Our final week took us to the desert of Arizona where the cacti and prickly pear grow in abundance. This region is a big ball’s nightmare. However, we were not going because of a 4 foot ball; we went because there were souls to be reached. The Pastor, David Stertzbach, is no stranger to The War. In fact, he hosted one of the first rallies of its kind at his church in Shannon, IL several decades ago. God blessed then, and this visit was no exception.
We met at a local elementary school for our rallies. There were certainly challenges to this setup, but it also had its perks. One of the challenges was that we only had the facility for a short duration of time before and after the competitions. Because of this, we had to set up in 1 hour what would normally take our team two days. The church jumped on board and offered an army of helpers.
Though we had a host of helpers, our first night was a bit of a disappointment. We had a very small crowd and only one saved. We set our faces toward the Lord and sought Him for a breakthrough. We are thankful that God heard our prayers and that our crowd grew every night. The last two nights, we saw 10 young people make salvation decisions for Christ, our total for the week being 11. We praise the Lord for His mercy and grace. He is a God who delivers and will deliver!
For the semester as a whole, we had 8 meetings and 467 teens attend. God blessed and we had 167 teens trust Christ as their Savior. As far as our personal history with The War, that totals 45 meetings, over 3,700 teens who have heard the gospel, and over 1,000 who have trusted Christ in the last three years! To God be the glory!
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