Pastor Rick Odum and Bryant Griffits are two men who greatly desire to see lasting fruit at Hardison Baptist Church. Their burden and willingness to sacrifice and to work hard were an encouragement to our team while we were there.
God has been graciously teaching our team how to pray. We would meet together every day and spend an extended time of prayer, but sometimes our times would be less than dynamic. During our first prayer meeting in Byron, God lifted our hearts with confidence using the concept of the open door. We knew that God had set before us an open door there in Byron!
From the start after that prayer meeting, recruiting was like picking apples off of a tree. The guys were able to get into JROTC classrooms all day long. During one of their breaks, a woman approached them asking about The War. After telling her about it, she said, “I went to that when I was a teen!” She escorted them to the principal, who let them recruit in the lunch room. After school, they were able to board two busses and recruit the entire bus! Needless to say, it was evident that God was opening doors left and right.
During the War nights, even though our crowd was not significantly large, we had a great response to the invitations. On the first night, a young man named Jonathan came back and talked to me with doubts about “whether it would really work.” I told him, “So, you’re saying God is a liar?” He said, “Wow, that’s kind of harsh,” but immediately realized it was true. A few minutes later, he bowed his head and trusted Christ.
The next morning, he came to Sunday School and got to hear one of our team captains preach. The team captain preached about Elijah and Mount Carmel. During the message, he said the words, “And the fire fell.” After church, he stayed to help the team captains get things ready. At one point during the afternoon, the team captain overheard him standing at the pulpit with his Bible open saying, “And the fire fell!” God was working in his heart about preaching!
Though there were challenges during the week, we had a total of 77 teens attend with a high night of 63. The more exciting statistic, however, was that there were 25 young people who trusted Christ! Pray for Hardison Baptist to fulfill the great commission in mentoring these young people.
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