At the beginning of the year, I was pleased with the trip schedule I had planned. I was looking forward to preaching again for some missionaries and visiting a number of missionaries I had never been with in the past. As I mentioned in my last letter, my trip to Nigeria was canceled, and I asked you to pray about the next two trips I was to take. Unfortunately, due to Mexico and the Central American countries not opening up to foreign travel, both trips were canceled. Of course, I did not have any Stateside meetings scheduled because I was planning to be in these other countries. As a result, I was in my home church for most of the last three months.
I thank God I have a pastor who looks for ways to get out the Gospel, even when our normal soul winning is curtailed somewhat due to various regulations in place. He decided to offer free pizza to the first 100 cars that pulled up to the church on a given day. It really turned out to be a lot of fun. So many people were thankful we would do something of this nature without any cost to them. Every pizza box had a special tract taped to the box. Each worker asked them to read it while eating the pizza.
Pastor then had business cards printed up that had one of four simple messages on the front. Then on the back was a QR code. If a person scanned the code with their smart phone, the code would bring them to a site where we had a four- to five-minute Gospel message presentation. We are continuing to use these daily.
I was able to experience a first in my ministry. I was able to travel to a church in Illinois and preach to the maximum crowd of 10, but at the same time, I was being live-streamed to the congregation. I must say, it is different just mainly looking straight ahead at a camera instead of the normal eye contact you have with a live audience. Below are two links to the sermons I preached that day.
Please pray for God’s power and His safety as we travel these next two months. I have June meetings in Missouri and Iowa. We then will, Lord willing, head out East in July.
Your servant,
Missionary Evangelist James Belisle
