Braddock Whipple (AKA Indiana Jones) is one of our evangelists. He is away for the summer working on a fishing boat in the wilds of Alaska. Here is his report:
Well, we’re back in the little port of St. Petersburg, Alaska. I have run out of evangelism tracts, so I have been walking up to people and just giving them the gospel anyway without tracts, which at first was a real hard transition. Its amazing how much you get used to having those as icebreakers.
I was sharing the gospel with a small crowd of Hispanic cannery workers. In the middle of presenting the Law, a guy had the audacity to try to steal my bicycle, which was parked about 8 feet away.
Immediately, my Private Investigator instinct clicked in. After years of bounty hunting and apprehending criminals I knew there was just enough time to run and tackle the guy; I wasn’t about to turn my back on crime. Once apprehended, the local authorities could arrest him because he was probably stealing other peoples’ stuff also. Within a fraction of a second before giving chase I stopped myself, recognizing a diversion of the enemy. The message was more important, so I let the bicycle thief go in order to finish giving the gospel figuring God programmed that event to happen just then for his good purpose. I used it as an opportunity to verbally bless the thief out loud before the small crowd of workers, telling them that if they see the guy again (since he was one of their co-workers ), to let him know that he could keep the bicycle, no worries. I figured that is what the Good Lord would have me do.