As a young student pastor in my first church after seminary, I was excited to take my students on a mission trip to work with another church in our state outside of their cultural white suburban comfort zone. So our student leader team prayed together and I felt led to call a seminary friend who was the Pastor of a new African-American church plant in his hometown of Cordele, GA. He invited us to come and help him do a Vacation Bible School and a Revival. He was trying to reach the families in the public housing area where he had grown up. Many of the people worked very hard in the watermelon fields in season. Cordele is actually the self-proclaimed "Watermelon Capital"! I had called my friend and asked him if he was ready for 25 kids and 5 adults to come help him with his church plant for a week. He said, “Yes,” and told us he had everything planned. When we arrived, he had not secured us a place to stay! This was my rookie minister's mistake for not securing these important details myself (kinda silly of me considering that the internships I had were with guys who were planners and overly prepared). He made a phone call and within a few hours we were putting together army cots at the National Guard Armory in town, where we would stay for the week. He had a connection having served in Desert Storm, and still served in the Guard. We then assumed we needed to figure out how and where to feed our kids, so we sent some of our adults to get breakfast foods, lunch sandwich fixin’s and some easy dinners for three days. Before we began he shared this scripture with us: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”(Isaiah 41:10 NIV) The first evening he had us go to the government apartments to invite kids to the Vacation Bible School the next day. We were received well. My friend said he would greet the people and introduce us as the students from church in Columbus, GA who were here to create a fun VBS week for their kids. I thought we would pray, sing a hymn, and go meet the people face to face, hand out balloons and invitations. The pastor got on top of our van with a speaker and microphone, and introduced us. We smiled and waved. Then an instant later he said he felt moved by the Spirit to start preaching. He began calling out the sins of the people in that community by name. We had never heard that kind of preaching and we were taken aback. The tension, as you can imagine, was growing quickly. As his preaching became more animated and intense the crowds began to surround the van and move angrily toward him, shouting, and encircling us. These were not the face to face interactions we were hoping for when we imagined how this event would go. We were still standing there holding balloons and invitations with fear on our faces, unable to fully understand what was happening. He finished preaching and one of our musically inclined adults began to pray then sing Amazing Grace and our kids and a few neighbors joined in. It was enough to calm everyone a bit. My friend got down from the van and instructed us to leave immediately. However, we had earlier instructed our teens to go door to door and invite the children to our VBS after the pastor had introduced us. Before we could stop him, a wonderful big hearted young man with special needs made it to an apartment and knocked on a screen door and the man angrily said, “go away, NOW!” The student was unable to read the elevated emotions of the situation and he was just doing as he had been instructed. The man became more angry as the student continued with his genuine smile and rehearsed invitation. Fortunately, one of the other students saw what was happening, apologized to the man and grabbed this student and they quickly made their way to the van, just as the angry man emerged from the apartment with a knife. We gathered all the kids and instructed them to immediately get in the van and we left with dust flying before a vigilante force came together.
We arrived at the Armory wide eyed and hungry. The adults who had stayed to cook, had dinner ready and got an ear full. That night, one of the ladies who had done student ministry for many years started an all night prayer vigil that continued each night. She said she would start and pray for 1 hour and wake up the next volunteer, who would pray and wake the next volunteer. I and 4 others volunteered and more joined us each night. We were like prayer vigil-antes. After some dodgy sleep and lots of prayer on a squeaky cot, we woke up each morning to fresh breakfast.
The VBS went well for the few kids that attended. On the last night, Ira held a revival at his church housed in an old warehouse. He preached again, but not as angry this time, and several teens from his community made decisions for Christ. He paired them up with some of our students to lead them through a prayer of repentance and connection with Christ. This was another first time experience for our students. They were scared and somewhat timid, then invigorated and emboldened as the Holy Spirit led them through the experience of talking and praying with those who had just made the decision to belong to Jesus. We ended the week, and came back to Columbus with some stories that the parents would not believe. The students said their faith had been stretched, challenged, and strengthened that week. Oh yeah, the next year's mission to Florida was very well planned, but maybe a little less stretching.
The apostle Paul had stirred up some people with his preaching and they followed him to the next city to cause him trouble. They formed a vigilante group and came after him. Acts 14:19–23 tells us, “Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.” Sometimes our faith journey stretches us and doesn’t look like we thought it would, but God uses it to all accomplish His Gospel plans. BTW Some of those Georgia kids went on to be missionaries, ministers, and teachers of the Gospel of Christ and point to that experience as a significant event in beginning to realize their calling.
Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!