Last year Titus Thompson traveled on our team. He did a great job! It was great to return to his church and conduct the War of Special Forces there. His dad is the pastor and the church is really growing with people getting saved. We had an encouraging week!

Josiah, the Marine team captain, gave a testimony on Tuesday which opened a lot of opportunities with the young men in the school. One guy he talked to got very open about his purity struggles. Josiah was able to counsel him, and the young man later got some things right with his parents. Here is the testimony he gave on Friday night:

“I was deeply inspired and touched by…Josiah’s [testimony] on…Tuesday. And I just didn’t know that people could have the same, like experience as me for even longer…I was talking to him during lunch today…and he told me that the first step to getting like this off your chest, which felt like a pound of bricks, was telling my mom…This has been an addiction for the past couple years, and I actually just told her before I got here and…if you put your full trust in Jesus Christ, you [too can] get out of that hole.”

There was a girl who responded during the invitation on Wednesday after the message on bitterness was preached, and talked to my wife. The girl really got free from the bitterness and started down the path of believing God to work all things together for good. Here is her testimony:

“This week has just been life changing. Like it made me realize a lot of things that I need to fix in my own life…Jesus died and forgave us of our sins; it made me realize, why shouldn’t I forgive those people [who have hurt me]…I was able to talk to someone about it, and it made me feel a lot better…Now instead of being mad at these people, not forgiving them after the things they did, I’m gonna start praying for them, and I hope they turn to Jesus for themselves.”

Many young people responded during the invitation on Friday. We saw God work in hearts and show young people their need to depend on God to live the Christian life. One young man gave a testimony on Friday night about how God was calling him to preach. He stood up and gave this testimony: 

“This morning’s…preaching really helped me. God’s greater, and you got to surrender to Him. So, I’m surrendering and going into the pastoral field.”

Here are some more testimonies from the week: 

“I would get super mad at my brother super easily. And I was not very kind to him or considerate of what he wanted. I only thought of myself when it came to him. And I asked God, I think it was this morning, I asked God that He would work on me to be able to be kind and considerate [and] that He’d strengthen my relationship with him.”

“Hi I’m not a person that likes to talk to people that much…so it’s really weird that I’m doing this…but this week…I got my salvation settled.”

A couple of weeks after the team left, a student who had gotten saved the week of Special Forces, was baptized. In his video testimony he stated that one of the team member’s testimonies had impacted him and he was able to forgive his dad who walked out of his life. It is great to hear of God’s continued working after the team leaves!