The above banner is at the entrance to our home in rural Superior Township outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan.  It is attached to a tree that is providentially very close to the next tree.  The banner couldn't be closer to the road.  Consequently, it is very conspicuous to everyone driving east on Cherry Hill Rd.  At the bottom of the image of Our Lady, we ask the non-threatening question: CAN JESUS LOVE THE WORLD THROUGH ME?

Does this sort of evangelism work?  Recently, when we got home there was a note stuck in our door.  Reading the note, it said: "I consider myself a seeker of Jesus and I wanted to meet the family that lived in this house."  The author left her name and telephone number.  When I called her, she said she drives by our house on her way home.  She lives only a quarter mile east of us.  In addition to the image of Our Lady, we had a burlap banner at the beginning of our driveway, set back further from the road but also conspicuous.  For the season of Lent the banner read:

WAIT FOR THE LORD.  It was the Lenten banner that attracted this young woman to drive up to our home to meet the people who lived here.  In the photograph seen below we now have our Easter season banner: ALLELUIA HE IS RISEN.   

For 26 years we owned a small grocery business in Ann Arbor.If there is one lesson you learn as a merchant, it is the need to advertise to attract customers to buy food.  For those we come in contact with in our daily life, shouldn't we Christians be even more eager to advertise the food of eternal life?

After going out for coffee with the young lady who was searching for Jesus, we asked a friend, whom we have worked with in the jail ministry, to mentor this young lady.  Maybe in the future our family can have this young lady come to Sunday brunch or dinner.  At home, we can extend the love of Jesus to this young woman whom the Holy Spirit has obviously prompted to find out more about her Savior: seek and you shall find.