Greetings Beloved of God! Happy 12/12/24!
Today, I’m writing this in a bit of a hurry. Our team Christmas party/fellowship starts in just a few hours, and I’ve spent the last several hours doing something I would never have guessed I’d be doing today…ministering to one of the main leaders of the Drum Circle.
His name is Mark and he and his girlfriend have had some MAJOR issues lately and he called me asking if I would pray for him.
Here’s the voicemail- https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/xsrq5n0zouj3vtmecfotr/ACADzuKdPLKhMaXUDLD_ctY?rlkey=a31nhew7iag4quyhmeb3xzf97&st=x82agjve&dl=0
I went to his house today and ministered to them for over 2 hours and God moved in a beautiful way. I’m excited to share more about this encounter with everyone tonight!
I’m also excited to share the details of our upcoming Mission Trips tonight, which we now have finalized. Here’s the schedule:
The weekend was really beautiful too. Even though there were not as many people out, God did some great works.
On Friday, a young man who was raised Catholic and never really developed a relationship with God (although he wanted to, but didn’t really know how) came to Sarasota from Port Charlotte for a job interview and went to Bayfront Park after just to check it out. We ended up talking to him for over 30 minutes about how to have a close and personal relationship with Jesus and he ended up praying to receive Jesus, taking our materials and walking away very thankful. His name is Sheevan:
Right after this, we met a man named Donovan, who had just come to Jesus a few days earlier. He told us that his girlfriend broke up with him on Monday, and that night he cried out to Jesus, asked for help, and the next day he woke up feeling great. He was never very close to God, so he was asking God what to do to grow and he ended up at Bayfront Park that night. When he heard me preaching, he was drawn to come over.
We talked to him for well over 30 minutes and he prayed to receive Jesus and began renouncing his idolatry. What was also powerful was that someone had approached him earlier that day and told him that God was going to touch him that day. Shortly after, a lizard crawled onto his hand and literally didn’t leave his body for like 10 hours. Donovan felt like it was a sign from God, and he still had it on his hand when he met us. How wild!
Interestingly the lizard had wounds on his legs that were not fully healed, and I felt like the Lord was saying that Donovan was being given a wounded creature to care for as a sign of how God was caring for him in his woundedness. It really ministered to him when I shared that.
You can see the lizard here.
On Saturday, we had a great service at the retirement home where I shared with a remnant of hungry seniors some truths about the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s a topic that the Lord has been strongly impressing on me lately and one I’ll be sharing more about on Monday at The Front.
That night, at Riverwalk, the park was near empty, but God still moved. Early on, two teenagers came up and asked for water. I talked to them about Jesus for a while and they both told me that they had believers in their family but that they hadn’t ever surrendered to Christ…and that they really didn’t know what that meant.
I shared with them for a while and they both prayed to receive Jesus and took materials. I could tell that we were an answer to their family members prayers, and it was so cool to see God work like that! Here they are:
Then, a little later, some young girls came up and prayed to receive Jesus, and then at the very end Sarath came over with a man about my age whom he saw listening to my message as I was preaching. He told me that he was at the park the previous week and came back to hear us again. He was backslidden and is a father of 7 kids. He encountered God and began crying and repenting right there at the park. So amazing to see.
It was also great to have our friend Karina with us that night to sing Christmas songs. Here’s one clip that also shows you how sparse the crowd was:
On Sunday, we got to sow into lots of people and got to pray for a handful of people too. Here’s a few pics of people coming up:
It was also cool to meet a brother from Detroit who did some fire Christian rap. Here’s one clip:
BIG thanks to the remnant who came out to serve this past weekend- Amber, Laney, Thom, Mike M, Mike V, Mike F, Karina, David, Chuck, Debbie, Karson and Sarath. Great work everyone!
Hope to see you again soon! Love and blessings!
Chris, Sofiya and Natalie