It was great to be in meetings in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. The area is interesting and the church is a reflection of the unusual demographic of Pacific Coast Canada. The majority of the church is Asian, most of them Filipino. In fact, the Filipinos are the most faithful members of the church. There were unsaved people in the services, many of them people who have attended the church for months, if not years. The pastor in his evangelism here has to begin with the very basics of Christianity, answering questions like "What is the Bible?" and "What does God say about man?" By Friday, three people had prayed to trust Christ as Savior.
The differences between American and Canadian culture make for some interesting moments in preaching. One of the notable differences is metric system versus the English system of measurement. I was giving an illustration last Sunday night about a situation I was in where the weather was hot. Canada uses the Celsius scale of measuring temperature, which is based upon the freezing and boiling points of water, 0 being freezing and 100 being boiling. I was relaying a story in which I told the congregation that the temperature was about 96. In their mind, that is slightly less than the boiling point of water (approximately 205 by our way of measurement). In order to keep from exaggerating, I admitted that my temperature scale was different from theirs and tried to figure the conversion on the spot. Failing that, I finally just exclaimed to the mostly Filipino audience, "Well, it was Philippines hot." They were much amused by my reference to their country of origin.
This week, I am with my family once again in Yorktown, Virginia. I preached all day today, and the people seemed to really be blessed by my ministry here. Beginning tomorrow, we begin what is called Combat, an evangelistic teen outreach. Tomorrow and Tuesday, we canvas the area recruiting teens to come and Wednesday through Friday we have the service. Please pray for souls to be saved.
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