Rudy Shepard is a wonderful man of God who planted Peace Baptist Church many years ago. His Youth Pastor, Donny Ramsey, is a godly man with a burden to reach teens with the gospel. The War was last at Peace Baptist Church back in 1992 with Jim Van Gelderen. They had a wonderful week at the time and many were saved. Our team was anticipating a wonderful week as well.
When we arrived, however, we found ourselves up against the biggest annual festival in Wilmington—the Azalea Festival. Yet in spite of this difficult obstacle, we purposed to believe that the fields were white, the harvest plenteous, and that God would save souls! Our recruiting was not easy, however. The team captains had to work for every recruit they got. When the night events arrived, God delivered and over the course of the three nights we had 77 teens attend our competitions with a high night of 50.
Each night, souls were saved. The first night, a young man came back concerned about where he would go for eternity. He spoke to a counselor about salvation, but insisted that he had already accepted Christ in fourth grade. The counselor had a sense that he was not truly saved, but did not know how to help him, so he asked me to help. I sat down and asked the young man more questions. It turned out that the young man was trusting Christ to help him be a better person so that God would let him into heaven. Once I showed him that he had a split-dependence between Jesus and himself, the young man bowed his head and trusted Christ alone! Another young man trusted Christ the first night and immediately followed in obedience to the Lord with believer’s baptism on Sunday morning. The third night, during the invitation time, several young people raised their hands that they were concerned about where they would spend eternity, but some of them didn’t respond in the invitation. Afterward, one of the team captains confronted one young man about his soul. Before long, the teen bowed his head outside the fellowship hall and trusted Christ. I confronted a young lady about what God did in her heart. She said to me that she was not ready. I asked her why. She told me that she just didn’t know much about Jesus yet. I told her that all she needed to know about Jesus was that he died for her sins and wanted to save her. The girl began to tear up with conviction. I asked her if she’d like to talk to my wife and get the matter settled. She agreed, followed me to the girls’ counseling room, and accepted Christ as her Savior. All in all, nine trusted Christ over the three nights.
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