Witnessing in Peteluma to 2 Hitchhikers

MAY 1973

There are two events I remember in CA that stand out. The first was picking up a hitchhiker on the way into Peteluma at night. When two hitchhikers got into my car I had a very strong feeling that I should ask them if they knew Jesus loved them. Inside I was a wreck. I felt very strongly that it it was a stupid thing to say to perfectly unknown strangers.

When I talked with people about Christ I usually talked with them looking for opportunities in our discussions to talk with them about Christ in ways that interested them (I have to admit that I did hand out these pamphlets called tracts - many of which were pretty bad to say the least - but at least they provided avenues to talk..."What's this?" "Are you one of those people?" etc. Any one of these were great avenues for beginning a good conversation). But until 1973 I had never just gone up to somebody without some sort of something to hand out and said, "Did you know that Jesus loves you?" I was put off, but I couldn't shake it, so I turned to my captives, "Did you know that Jesus loves you?"

Silence was quickly broken as the guy in the back chokingly answered, "Do you know where we're going? ... We're going to get drunk." He told me he was a Christin who had fallen away. He was very close to crying, so I talked with him about resurrendring his life to Christ. His friend, however, was not at all interested, but rather was looking forward to partying for the rest of the night. And that's all I remember from that event.

I do have other memories of talking with people about Christ, but two stand out from the rest. The second stand out memory had to do with a fellow Chrisian from the station which I will tell you all about in my next blog.