Salvations!
Thank you to everyone who has sewn into us and furthering the Kingdom!
Returning to Tanzania was amazing! I have gotten to experience God do incredible things in the people there; thousands chose Jesus, lives were changed, and people were delivered and physically healed. 94 evangelists, including myself, hit the ground and spread out over 5 cities in Tanzania.
Each city’s team did over 60 outreaches in the first two weeks, preaching the Gospel to children, in markets, and anywhere else we could draw a crowd. Altogether, our class did over 1200 outreaches in just those first two weeks. I and 25 other evangelists were located in the southern city of Mbeya, and we saw over 73,000 decisions for Christ. Mbeya will be forever changed!
After those first two weeks, a majority of our class met in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital city, and did one-on-one outreach. It is an area heavily influenced by Islam, but we still saw many decisions for Christ. My friend Dave and I personally saw 28 people respond through one-on-one outreach in those last few days.Altogether, our teams saw over 315,000 decisions for Christ across Tanzania in just under 3 weeks.
A Few Stories
I want to report some stories to you all about the things that impacted me most while I was in Tanzania. I am sure they will impact you all as well.
The most impactful part of this trip for me was the Kids Crusades. The kids were so much fun to see and spend time with. Once they received Jesus they lit up like glowing light bulbs. It was so incredible to see their faces. There were times in our services where we would see hundreds of kids receive Jesus. When we would hold the kids crusades our team of five would each play a role. It would start by one of us doing an introduction, the next person would preach a salvation message, and the next one would teach about the Holy Spirit and see those who received Jesus also receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The fourth person would teach them about how all of heaven rejoices when people decide to follow Jesus, and the last person would meet with the leadership of the community, giving them discipleship materials, and helping them to understand more clearly the great opportunity they had to help these children follow Jesus. Every outreach we would just keep cycling through roles, so we all had experience in each area. It was so moving to see kids of all ages and walks make a decision for Jesus. We even had many leaders in the community make decisions for Christ during our kids crusades. In one crusade a Muslim teacher even challenged her students for talking while we spoke and made them stop to listen to us. She was great! These were some of my favorite memories.
One other story I will tell you now is about a woman who we met through a marketplace outreach. We had gathered a crowd and were praying for the sick. A girl came up to us and asked us if we could come to her house and pray for her mother who had been in bed since January. We went, and after praying for her, she was able to get out of bed and walk across her house. In was amazing! It’s not the only time something like this happened either. When groups gathered and we prayed for the sick, there were several times when a person would ask us to pray for someone at their house. We went when we could, and God did amazing things! It was so incredible to see people who couldn’t get up 10 minutes before, but after prayer, could walk outside and sit on their stoop and talk while we prayed for more people. Having seen the state they were in, and then to be restored is so awesome!
Next Steps
Now that bootcamp is over, Katherine and I have several opportunities to serve and continue to see a harvest. We have joined the launch team of Nations Church whose focus is to bring Christ to the nations and to our local neighborhoods. It will also be a home and support for those who feel called to evangelism. Katherine is interning with the hospitality team and serves with the Next-Gen kids ministry. I am interning as well with Next-Gen and find that I really love teaching and working with kids! I also have an opportunity to serve along side the new Evangelism Director of Nations Church, Scott McNamara. Scott is a very effective one-to-one evangelist and also great at getting people in the church after their decision to follow Jesus. He has a ministry called “Jesus at the Door” and has personally led thousands to Christ, while creating a way for them to become part of a church family and be discipled. He has often traveled, helping churches learn to be effective at reaching the lost and getting them into a church community. He is now going to be on staff at Nations Church. (The church doesn’t officially launched until August, but we have worship and intercession every Sunday along with a full kids ministry)
I also have an opportunity to go back to Tanzania, Congo, or Uganda in July to do more Kids Crusades, and again in October or November. Katherine and I have been given an opportunity to make this a lifestyle with CfaN. We are overjoyed at the ability to travel with such amazing people, to see Christ glorified, the harvest reaped, and the Gospel change lives.
We are asking the Lord to help us raise the money for this next trip. It costs about $5500-$6000 to cover plane tickets, hotels, food, travel, translators, and rental of equipment that allows for us to be effective on the ground. You may think that is a lot of money, but the reality is that a two person team has an opportunity to see well over 35,000 decisions for Jesus in just 4 weeks. It will not just be a team of two though. Doors are opening quickly and we are believing to have over 25 two-person-teams that push hard to share Jesus. Thats a lot of people saying yes to the Gospel! The Lord is blessing the harvest!
I want to encourage you. Perhaps you are reading this and you say ‘I want to be apart of this harvest.’ You can be! Don’t be afraid of what God has asked you to do. Maybe he is asking you to do something like sign up for this Evangelism Bootcamp. Perhaps he is calling you to give.
You may not have the same calling as me, but the Bible teaches us to run our race well, and we all need each other to accomplish what God is asking. Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples…”that is the call I have heard. Maybe you are like me and you hear God say go, but I don’t know what to do. I would encourage you to sign up for Bootcamp and see what God does. We stepped out and had no idea what it would look like, but we made it through and now God is expanding our vision for the end time harvest and what could be possible.
I honestly feel like Peter getting out of the boat by coming down here with a big family and committing to stay. I would like to ask you all to pray for us. We couldn’t have gotten here without all of you encouraging us and partnering with us though prayer and finances. I know God is going to bless you all because of your sacrifice of time in prayer and financial offering.
We love you all and would love to pray with you about what is going on with you. If you have any prayer requests please take time to email us and we will pray. Our prayer requests will be on the side of this page. We love you and thank you again. This is only the beginning!
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