She invited him to come to the crusade that night. The next day the man returned for more work. The dentist asked if he had been to the crusade. He replied that he had. “Did you give your heart to Jesus?” the dentist asked. “Yes,” the man replied. “I didn’t want to, I really tried not to, but when the pastor cried, he cried for me.”

Cast Your Burdens Upon Me
Serving the One in No man’s Land

An outreach team member found a man hard at work raking the ground on No Man’s Land using a rake and a bucket. He approached the man and told him to give him the rake and the bucket and he would do the work for him, but the man could keep the pay for the work. The man could not understand why anyone would want to do that, but consented. The outreach team member took the rake and the bucket and began to carry out the work. He raked and hauled buckets of debris beneath the hot sun, sweating and working very hard to get the man’s job done. The man watched him. When he had completed the work, the team member found the man weeping. He could not believe that someone would do that for him. The team member told him that’s what Jesus did and shared the gospel with him. The man gave his heart to the Lord.

Never Despise Small Beginnings
Outreach Team Members Paint Schoolrooms and Leave a Testimony of the Love of God

One of the outreaches arranged for the teams was to paint 4 rooms at a primary school located in Trench Town. On the first day of the outreach, a choir member who is an experienced contractor and painter was asked by the outreach leader to organize the teams working on the painting project. When he arrived at the school he found only five women from the outreach teams had reported to work on painting the school rooms that day. Gingerly, one of these sweet sisters remarked, “Brother, we are so glad that you are here. Can you teach us how to open the cans of paint?” The principal of the school, losing confidence that the project would be accomplished in time, exclaimed “where are the men?!” “Lord,” thought the choir member to himself, “I said I would do whatever you asked me to do,” and set to work organizing his Gideon contingent.

The schoolrooms looked more like a correctional facility than a classroom. He chose a bright yellow and blue to cheer up the rooms and bless the children. The little team gave it their all and by the end of the day had managed to clean and prime the first room for painting. The only problem was, there were three more rooms to paint in only three more days and two of the rooms were extremely large.

The next day more people came and more work was done. Each day upon returning to the hotel, the choir member would hear the testimonies of the other teams with longing. “And here I am painting!” he thought. By the third day some 30 people worked painting the rooms. As we began to paint the blinds of the windows, a neighbor who had witnessed the first day of the outreach came by and looked well pleased with what he saw. The choir member came over to talk with him and within minutes was sharing God’s plan of salvation with him and leading him in the sinner’s prayer! The choir member beamed. By the last day not only were the four rooms fully painted and cleaned, but two additional rooms had been painted. The joy in the children’s faces reminded the choir member never to despise small beginnings. In this desperately poor school, God had used the simple act of painting these classrooms to minister the love of God to the children and the school administration.

Son of David, Have Mercy on Me!
The Mark of Those Who Sincerely Follow Christ

Tonight is the third night of the crusade. The crowd attending the crusade has grown in size and many are returning every night, blessed by the worship and stirred by the word of God. There is an air of anticipation. What will God say today?

After a time of worship, a choir member shared her heart-wrenching testimony of having been raped four times. The first at a very young age, and the last after she was saved. The pain and fear almost led her to take her life. Her words seemed to echo among the women in the crowd. This is one of several testimonies of abuse and rape shared at these meetings and they are reaching these women, many of whom experience sexual and physical abuse as a part of their everyday lives.

Pastor Carter then invited ten other TSC team members to share one minute testimonies. Their stories of abandonment, abuse, drugs, crime, death, loneliness and yearning for love struck a chord with the crowd. The Lord was telling the crowd gathered here, these people come from a place just like yours and see how the power of my love and my blood has changed them!

Pastor Carter gave a message on Bartimeus the blind beggar who cried out to God and was given sight, and used the example of Judas and the Pharisees that not everyone that follows Christ is his disciple. He exhorted the multitude and the church to follow the example of the good Samaritan and reach out to those who were blind and begging, and give them Christ. Hundreds of hands went up when the altar call was given.