Saturday, August 7, 2010

Three Guys, Three Bibles

Most times if we’re out at night, and we find someone who’s really intoxicated that we’re helping back to their hotel, we really don’t get to chat with them a lot. We’re working to try to figure out where they’re staying, or we’re dealing with their friends, or they’re just too drunk to have any kind of conversation with! The good thing is that most people who come to the island come for at least a week, and sometimes longer. So if I get to help someone, and somehow I find out that they’re here for 10 days, and it’s only their first night, I pray that I run into them again. The other night I was out on the streets with Christine, when suddenly these three guys come rushing up to us. The first thing they asked us is “Are you guys the Christians?” We of course replied that yes we were.

Just a little background before I continue. When we go out on the streets we wear our 24-7 Ibiza shirts.


24- 7 Ibiza has been on the island for several years, and has really established a good reputation. The West End is a very branded kind of place. It’s common to see lots of different groups walking around in shirts advertising their club or bar. I’ll always remember my very first night on the streets Claire and I approached a young guy sitting in front of a bar who needed some help. When the bartender saw us this look of relief came over her face. She saw our shirts knew we were with 24-7 Ibiza and that we were there to help.

I say all that to say that the reason the 3 guys stopped us is because they saw our shirts. It turned out that the night before, one of them had gotten pretty drunk, and got separated from the rest of the group. Now if you’re a guy, and you’re drunk and passed out somewhere on the streets of the West End, one of two things is going to happen to you. You’re going to get robbed, or if the police find you, they’re not always so nice. Before anything bad could happen to this young guy, he was found by someone from 24-7 Ibiza, who got him back to his hotel safe. So these three guys were stopping us to say thank you. In chatting with them, I got to talk to the guy that got helped. He told me that he’d never heard of a Christian doing anything like what we’d done to help him. He admitted that he never really thought about God, but because of the kindness of a stranger in God’s name, he’d decided that maybe he should take a closer look at this whole God thing. So I got to chat with him when he was sober, and encourage him to give God a chance…We also were able to give the three of them bibles, that we personalized with a little message and a scripture for them to read.

Later that night when we got back to the prayer room, one of the other teams that was out told us that they’d seen three guys sitting outside of a bar reading their bibles.

How cool is that?!

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