A Wet Outreach in Southampton

The weather has been gorgeous all week… except for today. When we arrived in Southampton, the sun was shining, and it didn’t look like the promised rain was coming. Making the most of this opportunity, we set up all our open-air kit and began to share the gospel.

Trevor was the first to preach. He encouraged people to consider Jesus from 2 Corinthians 6:2. While Trevor preached, Nigel engaged a man in conversation who denied the divinity of Christ. This man wanted to argue and wasn’t open to biblical instruction.

I didn’t get to listen to much of the open-air sermon, as I had to keep going to the Free Bible table to engage people in discussion. People were stopping to talk about their life concerns and their need for God. One man hung his head and said, “God isn’t happy with me at the moment.” Then he proceeded to share the different battles and sins he was facing. All these people took copies of the Scripture and other literature.

When Trevor had finished preaching, it was my turn to share. I preached on God being the Creator, but how our sin has separated us from Him. By this time, the weather was beginning to change, and a light rain started to fall. My message was short, and it was the last open-air sermon of the day.

Since the rain wasn’t heavy, we continued to hand out tracts and talk to people. The Bible table was placed under a waterproof sheet, yet people still stopped to browse and take literature.

One encouragement was a man who worked in a local business who came over to talk. A couple of weeks ago he listened to me as I preached, so he wanted to share how much he enjoyed the message. He took a copy of John’s Gospel and a tract. The seed was sown weeks ago, and now we had an opportunity to water it. Please pray the Lord saves him.

It was now raining heavily, so we packed everything down. Due to the weather, the outreach was cut short, but we rejoice that in the short time we were in Southampton, people heard the gospel and wanted to talk about Jesus.

Even in the wet, the Lord was still working.

SDG!