I think it was 14 years ago our team came to Westgate Baptist Church for the first time. Each visit since then has been a blessing. This year was no exception. I believe God was working all week even though there were not a lot of ways to tell. However on the last day, there began to be a responsiveness to what God had been doing. Below are a few things that encouraged our hearts during the week of ministry.

One young man in the Christian school wasn’t really focused during the beginning of the week. On Thursday night, he got up during the invitation crying. He was gloriously saved that night! 

While Zach, the Ranger team captain, was out recruiting, he prayed for one more recruit. A young man came by on a scooter, and Zach was able to recruit him. He came out to the first War night and got saved. The second night, he brought four friends who also got saved. 

Another young man in the Christian school came to a point of surrender in his own life and was willing to speak out and be a leader about what God was doing. He shared in his testimony: 

“I realized this week…how even if it’s just a little bit of self-dependence, you’re not going to get anywhere…. God’s really burdened me to just leave all my self-dependence behind and just to trust in Him—that’s the only way that I know I can move forward spiritually…. Those of you who know me… you’ve known I love politics. Ever since I was little… since the third grade, I’ve wanted to be president of the United States…You know, that’s my personal dream to get into politics and do that, but this week especially, I’ve felt God calling me not to that—to leave that behind, to leave my own desires behind—and, I feel, I don’t know exactly, but I know He’s calling me somewhere to ministry.”

During the Seal team meeting on Thursday afternoon, Stephen preached on God’s love. Several girls indicated at the end of team meeting that they wanted to talk to someone. Rebekah talked to one young lady who opened up about how much she was being hurt by some actions of others. She made the decision to forgive and started claiming verses from God’s Word that spoke about what God thought about her. She also shared in her testimony about what else God had done in her heart: 

“I’ve been struggling with my salvation, and yesterday I got reassurance of it. I’ve just been having a fight with God and keep going to myself and I keep doing the wrong thing and I know that it’s wrong.…But I keep fighting with God….Today, the preaching 0/100—that has really helped me. I just feel like I need to put all of my past behind me, and I know that God is going to give me a new start.”

Below are a couple of other testimonies:

“I’ve been struggling with what other people think about me a lot and…I’ve always worried about… like trying to meet other people’s standards. But God really spoke to me and I learned something today that the only opinion that matters is God’s.” 

“I’ve never… never felt the way I did until now. I felt a burden of pain, like a whole… it felt like a whole hundred pound of rocks on my back the whole time….Today, Dr. Van Gelderen was talking about forgiveness. We was in a room and I…I don’t know what happened but… I kind of felt different….God put a burden on my heart to forgive my father for everything and the pain he put me and my family through. I just want to say thank you, God ,and thank you, Dr. Van Gelderen, for speaking on that. I never thought I was gonna forgive him. And, mentally and physically, I’ve been going through a lot, and this whole week has meant a bunch for me. It opened my eyes to things I never… that I never even thought about. And…it just helped me a lot.”