Every Tuesday we have a Bible Study at a place that is similar to Walmart/Meijers. They have a lot of food and pretty much anything else that you would need for the house, garden, etc. They have a cafe area that we meet in to study the book of John. We were doing the Bible Study right before church on Sundays as a Bible Class at our worship location but thought it would make more sense to go to a public place to be more accessible to the community and make it a more comfortable place to invite our friends or people we meet.

For the last month it has been just been a few of us from the mission team which has been good, but we had not generated any contacts to invite to come yet. The key word “we.”

So this last Tuesday we went with some hestitation because we got out late from working in the office, some of us were sick, and well we could have easily had the Bible Study in our office or cancelled it due to all the “things” going on at that time, but something kept us on task to go and have it at the cafe where we always go.

We arrived and got our Nestle capichinos from the machine (it’s like 7Elven all over again), and started talking. We eventually opened in prayer and started our study on John 9. We read through the chapter and then started our discussion and not five minutes into a women came up to us and asked what we were doing. We explained and invited her to sit down. We ended up having a great conversation. Various people had told her God had good things in store for her and was calling her to Him so when she saw us studying the Bible she had to find out what was going on.

We talked and shared various Bible verses and got to know her friend that she was with for the next half hour. We prayed with and for them and invited them to come back next week.

We say often, especially as Lutherans, that it’s God working through us and that it is the Holy Spirirt who brings people to hear the Gospel and converts those into Christians, it is nothing of our own doing. This is true but can sometimes be frustrating when we don’t “see” God working or reap and fruits of our labor.

I couldn’t stop thinking and talking about it after because it was one of those tangible moments where you saw God reaching out to His people, loving them, and bringing them in community. God is always at work and what a privaledge it is to first be called His child, and second to serve.