April 30, 2001

Last week I was on the Missionaries to the Preborn, Campus Days Tour. It was an awesome time of proclaiming and preaching truth, in four Wisconsin cities, and their University campuses, high schools, and middle schools. In each city, on each day, we passed out hundreds of cartoon gospel tracts related to abortion and God's judgement, and hundreds of the tracts that expose Planned Parenthood and show what they do children by abortion. We witnessed along city streets, with the large signs of the aborted babies, and we did open air preaching on the campuses. What a tremendous privilege and thrill it is to proclaim God's Holy Law on these campuses where most people live in defiance of Him. We proclaimed the LORD's just judgements against their pet sins of fornication, sodomy, drunkenness, greed, the love of pleasure, and abortion. Some did not believe in God, but nearly all of those who did, think that God forgives everything and everybody, and so everyone will go to heaven. When we state what God's Word says about those who practice the specific sins they are involved in, they got fired up! Even most of the Christians on these campuses have become like Lot in Sodom, they have become too comfortable in the midst of wickedness, failing to stand strong against sin. I did meet a handful of Christians that entered into conversations that I had going, to speak up for the Lord and His Truth. Below are some of the highlights that I remember from each city.

Monday, April 23 - Stevens Point
It was very windy. The sign holders had a difficult time. I passed out a lot of literature on campus, at a middle school, and during our street sign witness. I also preached against abortion, using a megaphone, to the cars stopped at the light. That night, we drove to Eau Claire and stayed with a kind family from Pastor Bill Kermott's church.

Tuesday, April 24 - River Falls
First really good day of preaching! Chuck Spangola, Drew Heiss, and others took turns preaching. When we first arrived they had an open mike set up. When Drew began to speak about the things of God and His Ways, they came for the microphone and packed everything up! Drew just walked about 50 feet from there and continued speaking with only the voice God gave him. It was loud enough to be heard for quite a ways. Most of us handed out the literature against Planned Parenthood. After three class changes, most of the students had seen the literature, so I began talking to students in the ever growing crowd. We talked about abortion, sodomy, the Bible, Creation vs. evolution, Jesus being the only way to heaven, etc. I received many questions. Some of our home schooled young people did an excellent job of speaking to the students. At one point I saw Drew's young boy, Deitrich, faced off against three rebellious coeds, plotting to trip him up. They asked him, "why is it wrong to kill a baby?" That made me mad, so I rebuked them with the Word of God. That night we all had a meal together and stayed in a hotel near Lacrosse.

Wednesday, April 25 - Platteville
This was my first day to do some preaching. It was another beautiful day, warm and sunny. We had two or three preachers going simultaneously in different parts of the campus. We flooded the campus with literature and tracts. I preached, standing on a rock (also standing on The Rock), near a row of sidewalk booths for food and campus organizations. A group of 6 students came charging over to voice their objections to the sign Kim Warren was holding next to me. I had been preaching a basic gospel message, but they took offense at the comparison the sign made between the abortion holocaust and the Nazi holocaust. I got into numerous conversations with students who were quite candid with me about their sin. I spoke to one girl engaged in fornication with her boyfriend and two others that told me they were lesbians. I urged them to repent, to turn away from their sin, and begin obeying Jesus. Sadly, all of them loved their sin more than the Lord. I pray that their hardened hearts will change.

Thursday, April 26 - Whitewater
I thought this day was the best of all. The campus was covered with literature and we had our largest crowds to preach to by far. I would estimate 500 to 1000 people! There was a group of about 50 pro-aborts. After we had begun preaching a while, they passed out 5 gallon buckets and beat on them like drums to drown out our preaching. Chuck simply waited for them to tire of beating on the buckets, then he resumed. After a while the crowd was so large, I began preaching to a portion of the crowd, further away from the drummers. I preached against the folly of living for yourself. I urged them to repent and to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. I told them that they needed to study the textbook for life. They needed to read God's Word every day. I got into many conversations with small groups of students, or individual students (with others around that were all ears). Chuck passed his Bible to me at one point to preach to the main group. They were beating hard on those buckets, so I began to worship the Lord Jesus with my hands in the air. I experienced the joy of the Lord in the midst of that chaos! Then all of a sudden they stopped beating and I preached for the next 30 minutes, or so. The Lord gave me the words to speak. Later that day we had our most powerful street witness with the signs, as well. We had pro-abort protesters their too, but the police kept them all on one end of the street. It was the Lord's protection, because they had intended to block our signs from view, and there were probably enough of them to do it. Next I look forward to the Head West Tour in early June.

Your Brother in Christ,
Mark Gabriel