*Names of the peopled we encountered have been changed to protect their identity.

This was an early morning for a 1/2 day festival in the city of Laingsburg that started with a pancake breakfast, sponsored by the downtown merchants association.  We evangelized from a vendor spot at the cost of $10 for the day. The event wrapped up at 12:30. There was lots of foot traffic with a car show, art walk and some entertainment.

I had help at this event from some awesome guys on the Lansing Team, Tom Valli and Dave Weber.

We had several encounters throughout the morning. One encounter that we had was with "Mark" from the local Congregational Church. He readily engaged in a peaceful discussion about Catholicism and left with a sacramental and brochure called Why Be a Catholic.

Another encounter was with "John". He was with another local church who also had a booth that was about 100' away from our booth. "John" was a tall man, probably 6'2" and he walked by our booth, he approached me and stood very close to me and asked me, "Do we pray to Mary?" He stated that he used to work with a bunch of Catholics who all prayed to Mary. His interpretation of prayer was actually worship. We explained that our belief in prayer simply means "to ask" and that we do ask Mary for her to take our prayers to her Son. After several minutes of peaceful communication, "John" began to let down his hardness and before he left, he was more than willing to take the brochure What About Mary.

"Lisa" and her two daughters, one of which was participating in the local art walk competition, stopped by to collect some rosaries and 2 miraculous medals and a crucifix. We found out that "Lisa" and her children were baptized as Baptists but did not attend church any longer. We discussed Catholicism and to which she seemed interested. We then gave "Lisa" a bulletin and the local Catholic Churches contact information, along with our own contact information if she wants to discuss in person further.

"Jack and Diane" stopped by. Jack was a high school football player from another town visiting his girlfriend, Diane. We had a lengthy conversation and discovered that Jack is a cradle Catholic but doesn't attend Mass very frequently. Our discussion led to suggesting Jack surprise his parents and attend Mass with them this weekend, along with earnestly looking for ways to start to develop a relationship with God. We discussed several ways to begin a deeper relationship with God and what that might look like. We talked about what it feels like to go into an empty church and if he's ever experienced that and what it felt like to him. After he acknowledged that it was an awesome feeling, we suggested that feeling could be the Holy Spirit and that maybe he should start recognizing these same feelings when they occur outside of church, in everyday life, as the Holy Spirit. He took a miraculous medal. His girlfriend, "Diane" was not Catholic and occasionally attended the local Assembly of God Church. However, she seemed interested and engaged in a lengthy discussion about Catholicism and took two or three brochures, along with a miraculous medal.

Several local Catholics, who we knew, stopped by for quick chats. This always drew positive attention to our evangelization booth.

St. Isidore-Holy Family Evangelization Team

Ovid, Michigan