We hit upstate New York at the peak of the changing fall foliage. Chilly mornings, warm afternoons, and one rainy War night made for a great week. Though it was a smaller school, the spirit in the student body was wonderful. The week had its unique challenges, but the student body was very ministry minded. We worked together as a large team to seek God for His will for that week.  

One of the big challenges of the week was recruiting in a college town, but God delivered and we saw many answers to prayer. On Monday, although there was no school, God gave our team some good connections in the community. On Tuesday, Caleb, the Seal team captain, talked to a football team and invited them all out to the War nights. Although the team was excited about the event, they had games or practices every night. Thursday came and there was rain in the forecast. Our team prayed that the rain would cancel the football game and that some of the football players would come to the War night. God answered that prayer and brought out at least two football guys. Caleb talked to one of them after the War night and that young man got saved. 

God used the split sessions on Friday. The three co-captains challenged the girls about insecurity and their need to get to know God. After spending twenty minutes with God, every girl committed to spend twenty minutes with God for the next three weeks. A group of girls were broken over their need for God; they banded together to have prayer meetings every day during their lunch break. Several girls wrote out lies on paper and threw them into the fire on Friday night as they gave testimonies: 

“God has really worked in my life this past week, especially with Pastor Reed’s preaching every day [in] school…God has really shown me that the lies I believe, I need to replace them with truth…I had a list of all the lies I seriously believed and I covered two pages…I know I can’t stop believing them about myself without God’s help and He’s the only one that can switch those to truth.”

“I’ve been struggling with lies Satan has told me. And one of the lies was that everyone’s opinion is [my] worth – that’s just one thing I’ve been really struggling with. But I know that the victory is in God and He has it all worked out.”

Several of the young men in the school got right about hidden sin. Jonathan, the Marine team captain, challenged one young man who got right, to confront his brother on the same issue. God used this young man to help his brother get right about some hidden sin. Here is the testimony he gave on Friday night: 

“So this week has been very helpful for me. I’ve been struggling with some things for a long time…But…through some messages today and days prior I’ve been able to open up to some people about my problems and have some victory in them and continue my walk with God. But, after a sermon, I had a one-on-one talk with one of the team members here, and he encouraged me that the next step I should take should be to open up about my issues and talk to my siblings about it. Because what I was going through I didn’t think anyone else had gone through – I thought I was an odd case, and more and more I’ve realized that it’s a really big, really serious issue. So…earlier today, I talked to my sibling and turns out we were both struggling with the same thing, and now we are able to help keep each other accountable and work through it and stay right with God.”