Tony Ramsek's blog

Frank has a fascinating discussion with a man who has died nine times, traveled to the moon and was at the dawn of Creation.

 

Praise God that within the first two hours of the conference, there has been a tremendous response to the Creation Museum DVDs. Many, many teachers are gladly taking multiple copies of the DVDs to share with their students and other teachers. At this rate, we may run out of our 3000 DVDs before the show is over, but we have thousands of booklets and books to give away as well, praise the Lord!

 

We have had several folks who are eager to visit the Creation Museum and we’ve given out a dozen or so complimentary tickets so far. Thank you all so much for praying for this ministry, the Lord has been gracious to answer them in the affirmative. Keep praying!

Praise the Lord that He has given us another opportunity to preach the gospel of grace for thousands of public school teachers and administrators.  For the last twelve years Answers in Genesis has had the privilege of manning a booth at the annual National Education Association's national conference.  As in previous years, the Creation Science Educator's Caucus (started by a Christian teacher and avid AiG supporter) has invited us to participate in this outreach to about 10,000 public school teachers, principals and administrators. Through faithful supporters who donate specifically to AiG's "Education Fund", AiG has donated thousands upon thousands of free materials to this booth. We also supply many of the volunteers for manning the booth.

Each year we've had a different theme for the booth. Prior year themes include "Evolution Exposed", "Evolution Fuels Racism", "Refuting Evolution", "Propaganda in the Classroom", etc. This year's theme is the "Get Educated at the Creation Museum!" and we are giving away for free 3000 Creation Museum DVDs! In addition we are handing out thousands of other books, DVDs and booklets. We also have 200 complimentary tickets to the Creation Museum that we will give to folks who are interested in visiting.

In case you are not familiar with the NEA, it is the largest public school teachers union and it's policies are very ungodly such as being pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, etc. Over the years AiG's presence at this secular conference has met with mocking, scoffing, taunts, arguments, debates, etc. At the same time, there are numerous Christians public school teachers who are very glad to have us here and annually come up to our booth to see what new materials we have.

Please pray for this outreach that many folks will hear the message of the authority of God's word and turn to Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. The gospel of Jesus Christ is preeminent at Answers in Genesis and this outreach is one of the ways that we are directly evangelizing the lost world. This is real 'creation evangelism' where the rubber meets the road.

Here are a few pictures taken while we setup the booth.

The brand spanking new booth before we unload tons of God honoring materials upon it.

 

Tom unpacking the hundreds of boxes of free materials that we pray God will use to change lives for His glory.

 

We brought a T-Rex head to gain interest and keep folks around a bit longer, that we might engage them in conversation. Pray that we'll have many meaningful conversations focused on Jesus and His word that proclaims Him as Creator and Savior.

Praise the Lord for all of the meaningful conversations we had with teachers. Many times we had the opportunity to not only share the truth of creation, but present the full gospel as well, starting with the bad news of Adam's sin.

Last year one of the highlights of AiG’s NEA outreach was being used by God to encourage a first year delegate’s heart. A Christian teacher named Sarah came by the booth in tears of joy because she was so happy to see fellow Christians standing up for the truth in the midst of an overwhelming darkness. Jenna Dee and I talked with her for about half an hour and we all left very uplifted and encouraged.

This year Sarah dropped by the booth again. She talked with Frank and me for a while and we were so encouraged by her testimony of how the Lord used the booth in her life. Apparently it strengthened her faith far more than we imagined. She stopped by to thank us for being there and told us that she was praying for us even before we arrived in Philadelphia. That was such a blessing to hear! Listen for yourself below and praise the Lord with us.

This is my son, Stephen who is four years old. He was excited that Daddy was preaching the gospel at the NEA. We have been praying as a family for a long time for this outreach, so it was on his mind. I thank the Lord for my little guy. Please pray that Stephen would grow up to be a mighty man of God, preaching the gospel in all humility, perhaps one day at the NEA convention!

