This title comes from the Book of Acts.  As you read Acts you find two thousand,
then five thousand, then so many were saved they stopped counting and report
that multitudes were saved as they heard the Gospel.  Well, that  became our
experience once we began bus ministry at Phoenix First Assembly of God under
Pastor Tommy Barnett.
     Sally, and I were serving as houseparents to nine rambunctious Indian teens at
the Laveen Indian Youth Community.  We had regular staff devotions, and
Tommy Barnett came as a guest devotion leader.  I was immediately impressed
with the love for the lost that overflowed from pastor Barnett, so when Phoenix
First Assembly hosted Arthur Blesset, whom we had seen on TV carrying a cross
around the world, we attended.  The vision of that church was so powerful that
Sally and I soon became regular attendees.   Because Sally was carrying Hiram it
became increasingly difficult for her to continue her duties as houseparent.  We
resigned as houseparents and I took a teaching position with the Glendale school
system.   That is another story in itself!
     We had heard much about the Saturday Soul Winning Society and decided to
check it out.  God surely had a hand in this because I just happened to have a
chauffeurs license and was "drafted" to drive a bus for a sixteen year old girl bus
minister in the Chicano section of town.  That experience so touched Sally and I
that we decided to begin a route on Sundays in Glendale.   The next Sunday
morning Pastor Barnett brought Sally and me to the front  (of about 1400
attendees) and announced we were starting a bus route in Glendale and for
anyone with any "leads" to help us get started so see us after service.  After
service a grandmother who lived on the other side of the valley came to ask us to
pick up her grand daughter.  Amy was our first rider, and her friend down the
street, Amanda, was our second.  Each Saturday Sally and I would take Leia and
Children's Church fliers and go out to visit and recruit new riders to Children's
Church.  Within a few months our bus was filling.  We named our bus route The
Glendale Gospel Giants, and soon were competing for the largest ridership of the
thirty routes.  Then there was the GIANT EASTER EGG HUNT!
     Each year Phoenix First Assembly hosts the world's largest Easter egg hunt on
Palm Sunday.  The way they work it is to rent almost every available bus in the
city, fill them up, take the children to a stadium where the Easter message is
presented in children's fashion, and the children are given the opportunity to give
their hearts to Christ.  Then they are bussed to a city park close to where they are
picked up for a huge candy hunt.  How Sally and I filled nine busses with over
four hundred and fifty children and adults is another story of God's enabling
power!   But something went wrong!  One of our busses broke down and did not
make it to the stadium!  When Sally and I arrived at the park to coordinate the
candy "hiding" there was the bus waiting.  Amidst the confusion and excitement I
felt the spirit speak to my heart that these children had not had the opportunity to
hear the Gospel message.  Knowing that in just a few minutes we would have
eight busses full of children arriving I climbed aboard and in about five minutes
"preached" the good news of God's love and Christ's sacrifice.  I then asked that
bus of sixty kids and a few adults to raise their hands if they wanted to invite
Jesus as Lord and Savior.  As I raised my head from prayer I saw every hand
raised!  It was precisely at that time that once again I heard that quiet voice
speaking to my heart, "This is what I called you to do."
     Hiram was born on Good Friday.  We took him to church and dedicated him
Easter Sunday.  Pastor Barnett said he was the youngest baby he had ever
dedicated.
     Well, we eventually made top bus route, and one Sunday even had ninety on a
sixty passenger bus, which caused us to expand an add another bus and driver.
I could take several more pages describing all the times we saw the hand of God
at work in Phoenix.  But we felt God telling us to take what we had learned back
to our home church in Lawrenceburg, so we did.  Before leaving I was able to get
a great deal on a used bus at another church.  We loaded it with our belongings
and took it to Tennessee.  In a short time we had a children's church and bus
ministry that saw children saved every Sunday, like in Phoenix.  To accommodate
the children we had to knock out a wall between two Sunday School classrooms
and then even build bleachers for all the kids.  We sometimes had upwards of
ninety kids in a room the size of one of CCE's classrooms!
     You might think that is the end of this month's letter, but it isn't.  You see, Tommy
Barnett holds a pastor's school each year in Phoenix, and abut three years after
leaving we decided to visit our family in Phoenix and attend Pastor's school.
Sally and I decided to visit children's church to see if we could gain any new
ideas.  At the end, children were lined up to get tickets for a contest being held.
There were two lines, one for bus kids, and one for others.  As we looked in the
lines who did we see, but Amanda, Amy's friend, the second kid to ride our bus,
and she was in the wrong line.  I went up and she gave me a big hug and I told
her she was in the wrong line, she needed to get in the bus line.  If I live to be a
hundred, I'll never forget how Amanda looked up to me, eyes full of love and joy
and said, "Mom and Dad came to church with me and got saved, and now I come
with them."  Even today, as I write this, I find I am overcome with tears of joy as I
was then.
     As a Christian I have no greater joy than to see one who was lost, child or adult,
come to know The Savior.  My hope and prayer is that you will know that joy.

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