Discipleship at Joe's

Once upon a time there was an eccentric Spaniard who hung out at Joe's. He spoke Spanish loudly and wore very bright colored pants. One day Jonathan and Bethany were at Joe's while he was there. They overheard him mention the Bible while talking to another person. Soon, he was there by himself. Jonathan said hi and asked where he was from. And that's how our story begins....

So J. is very outgoing and came and sat with us. When he asked why we were going to move to Portugal, Jonathan said he was going to be a professor at a Christian college. That's all it took. He talked to us for half an hour about spiritual things. He loves to write teleevangelists letters condemning them for various things, and he makes a lot of deals with God. We weren't sure if he was a believer or not by the end of the conversation, but we knew he was interested in talking about spiritual things and in meeting with Jonathan later. After they exchanged contact information, we left.

Jonathan followed up with him a couple of days later, and a couple of days after that they met for coffee and Bible study. They spent 1 1/2 hours talking about the Bible this past week. Jonathan was able to clearly present the gospel to him, and J affirmed all that he heard--that he believes it and had made a decision to follow Christ a couple of years ago. With each question J had, they turned to the Scriptures. Jonathan got J to answer his own questions through the Bible.

J was so excited that he told Jonathan he would meet with him any time--several times a week even--if they were both available. He is also very excited about our Bible study and plans to come soon. He said, "I know I've been needing to go to church. And the church has come here. I can't believe the church has come to my local hangout spot where I drink coffee. This is awesome."

Pray that J. will continue to study the Bible with Jonathan, and that he will come to our Bible study and plug into a church. Pray that he will share what he learns with his friends and bring his friends to Bible study with him.