What a wonderful week at Calvary Baptist Church in Smyrna, GA! Pastor Johnston and Pastor Huggins are two wonderful men who are doing a great work with their church and youth. I have never met a more spiritually-minded group of young people than I met at this place.
We had some definite challenges in the week. None of the schools in the area permitted us to recruit in the lunch rooms. On top of that, we just had some challenges getting the amount of contacts that we like to get in recruiting. Furthermore, we had additional logistical challenges like an off-site field for competitions that could have easily caused problems. Sufficed to say, before our first night of competition, we felt very, very weak. However, God was working behind the scenes and He delivered!
The first night, we had 88 teens attend the events. Things went smoothly throughout the night, team spirit was great, and 10 trusted Christ. The second night, our crowd increased to 112. Again, enthusiasm was tremendous, and 7 more trusted Christ.
The final night, we ran into some challenges with the weather. Rain drove us to compete inside for the first competition and was still coming down in sheets when it was time to go back outside for Tug O’ War over the mud pit. The scene was incredible–a busy highway below a muddy cliff, a strip of land at the top with just enough of a flat for the competition, torrents of rain pouring from the sky, lightning flashing from one corner of the sky to the other, 111 teens tugging on a 2-inch rope trying to pull the other team into a mud pit the consistency of concrete-mix. What a night! More exciting than the competitions, after the preaching, 7 more teens trusted Christ.
Overall, 143 teens attended and 24 of them trusted Jesus to save them during the week. For such a challenging start, God sure did show that He still delights in delivering those who admit that they are weak!
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