Livonia, MI

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This report comes to us from Mark, an evangelist with the National SPSE team:

I’ve been consistently going to a gym for the last couple of months and have noticed some opportunities for both direct and relational evangelization. More often than not, I see the same 20 people every time so it’s easy to have follow-up conversations.

One elderly man, Tom, is fairly talkative and chats with most of the men in between reps. Since I’m a very large man, he approached me and said “hey, I bet you played football, right?” I told him that I played in high school but not in college. He asked what high school I went to and told him the name. Tom has three sons and they all went to the same school and asked if I knew a certain priest who was a chaplain and teacher there for decades. The priest was a high school classmate and is lifelong friend of Tom.

Later, in the locker room, I was almost done getting dressed when another man next to me commented on my t-shirt. I was wearing a shirt that read “Capuchin Franciscans” and had their emblem on the front. Like many elderly Detroiters, he fondly remembers Blessed Solanus Casey. Bill was deeply impacted by his interactions with the holy friar; he still keeps a letter and a few holy cards that he received from Blessed Solanus. I had a crucifix, Miraculous Medal, and chain in my duffle bag and gave all of them to Bill.