March opened with our team in Greer, SC at Calvary Baptist Church. We have come to love and appreciate Pastor Nathan Thomas and his staff. The Lord gave us a wonderful week, and we had some record attendance. There were 135 different teens who came to the rally nights with a high night of 107.

Brendan, the Seal team captain, invited three guys in the park. They came each night, and the second night, all three took Jesus as their Savior! 

One young man in school was struggling with anger and bitterness. He felt like he had no relationship with God and actually had gone through a time of believing that God wasn’t real. Throughout the week, God became real to Him, and he committed to deal with his anger problems. Another young man was honest about some areas of sin in his own life but also had vision to help other guys in his school. He started an accountability group and led out in the guys’ prayer meeting. 

A young lady was struggling with what others had said about her. She decided that she was going to embrace truth from God’s Word and shared in a testimony: 

“I want to talk about hating yourself because that’s what I did for like all my years about my height because…a lot of people said…that I am too short to do anything….If there’s something you don’t like about yourself just… know that God has a purpose for you.”

One young person shared about a hard circumstance that they had blamed themself for and had not been able to let go until this week when they chose to forgive. 

“I thought that it was my fault and that people couldn’t love me; it made me not trust people, it made me just hate myself…I realized that this week that I never forgave…and that the devil will use that against you and that he will keep bringing up the bad memories over and over again and make you relive it, so you have to just shut it out, you’ve got to trust the Lord more to help you and help you realize that one day that’s all going to be gone… whenever you go to Heaven that the Lord will take away your pain and you won’t have to remember it anymore….But this week the counselors have made me realize that I need to forgive…so [if] you feel alone…just know that Jesus loves you.” 

Another young man was struggling throughout the week. He finally opened up at the end of the week and admitted to struggling with bitterness: 

“…I had a lot of bitterness towards my parents; I didn’t know why they would do that to kids like this, and so, for a while… I didn’t want to forgive them but on Wednesday… I saw that I need to get closer to God…and this morning I finally realized that I need to forgive my parents. So, after this morning I forgave my dad and my mom and it feels so much better.” 

Below are a couple other testimonies that are a blessing: 

“I’ve pretended…that I…was a Christian but [knew] down deep that I was not…. But when I came here two nights ago…it really moved me!… I didn’t realize you’ve just got to call out to Him and when you call out to Him…He will take you and put you in His hands. So, if anybody here is dealing with any issues, please go to God! He saved me, and He can save you too.”

“When I started coming to Calvary, I decided just to hide the pain and put on a happy, fake smile, so to say; and this week God has shown me that I should depend on Him for my happiness and allow Him to be my Guide and my Father. I can say that I’ve forgiven…and I just also want you to know that if you’ve been hurt like I’ve been hurt, God loves you and He can be your Father also. If you turn to Him, He won’t reject you.”