Valley Baptist in Edinburg has been a special place since the Lord providentially brought us there in 2003. As a result of Hurricane Isobel in 2003, the team had to relocate and as a result of a cancellation near the coast, we conducted the War of Special Forces at the academy there. I remember that week well. It was a special time! In fact, there was a student who got thoroughly right with the Lord that week and is now serving the Lord as a pastor in Idaho! Since that time we have had several meetings, and each time we are grateful for what the Lord does in hearts. This year was no exception!

Isaac, the Ranger captain, recruited a young man during the festival that was going on that weekend. Although he did not seem extremely interested at the time, he ended up showing up on Wednesday and brought his sister with him. During the invitation, he responded and received assurance of salvation. His sister did not respond during the invitation, but sought out Hannah after the service and said, “I need to go get saved.” She ended up accepting Christ as her Savior that night and even got up and gave a testimony on Friday about what God had done for her.

A young man on the Seal team responded during the final school chapel and said that he had never made a decision of salvation. After taking him through the Gospel, he accepted Christ as his Savior.

A young man from the Seal team raised his hand for salvation during the first school chapel on Monday. However, he was unwilling to respond and later said that he told God “no” again and again throughout the week. However, during the split session he stood up and went to the back to get saved. He later said, 

“I felt like that was my last chance to respond and that if I didn’t respond then, I would not have another opportunity.”

A young man on the Marine team responded to the Gospel message during the Wednesday rally. After talking to Matthew, the Marine team captain, he made a decision of faith and put his trust in Jesus. He continued to be open to God working in his heart and responded during chapel on Thursday and confessed to having viewing issues. He made a decision to tell his parents everything and God gave him the grace to do that after school that day.

One young lady in the Christian school was convicted on Monday about some books that she had. When she went back for counseling with Janna, she lied to Janna about the content of the books. As they were praying, she got convicted, confessed what the books were actually about and said that she wanted to get right with her parents about various lies she had told.

A young man on the Seal team responded on Friday during the invitation. Zeb, the captain of the Seal team talked to him, and he confessed that he had been caught up in viewing issues. He also admitted that God had been working in his heart about the bitterness he had been harboring towards God and others. He went home and made things right with his parents and gave a testimony of freedom on Friday.

A young lady from the Rangers responded to the invitation on Friday morning and opened up that she had been harboring bitterness towards her parents and others. She said that because of her bitterness, she had developed a hatred towards people in her life and would push away the ones who cared about her most. She decided that she could trust God enough to give it all over to Him, and later talked to her parents and asked them to forgive her for the way that she had been responding to them.

“…I felt like people had hurt me and brought me down, and I want them to feel that way. And then, she told me that you should love people and want them to feel the love that God loves you [with] and you should want to help them and make them feel loved like you haven’t felt before.”

A young man on the Marines responded to God’s working on Thursday and came back during the invitation. He confessed that he had been being dishonest to his parents about a number of things, and that one of them was viewing issues. God completely broke him over his sin, and he went home that night and confessed to his parents all that he had been hiding. He later gave a testimony about how freeing it was to know that everything was in the light and had been dealt with. 

One young lady in the Christian school had a lot of hurts from her past. Although she was open, she hadn’t responded all week. Finally on Friday, Matthew was able to ask if he could share his testimony with her. Matthew and Rebekah sat down with the young lady and she opened up about how she was angry at her parents and God for all that had happened. She finally agreed that her bitterness was killing her and she decided she wanted to let it go. She prayed a long and heartfelt prayer telling God her feelings, her hurts, and her desire to trust God. She told Him that she believed He was big enough to work all that had happened in her life for good. She shared in her testimony that night:

“…for the longest time I absolutely hated God, and I was mad at Him for what had happened. I always questioned ‘Why me?’, ‘Why was I put in this position?’, ‘Why did you choose me to be one of the kids that don’t have a mom and dad that don’t choose them and doesn’t love them?’…I finally decided to give it to God, to stop hating Him, to stop hating my parents, because one day God will judge my parents for the mistakes that they made. But, He will also judge me for the way I decided to treat them and go about it.”

Because of this testimony, another girl came back crying on Friday night. She had sat through every message all week, but broke on Friday night wanting to get rid of bitterness towards her dad.

Below are a few other testimonies:

“This Wednesday I got saved. And when he was talking I just felt all of this guilt overcome me….When you think about it, all of the sins that we do, we really deserve to go to hell. But Jesus can change that….when I prayed for Jesus to rescue me I felt all this, it was just a breeze off my shoulders”

“The morning chapel when Brother Van Gelderen was talking about confessing and forsaking your sins and I’m going to be honest with you guys, I was wrestling with God….I didn’t get up out of my seat, but I should have….I was saying ‘well, that was in the past.’ But He was saying, ‘yeah, but you should still get it right.’ And I got right…and I feel much better with that.”

“God was like, ‘You need to get this right or I cannot use you!’.…I struggle with bitterness but I don’t show it. So I have this note, and it was meant for someone that I really didn’t like. But God showed me the light, and He showed me that I didn’t have to be bitter. That I should love my enemies…that I should love those who bring me down and lift others up. I’m going to burn this (the note) in the burn fire.”