if he always believed in that idea or if he had any other faith backgrounds growing up. Jordan mentioned growing up in a christian home with one of his parents being catholic, so he attended a catholic sunday school but he mentioned he never enjoyed it and his family was not practicing. From that I discerned that it was time to start sharing about the heart of the gospel, so I asked him if he knew about early Christianity and the person of Jesus. He said he knew the stories, but he was indifferent. So I began unraveling the person of Christ and sharing a bit of my testimony when I began learning about my faith. Proclaiming the gospel, I started with the simple testimony that Jesus had indeed preached to be God and then dove right into how he had resurrected from the dead and the witnesses who saw him before ascending into heaven. While he continued to have comments about knowing the story, I continued to drive home the point that the gospel was not a story and Jesus was not a legend, but in fact a real person in human history with certain claims surrounding his life. This was in no way a heated argument as I slowly shared with him about the gospel, but rather a very calm and gentle conversation as I finished with stating that it was worth looking into the claims of Christianity since the weight of those claims proven true would completely change our lives for the better. While I offered a prayer, he politely declined and instead complimented us on being calm and sweet to him because he had been met with hostility before on having similar conversations. I left him with a card on catholic audio talks and thanked him for sharing about his artwork and his life.
As I was wrapping up the ministry time at the festival, I led the other evangelists towards the area where we would end in prayer and focused on meeting one last person as we walked around. Another evangelist took up the courage to meet a young man that was standing by a pole and offered him a rosary. He was pleasantly surprised and said yes to the offer, and we began introducing ourselves and asked him if he knew about the rosary. He mentioned he was catholic, and we all smiled as we shared that we were local Catholics in the area who were evangelizing to people at the fair. He told us he recently moved into town only a week ago and was actually looking for a parish and community to get involved in. We met his wife who also came into the conversation and welcomed them to the area. As we shared about the communities we were involved in and several resources he could have, I asked if they needed any prayers in the coming days since they were settling in. They mentioned their prayer intentions and I offered to actually pray together as a group right there if they were comfortable, to which they said yes. So we prayed over their intentions and ended in a prayer of thanksgiving.
All these encounters were very joyful and life-giving during our time in the Art Festival. It is amazing how God works when we surrender to his presence.
*All names recorded in Orlando stories have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.