This is the third time our team has had the privilege of being at Faith Baptist Church in Fredericksburg, VA. The former pastor Don Forrester, a blind man, has been used of the Lord to build Faith Baptist to what it is today. Pastor Watson Morgan is now pastor and we enjoyed working with him and his staff.
The Marine Recon were in second most of the week, but moved into first on the final night. This is their second victory of the tour! The students at Faith were “all in” and it was great to work with them again.
During the first night, one of the Christian school teens raised his hand at the invitation. When the invitation was given, he didn’t respond. Our Recon team captain walked up to him and asked, “Would you like to talk?” The young man was hesitant but agreed. They went into the hallway and the team captain began to give him the Gospel. When they went over sin, the young man began to weep. The team captain asked, “What are going to do with Jesus?” “I’m going to accept him!” was the response. With tears he wept his way to Jesus.
One young man came who had been invited after school as he was walking home. He did not respond during the invitation. The team captains were burdened after the first night meeting to talk to teens about the Lord. One captain went up to him and asked, “What did you think about message?” The young man responded, “It was good.” “Have you ever been saved?” the captain followed. After a negative response, he continued by asking, “Could I show you?” He responded, “Yes, I would like to.” The team captain led him to the Lord.
One young lady in the Christian school was attending revival meetings at her church. There the Lord used the preaching of Dwight Smith to challenge her to have a burden for the lost. As a result she invited a big tall teen to one of the War nights. He came and got saved!
Also, a Christian school student in the school got saved on the last night. He said, “I have been fighting it all week. I know what I need to do.”
The Lord also worked in the hearts of many students. A young man in the school responded to the invitation and told his team captain several things with which he was struggling. However, he later mentioned to the captain that there was one thing he left out because he was unwilling to deal with it. The team captain tried to talk to him about it but said he was not ready to talk. On Friday the team captain preached his team meetings. This young man did not respond, but afterwards came to where the team captain was and said he was ready to deal with it. The issue was going to entail is getting right with several authorities in his life.
There were several testimonies on Friday night. Each one was a blessing. A few of them are following:
“My grandma gave me this book a couple of weeks ago. It had some things in there I shouldn’t be reading, but I couldn’t let go of it. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it, but tonight I just want to come up here and…just get rid of the book.” At that point, he threw the book into the campfire!
Another young man threw a bunch of DVDs into the campfire while he gave his testimony. Here is part of what he said. “This whole week really opened my eyes to how much music and movies control my life. Music . . . is like a drug to me. I need it. I want it. I have to have it. And God’s tellin’ me that I don’t need that. I need Him, not music. . . All my 2000 songs I have on my phone are gone. My iPod and all that is gone. I’m replacing it with, you know, gospel music. And that’s just the music part of it. Now these movies, though…these things are really evil. They say drugs are good….They say cussing’s good….They say sex is good before marriage….It’s all evil! It’s controlled my life. Not today! The Lord is my Savior. The Lord forgives all these sins….They’re gone (in the fire) and they’re stayin’ gone! I don’t want none of it anymore. I don’t want it in this school. I don’t want it in my life. It’s gone! I want it gone from all of your lives, too. It controls you. . . This school’s a Christian school. I came from public school. This is just like a public school. All we have is a Bible class! Doesn’t change anything! [Let’s] Change what we see, what we think, what we watch, what we do, what we drink, what we put into us. We’re Christians. We’re different. Now let’s show the world that we’re different.”
“For the past couple of years I’ve been a really fake Christian. Like outside of school, you wouldn’t know if I was saved. . . And this week I realized that God cares for all of us so much and us just pushing Him away and thinking that the world can help us because it has so much to offer. But I was SO wrong. And it didn’t help because I had such horrible bitterness towards my parents because I thought I was on a tight leash and that they never trusted me and so I would hide things behind my parents’ back. But guys, that’s not going to help because if you get caught, it’s way worse than if you just admit it and come out straight. And I’ve had a bad relationship with my parents. And…um…I’m getting that fixed right now. So, just don’t be a fake Christian. Don’t hide bitterness. Just let God take control of it and He’ll help you.”
Well, the week was a blessing and we look forward to being back at Faith, Lord willing, in 2019. It will be here before you know it!
About the Author