Below is a picture of my three oldest children along with their great friend Amber (Stephen's on the left). Amber is 12 years old and really did share God's truth with the NEA teachers for two whole days. She was there with her Dad and her 17 year old brother, Aaron. They were stalwarts, eagerly engaging and talking with the teachers about the truth of creation and even the gospel message. At one point a teacher asked Amber what she thought about Mormons. Amber told her the truth that they are not Christians, at which point the teacher walked away. Ric mentioned toward the end of the ministry how encouraging it was to see his son and young daughter sharing God's word with unbelievers. What a blessing!

  A woman named “Joy” shrieked out in joy as her name was called out over the loudspeaker system at our booth. Her survey was the second to be drawn (the first was not filled out completely and thus set aside). After I read out her name, I quickly glanced at the results of her survey and noticed that she was a professing Christian and believed that God created the earth thousands of years ago. Encouraged in the Lord, I shouted out ‘Praise the Lord!’ over the PA system. There was a lot of suspense and excited in the air as a crowd had formed around the booth to see the results of the drawing.

The prior day, after one of the winners had received the prize, she stated, “I’ve been reading these materials for years and it’s finally paid off!” We all had a good laugh at that one. I’m not exactly sure where she was coming from, but it was pretty funny at the moment. Either way, it was encouraging to hear that she really had been receiving our materials over the last few years.

I praise the Lord for the volunteer who suggested we hold this type of prize drawing. It really drew in many people who might not otherwise have stopped by. There were numerous times when folks who rejected our materials would stop in their tracks when we offered them to fill out the survey for a chance to win $100. That would then give us opportunity to ask them a few questions and share a few answers. So it really worked out well, praise the Lord.

Here's a teacher filling out the questionnaire.
 

Here are the questions from the survey. It was designed to get truth in front of them. We used lots of Scriptures because we have confidence that the Word of God will not return void. The surveys fulfilled their purpose in that the teachers stayed around the booth longer for us to talk with them about the truth of creation and Christ.  

Survey must be filled out completely to qualify for daily prize drawing. Winner must be present at draw time to claim prize.

 

Name (Required for prize drawing). _________________________________

 

Are you a public school teacher?

Yes No Other _____________________________

 

The Bible says "By grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast." Do you consider yourself a Christian? Yes No Other ______________

 

It is written "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Do you believe in God? Yes No Other

 

The Bible states that "Every word of God is tested" "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching." Do you believe the Bible is infallible and inerrant? Yes No Other _____________________________________

 

Dr. J. Sarfati (Ph.D in Physical Chemistry) states "Adaptation and natural selection are biological facts; amoeba-to-man evolution is not. Natural selection can only work on the genetic information present in a population of organisms—it cannot create new information. For example, since no known reptiles have genes for feathers, no amount of selection will produce a feathered reptile. Mutations in genes can only modify or eliminate existing structures, not create new ones." Do you believe in Darwinian (amoeba-to-man) evolution?

Yes No Other ____________________________________________

 

The Bible says " The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him." Have you ever researched the problems with evolutionary theory? Yes No Other ____________________________________

The Bible says "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day." How old do you believe the earth is?

Billions of years

Thousands of years

 

 

The Word of God states "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Do you believe evolution is a fact or a belief system about the past?

Fact Belief Other _______________________________________

 

The Bible clearly teaches that on the sixth day "God saw everything that He had made and behold it was very good." Is it within the realm of possibility that a model of origins other than Darwinian evolution could be true?

Yes No Other ________________________________________

 

Are you aware that all dating methods are fallible and have unverifiable assumptions? Yes No Other ________________________________

 

What is the best evidence for evolution? Please be very specific (i.e don’t just state "fossils", what about the fossils allegedly proves evolution?) ________________________________________

 

Additional Comments (Optional) : ________________________________

Another teacher stays at the booth a bit longer to fill out the questionnaire.