August 1997

 

 

Bless the Lord for his mercies endure forever.

 

I am filled with great anticipation for this upcoming fall semester.

 

An urgent prayer bombardment is needed.  In October I will be working in conjunction with a Christian law firm in Kansas City in an effort to bust open the University of Missouri at Kansas City and at Columbia, Mo.

 

In the mid eighties I preached on the campuses of the university of Missouri at Kansas City and Columbia.  I was told that I could not preach on the campuses because I was not sponsored or asked to preach by a student organization.  On both campuses I walked to a nearby city sidewalk and continued preaching.  On both campuses the crowd of several hundred followed me and eventually spilled over into the city street, which resulted in major traffic jams.  The campus police radioed the city police who came and told me to stop preaching.  I gave them the, “I must obey God rather than man sermon,” and soon found myself in jail.

 

I returned several times only to face a threat of arrest, until three years ago when I marched onto campus with a local pastor and two attorneys armed with two video cameras and two tape recorders.

 

We stormed onto the University of Missouri at Kansas City waiting for a visit from the campus security.  Within a half hour of preaching an officer told me to stop preaching.  While the officer was checking my identification, the chief, who in years past had kicked me off campus and had been very rude to me, showed up and noticed all of the cameras pointing at him.  He became noticeably nervous, he told me to walk with him to a nearby shade tree hoping to escape the eye of the camera.  The attorneys and pastor, having no fear of man, followed us with the cameras.  The chief and I sat down on a bench to talk; the attorney and pastor zoomed in on us from about ten feet away.  The poor chief shook so bad that he could barely stick a cigarette in his mouth.  He asked me what I wanted.  I just want to preach, I responded.  The chief then told me that he needed to make a few phone calls.  He came back and let me preach that day.

 

The attorneys were so glad of that day’s victory that they faxed the University a letter thanking them for acknowledging our right to preach on campus and informed them that we enjoyed that days preaching so much that we would be back the following day.  The next day the only problem we had was from a feminist professor who called in a complaint trying to get rid of me.  The chief came out to investigate the situation only to realize that the complaint was bogus.  We preached that day unhindered.

 

We are returning this fall.  This time the attorneys want to fax the university about one week in advance to give them plenty of time to respond, if Kansas City blinks then we are going to Columbia.

 

We thank you for your love and prayers.

 

Brother Jim - Sister Bonnie - Aaron - Gabrielle