AiG at the Iowa State Fair – Rapidly Spreading the Word of the Lord

This outreach is led by Tony Ramsek, an AiG staff member with a deep passion for reaching the lost with the gospel message who has been leading evangelism events for AiG for over twenty years. Here’s what he shared about last year’s event:

The Word of the Lord was spread rapidly and glorified through the Answers in Genesis gospel outreach to the 1.1 million guests at the Iowa State Fair! Thousands of fair visitors heard the good news of Jesus as Creator and Redeemer through AiG’s gospel booth inside the fair grounds.

Praise God that he blessed our outreach with close to 100 volunteers to help us share the Bible’s life-transforming gospel message!

By the grace of God over the 11-day fair, we gave out more than 75,000 Ark Encounter “million-dollar-bill” tracts with a clear, concise gospel message on the back, along with thousands of other AiG apologetic witnessing booklets.

Perhaps more importantly, God gave us literally hundreds of substantial creation/gospel conversations. I mean meaningful, Christ-centered dialogue that lasted from 30 minutes to over an hour. Not to mention the thousands of other shorter salvation-oriented or creation-based discussions we had with fair visitors.

This AiG outreach at the Iowa State Fair was mightily impactful!

Tony also shared with me a story of a gospel encounter one of last year’s volunteers, Sage, had at the fair while she attended Testify, an amazing witnessing training camp (more on that below):

Tony and I engaged two fifteen-year-old fraternal twins and their grandma by handing them a couple of Ark Encounter million-dollar bill gospel tracts and asked them if they would like to try the million-dollar question. Even though they didn't seem very interested, they replied, “OK, sure.” So we asked them the $1,000,000 question, “Will you go to heaven when you die?”

They replied, “Well, we don't really know what happens after death. Like you could either go into nothingness or there could be like a heaven or a hell or you could like reincarnate; we just won't really know until you die.” Tony responded, “Well, if there was a heaven do you think you'd go there?” and they said, “No.” but quickly added, “We'd probably be guilty, but we don't really know if there's a heaven or hell. We just don't know.”

We responded by walking through the gospel with them, starting with from Adam and Eve up until Christ. By the end of the conversation, they knew there was a heaven and hell, and they were so interested! Though they had not seemed interested at first when we started explaining things for them, once they heard the gospel starting with God as Creator, had so many questions! By God’s grace, we were giving answers to every one of their questions using God’s Word and creation apologetics and by the end they were so eager to hear more!

Sadly, the fifteen-year-old girl had struggled with suicidal thoughts and depression in her past. But after hearing the gospel, she loved the idea that there is hope in Christ, not just wishful thinking, but that she could know for certain that there was a steadfast and sure hope in Christ. The boy just listened mostly, but even he asked a few of his own questions. We could see that these kids were so impacted by our gospel conversation!

Near the end the girl asked us, “Why did you guys come talk to us? Why not those other people? Why did you come talk to us?” Tony was able to explain to them that God had led us and sent us to them. They were just fascinated by that! The boy said, “So you mean God is using you to speak to us?” And we heartily answered, “Yes!” They were so amazed!

The girl was especially impacted, wanting to know our names for this memorable encounter. As we left we told them that we would pray for them and even that was impacting! They were like, “Wow! You guys care enough about us to pray for us.” She was amazed that God loved them enough to send someone to talk to them and to clarify the gospel and to clarify salvation and to leave them with biblical resources. It was just such a meaningful conversation and it made me so excited to keep witnessing!

This outreach is impactful—we’re so excited to see what the Lord does this year. And you can be part of it! Here are two ways you can partner with us:

1. Make a tax-deductible donation. To fund the gospel booth and cover outreach expenses costs $20,000. We have been blessed to have a supporter pledge to match dollar-for-dollar the first $10,000 donated to this outreach! So your gift will be doubled through this matching gift pledge up to $10,000.

   As the Lord leads, you may make a gift of any size by:

   1. Calling our toll-free customer service line at 800-350-3232 noting that the gift is for the Iowa State Fair Gospel Outreach or
   2. Mailing a check to Answers in Genesis, PO Box 510, Hebron, KY, 41048 with a note that the gift is for the Iowa State Fair Gospel Outreach.
2. Volunteer at our booth. We’d love to have you there (or even a group or youth group from your church), sharing the gospel message for the entire fair, or just part of it. You can register on our outreach page.

As a “thank you” for your help and to help prepare you for this outreach, AiG will be providing two of our Creation Apologetics Training Courses for free by email to all volunteers (valued at $98) as well as an outstanding book on biblical evangelism (Grace Mally’s Will Our Generation Speak, A Call to be Bold with the Gospel) to all volunteers.

And don’t worry if you’ve never done “on-the-street” witnessing before. You can attend Testify Training Camp, a four-day camp that will teach you how to boldly and confidently share the gospel with others—and you’ll even get an opportunity to practice and one-on-one coaching. Learn more about Testify on their website.

The Iowa State Fair outreach is a legacy of an AiG supporter who many years ago began a booth exhibiting a model of Noah’s ark and giving away gospel tracts.

I encourage you consider joining this exciting outreach. Visit our outreach page to learn more.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.