Greetings Fam! Hope you are doing great!
Last time I wrote to you it was just prior to The National Day of Prayer, and what a day that was. I was asked to serve at both the Manatee and the Sarasota gatherings, and they were both amazing.
At the Manatee gathering, 150+ believers met outside the courthouse, and we had a great time of worship and intercession over our region and our nation:
Gene Brown, the Mayor of Bradenton even came, and before he prayed, he shared a message about how he believes that kids should have the right to pray and express thier faith in schools. Can I get an amen!? Here he is:
Rick Wells, the Manatee Sheriff also came and he spoke about the cross of Jesus and prayed for our police officers:
Then, at the Sarasota gathering, about 150+ believers got together for the main service (after 10 different churches had come to pray for 30 minutes each throughout the afternoon), and Kyle Battie, the former Mayor (who will soon be Mayor again), even came and prayed for awakening to reach every neighborhood in Sarasota! I got to talk to him and pray with him after the gathering too, which was awesome.
Here we are below:
It was such a powerful day on so many levels. The coolest part of it for me was knowing that I was participating in something that is so intertwined with our national story. In fact, you could easily make the argument that if it had not been for our forefathers calling days of prayer to seek the face and hand of God…America as we know it wouldn’t even exist.
It was also kind of interesting that I was the only one who was asked to pray at both gatherings. Not sure what that means but it was a blessing for sure. Here’s a little video recap of the two gatherings including the prayer of the Mayor’s:
Super cool also that on the National Day of Prayer, an executive order was signed to establish the “Religious Liberty Commission”:
A few of the things this commission will do are:
You can read the full order here- Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Establishes the Religious Liberty Commission – The White House
It is definitely a good time to be an evangelist in America!
Speaking of that, it was another great weekend on the mission fields. I could only stay briefly on Friday, but I heard the traffic was good and that many good seeds were sown. When I came, I was amazed that the entire parking lot was full, and then I realized that it was because O’Leary’s was open again. We have been praying for that to happen ever since the hurricanes and thank the Lord it is finally happening!
On Saturday, I had a marathon day of ministry. It began at 9am on Coquina Beach, when I got to be part of a mass baptism of nearly 200 people. The event was called “Baptism in the Gulf” and it was a unified effort of many churches, led by a ministry called One Christ Won City.
Pastor Ron Kutinsky of Hope International Ministries is the local coordinator, and he invited me to baptize with him for the second year in a row. It was AWESOME! We baptized about 12-15 people ourselves including three families and the Lord was really touching people in the water. Most of them were being baptized for the first time too, which was amazing. Here’s some pics:
Here’s a video of everyone gathered on the shore before the baptism:
After the baptisms, I went home and rested for a few hours, and then went to Woodland Village, where we had a great Church service. I shared a message on Matthew 18:19 and the power of unified agreement. b
After Woodland, I headed over to Riverwalk and we had a powerful afternoon. It began with a large group of kids coming to the platform to receive prayer…and then they all prayed to receive Jesus. Here’s a video:
It was also great to see our new friend and brother Maxx, (who recently received Jesus at Riverwalk), come to help serve. He even testified about how much the Lord has been doing in his life since we met him and that was so great to hear. Here’s him sharing some of his testimony:
Throughout the night there were other kids and adults getting ministered to also, including this man (Aaron) who was a prodigal for many years and has recently been wanting to come back to God. He prayed with me that night to receive Jesus also.
When I got home that night, I was also super encouraged as I watched some video of the MASSIVE baptism that took place in California, which was amazing:
Read about that here- ‘We’re Getting Baptized!’ 7,752 Declare New Life in Christ, Including Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano | CBN News
The next day, Siesta was PACKED, and although we had a lean crew, God moved. Throughout the night, many people came to the table for gifts and prayer and many people took tracts.
Also, close to 10 people came up to me for prayer throughout the night in response to the preaching, and I prayed with all of them to receive Jesus. It included a catholic couple from New York contemplating marriage, and a family of 5 from Pennsylvania. The young boy in the family was so enammored with my cross that I gave it to him as a gift:
Some young girls also came and sang some worship songs with us which was great, and a man who comes every week for the drum circle (who kind of mocked me when I first started telling him about Jesus) came and testified that he’s been trying to follow God more and is even trying to avoid pornography. I was super encouraged by that!
Another cool thing that happened that night was that there was a police officer that came to the gift table, and he helped us hand out gifts. How amazing that he would want to associate himself with us and the gospel so publicly. and how blessed are we to have the police on our side?! That has always been one of the clearest signs of Gods favor on the work we are doing.
Thank you Lord!
BIG thanks to Thom, Karson, Laney, Sara, Savannah, Debbie, Chuck, Ulys, Emma, Ricardo, Kristina, Chris, Geraldine, Mike V, Gene and Mike M for coming out to serve. Great Kingdom work!
Anyway, that’s all for today. See you again soon!!!
Love and blessings,
CV