Operation 513: Riverfire!

[Willo]

Saturday, 30 August, 2008

The busiest day of the year for us had arrived! Every year at this time Brisbane city goes into party mode as the city has a big ?River festival?, while the party goes for a week, tonight is the biggest night of them all, as it is ?River Fire? night, a night when tons of fireworks go off, and an F-111 from the Royal Australian Air Force does a dump and burn. Since this is always a good light show to watch a couple of hundred thousand people crammed themselves in around the Brisbane CBD and river.

Since the city was bursting at the seams, we had to get to the city a bit earlier, this was to get a car park, and to also hand out many tracts. Andre, Ryan and I had our back packs crammed full of gospel tracts, so at 5pm we made our way quickly to the main walkway the crossed the river, there for the next two hours we handed out tracts.

I started off by using our Operation 513 ?Big Money? tracts, and it soon became clear that the one thousand that I had was going to run out very quickly. It took only 45 minutes for every single Big Money tract to be taken. People were lining up asking for the tract, others were running against the flow of traffic in the hope that they would be able to get one before they ran out. It was a good time of tract work.

After I had run out of big money, I quickly handed out all the millions that I had on me. The tracts were going so quick the fear was we would run out of tracts before we even started the normal preaching time.

By 7pm I had handed out close to 2000 tracts, and the other guys had handed out large sums of tracts also. Since we were nearly out we made our way to King George Square, where we would meet with the rest of the team for the nights outreach.

After a quick dinner, we realised that where the team meets is actually just on the main walkway to the train station, and that at any moment all those people who were rushing home from the fireworks would pass by us. So we quickly looked in our packs to find as many tracts as we could, and then we took position and once again began to hand out tracts to many people.

By 7:45pm I was completely out of tracts, so it was good to see that Rick and Glenda had arrived, and they had more tracts to hand out. We then spent a time in prayer and bible reading as Rick and Glenda witnessed to many of the people who were leaving the city.

Since we were in for a big night, it was really encouraging to see so many people out on the streets witnessing. It was also good to see that a large number of guys from Kenmore Baptist even came out for the night.

Once 9pm rolled around we went into the Queen Street Mall to preach, I was the first one up and nearly instantly we had many hecklers opening fire. Ranging from Alex the Agnostic right through to some drunk bloke who asked the same question seven times.

It was a hard open air as many hecklers just kept yelling but wouldn?t answer, but the good thing was, that while the vocal people were going me, behind the crowd there were many one to one conversations going on.

I was up for a fair while, and then I tagged Andrew Hsu in to preach for a bit more, as the crowd did to me, they did to him also. Andrew did a good job of battling through there heckles and getting to the gospel.

While he was preaching a drunk man was behind him, and was become rather unfriendly to Andrew?s wife, so I stepped in and told him to back of. He appeared as if he wanted to argue but he backed down, and left - for a short time.

The man returned a little while later, and this time he was a bit toey, he began to make threats towards me, which I basically ignored, then he started ranting and raving about how he has three black belts, and that because I spoke against his family (which I never) we was going to kick my head in. The man then stepped back, jumped and did a spin in the air, he then squatted and put his hands in an ?combat? position, this was rather amusing as in the position he was in he couldn?t hurt anyone. But, just to be on the safe side, I put myself in a defensive position, so if any attack came I could stop it fairly quickly. No attack came, and the man mouthed off and left.

Andrew Hsu was still preaching at this time, and as normal Alex was heckling. It was then that something happened, and the next thing you know both Andrew Caswell and Alex were behind the preaching going at each other over the atonement of Christ.

Alex hates the doctrine of Christ Jesus dying on the cross for sinners, and he shows his hatred week in and week out. So for Alex the following applies, and yes, I do know that you read this blog Alex, and Alex know this that many people are praying for you!

?For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.? - 1 Corinthians 1:18

Alex, you may find the cross foolishness, but let me tell you that God is being gracious towards you and is warning you that you are perishing in your sins. However, if you repent and trust in what Jesus Christ did upon the cross you will be saved.

The night basically went on as normal after that, people heckled, and we preached. Ryan and Josh Mitchell both got up and had a go, and many people got to hear the gospel.

Praise God for a good night!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com

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Also check out the latest Operation 513 - "The Appointed Time" broadcast: http://www.operation513.com/theappointedtime.php