Youth Ministry Allnighter

Last night was an "Allnighter" for the Youth Ministry of Quisqueya Chapel. There were 146 on campus, including the leaders. (Some could not stay all night, though.) It was an amazing night. After watching a long film, Q&A time and worship time, most of the kids stood in a long line to be prayed for by not one, but several of the leaders. They went to the first leader, he prayed for them, then they went to the next leader. I think there were 4 leaders praying like this. This took about 2 1/2 - 3 hours! ('til about 2 AM). One amazing thing was that you can get a crowd easily in Haiti among the poor who don't have much to do, but about a third of these kids are not poor (financially) but many are becoming very aware of their needs for God's work in their lives.

After the Q& A time, during worship, I felt that God was prompting me to pray with 3 specific guys--friends of Ricky's. During the first song, I noticed that one of them was praying with his head in his hand instead of singing. I felt pretty strongly I was supposed to pray THEN, so I walked over to where they were and only one was still there. It took me a few minutes to get up the courage to tap him on the shoulder and ask him if he would like to pray together. He had asked some questions about assurance of salvation, so we talked about that. Then we talked about other things and I said the obvious..."if you want to be sure, you can get that straight right now." He said "I guess we should pray." Then to decide who would pray first, he suggested we do "Rock, Paper, Scissors" His scissors could cut my paper, so that meant he prayed first. When we finished, we were both bursting. He said he felt filled with the fruit of the Spirit--filled with joy--like he was smiling soo big! Highlight of my year, I think.

ANOTHER amazing thing about last night was realizing how God has been answering prayers of mine from last year. Some of you have been praying for these things too. I prayed that Ricky would not fight us too much about going to Youth, that he would want to go and that his friends would come. Last year none of his closest friends were attending. As I looked around last night, I realized that in the past month almost all of his close friends have been at Youth or at least this Allnighter. And mostly they are showing interest in the things of the Lord. Another prayer was for a young Christian man who is strong in his faith to mentor Ricky and his friends. There were specific men I prayed about who have taught at our school. One of them was supposed to return to California and stay there, but God brought him back to be the main leader of the Youth Ministry (Marc). Ricky and his friends have Marc for Algebra, they get to talk to him at break, lunch, after school and at Youth. And when I was talking with Kevin (above) he mentioned that Marc has had a huge influence on all of them. I hadn't noticed how God was working...Now I thank Him for it!