Paris Ontario
Aug. 1, 2004
Joshua, Lori, William and Jordan Robinson
Paris ON. Population 9,000.
Contacts: Ron ? and Edd
It was already late in the day when Lori and I finally decided what to do today. We both felt a need to get out there and serve the Lord. I had just written and printed a new tract when Lori said she thought we should go to Paris for the purpose of evangelizing. We got ready, threw the kids in the car and headed out at around 5 pm. We prayed that God would direct us where He wanted us to go and we both felt that Paris was the place.
We arrived shortly after six, took a quick drive around the town finding it to be quite beautiful with its many hills and older style architecture. The Grand River runs right through the middle of the town and greatly adds to the already picturesque layout of the town. We found a place to park on the main drag and piled out of the car, loading up with gospel tracts and pamphlets to disperse as we had opportunity. The first person we met seemed quite disgusted with my tract and the second was very drunk and seemingly violent. But as we continued on we met an elderly man sitting on a bench who cheerfully accepted a tract upon the offering thereof.
We then proceeded to walk down to the river leaving the gospel in mailboxes as we went. William and Jordan helped out too. We came near to a man fishing and I gave him a �What is your life?� As I walked away he called out to me and said �Hey Paul, I already am a Christian. Do you want me to just pass this along?� I�m still not sure why he called me Paul but I told him to go ahead and pass it on anyway. After about an hour we ended back at the car and still having many tracts and pamphlets left we thought that maybe we should do some of the rural areas around the town but the car would not start. I tried several times to get it going to no avail. I was just starting to worry when the thought occurred to me that maybe we weren�t quite done there yet. I left Lori and the kids in the car praying and went out again supposing that maybe God had something more for me to do there. Two blocks down I came across the elderly man that I had given a tract to earlier. I decided to strike up a conversation and ended up sitting down with him. The man, whose name was Ron, professed salvation and said that he occasionally attended the Baptist Church in Paris. I talked to him briefly about God and faith and after I had prayed and attempted to exhort him, I said goodbye and headed back to the car.
It seemed that that was what I was supposed to have done because the car started up and we went on our way. I determined not to leave until we had run out of literature to hand out so we proceeded to drop them off in mailboxes. While I was finishing up a man came out of his house and seeing what I had dropped off called me over. �Are you in the ministry?� He asked. I considered this question for a moment and then answered �Yes, I am.� He then began to ask me for some help in getting himself into the ministry. I began to ask him some questions about what he believed and found him to be quite broken. He had apparently just buried his sister two days before and was very distressed about many things in his past. He had apparently felt called to preach when he was a young man but had �run from it� so to speak. An interesting thing was that just that morning I had heard a sermon by Pastor Al Stone from the book of Jonah. He had mentioned that some people that he knew had run from the call of God and that they had turned out to be miserable. This man was certainly miserable. I spoke to him and prayed with him and urged him to write me. He gave me his address and phone number so I hope to arrange a correspondence with him that if it be possible I might encourage him in the faith. I would humbly request that any and all of those who belong to Christ that read this report might stop for a moment to pray for this man. His name is Edd.
Shortly after, when we had run out of tracts and pamphlets, we left the city rejoicing in that God had granted us opportunity to spread the gospel and encourage the brethren. Our first missionary journey consisted of only about 5 hours, but our prayer is that God will cause the effects of this effort to bring forth fruit that will abide for eternity. For though we may plant and though we may water it is God and God alone that gives the increase.
Follow-up: I wrote and sent Edd a letter of exhortation with a (hopefully) clear gospel presentation in order to determine his spiritual standing when he wrote me back. But it has been several months now and I have not heard from him. If the Lord wills I would like to head back up there during the next summer. Maybe the Lord has more work for us there.