1/27/25

Yesterday after church, Nick and I met to talk about the cultural context of our area. Nick's car needed fluids changed, so we figured that we could kill two birds with one stone and potentially converse with the people in the shop while we were at it. Before entering the shop, we prayed that God would give us opportunities to engage with those working on the vehicle. While they were working, Nick and I continued our discussion on the local culture and how that impacts the way you engage with people. Whether it be their values, behaviors, or beliefs, they all impact and speak to the way a missionary (or really anyone for that matter) should best engage with them. When the manager was finished filling out the document of information, Nick explained that I'm from out of state and trying to understand the local culture. Nick asked the manager, *Ken, his perspective of the local culture. We continued discussing this with *Ken and soon learned that he was born and raised in Catholisism, joined the military right out of high school, dove deep into religion once out of the military, but walked away from the faith as a result of his deeper exploration. *Ken is now studying psychology at Cal State Fullerton; the same school that Nick and I minister at throughout the week! Nick expressed how great it was to talk with *Ken and that we would love to talk more if it weren't keeping him from work. *Ken said that he would love to keep talking and proceeded to give us his phone number so we could meet sometime on campus between classes. We were totally stoked by this invitation and openness that *Ken had for further discussion and for the way God had opened so many doors!

Today, while at Cal State Fullerton, Nick and I heard from *Ken that he was available to meet today for coffee! We told him that we were already on campus and would love to meet up! We met and talked more with *Ken about his story and relationship with Catholicism.  We learned that he was extremely involved with his religious group and nearly became a deacon before walking away. We had a fascinating conversation, discovering a little bit more about the desires and values that *Ken holds highly. He said that he would consider himself an agnostic atheist but loves conversing with Nick and me. We asked him if he would like to meet more frequently, or even try to meet weekly, to continue discussing things relating to religion and Christianity and he said that he would love to! How insane! We met this guy yesterday while getting an oil change, and now we are looking to set up weekly times to discuss topics surrounding religion and God! 

This is so amazing to me! I can't imagine how the world could change if we all learned to look for simple opportunities to engage like this with those around us in day-to-day life. Today before our meeting with *Ken, Nick gave me the assignment to engage with at least three different people on campus to learn about their perception of the area's culture and see if I could lead the conversation into their personal religious beliefs. I ended up talking with thirteen people in my time doing this and found that almost all of the people I talked to were comfortable sharing about their religious background and perspective. There were many interesting cultural observations I was able to make due to this exercise, but best of all, I saw how easy it is to talk with complete strangers and end up learning about their religious background and current views! The most important step for me today, was preparing prior to the conversations the questions that I wanted to ask that would best invite the other person to share about personal beliefs. It seems that prayer and thoughtful questions are the foundation for conversations that proceed further than sports and the weather.