We ate lunch with the Silvio and his family on the last Saturday of the crusade. As we finished up, his wife told us that they had made decisions during a home visit on a similar crusade in 1987. They are both active members in the church now.
On Saturday, before the Guapimirim crusade started, Pastor Edimar told me that he had been back to Getulio Vargas recently. He said they had a lot of youth and he said it with emphasis. We were there in 1993 and 1994. A group from Coulter Road worked in that same area in 1998. I remember the children, they ranged in age from 6 to 12 years old. We usually had 6-8 kids with us on EACH visit. Imagine three teams and 6-8 kids on each of those teams. Most of the time, the kids were well behaved. However, there were times when they were a little disruptive, but we didn't discourage them from participating. A ten-year old kid in 1994 would be 18 in 2002 - so, I do imagine that they have a fairly strong youth program in that church because there WERE A LOT OF KIDS.
Roseangela's testimony is that in 1999, someone gave her a gospel tract. She was a practicing spiritist - her entire family is involved in spiritist worship. She ridiculed the person that gave her the tract but in less than a week, she was searching for an open church - she wanted the God described in the gospel tract. God's word is powerful - if all you can do is pass out tracts, then God can use you.
Yes, it is the same person. We had just finished up a visit in 1999 and taken a photo. Juliana has a concerned look on her face. In just a few minutes after the picture on the left was taken, we were at the church and she was inviting Jesus into her life. The picture on the right was taken this year - 3 years later - she was my interpreter for the week.
Yes, I believe that these crusades work... They do have longlasting effects.
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