Better Life Conference
14 people gave their lives to Christ. Today is the day after our third annual Better Life Conference. Every year we hold this event to bring the Gospel to our unsaved friends and family of La Viña, especially the many Kidz XL families that are so much a part of who and where we are. Things went well but didn’t go exactly as I planned but that’s okay…14 people gave their lives to Christ! Here are some of their stories:
“I’ve been thinking for a long time that I needed to do this [give my life to Christ]. Today, it just made sense and I didn’t need to wait anymore. I’m glad I did.” Adrian and his friend Natalie became Christians Friday night.
“My dad raised us to hate religion. But, he was a very mean man. So, I’ve decided to see what this is all about. He was wrong and I believe now.” Jordan gave His life to Christ on Friday
“Yes I did.” Miriam’s response to when I asked her if she prayed with me to give her life to Christ.
Summer is winding down…finally!
The last five weeks have been crazy for me. The third week of June, I spent a whole week training at my new part time job as a rural mail carrier. I’ll only be delivering once or twice a week but my supervisor is a believer, it pays well and is totally flexible with my schedule. The end of June found me away for a week at the EFCA Leadership Conference. It was a great time. Great message from Bryan Loritts. Check it out here: http://stream.efca.org/general/conf_11_byran_loritts.mp3. Great time playing music with Bobby Simmons and Free Church friends, dinner with Steve Sammons, speaking at Brent’s college group, Padre game with David Smith, La Jolla cove with Bobby and Glen Schrieber, meeting with EFCA Board of Director friends and, most of all, quality time with my mom and dad. The first week of July started off with a great day of church with a fun day with my family, Morgan, Jace Hunter and the “young” Hurtado family watching and dancing to Robert Vicens “Blue Brothers” band at a fireworks show in Miami Lakes. The rest of week was focused on being in charge at Kidz XL as I wanted to give Nic a little break by running the camp for him that week. For those of you who remember Jr. Camp, it was a 9am – 3pm version that was whole lotta fun! The following Sunday, we had church and a baptism at the beach. I think this might be an annual event that, like last year, ended up being an amazing time of encouragement and church family time as we celebrated the spiritual birthdays of 13 people who were baptized in Key Biscayne. My monthly trip to New Orleans for Gateway was canceled and a project with Miramar Free Church was postponed giving me a little break the next week but still ended up delivering mail three days that week in addition to catching up on a ton of Gateway and church stuff. Last week, we hosted a group from Jeff Jensen’s Free Church in Geneva, Nebraska for our first Miami X. Great time being with them for devotions in the morning and sharing Christ in South Beach late Wednesday. They were a huge help with Kidz XL and in Homestead with Pastor Mike Babst and the Radiant Christian Community church plant. They led the Friday Better Life Conference “Crazy Kidz Night” with the K-5th graders and led two children to Christ! The Better Life Conference was a full three days that included two days of me delivering mail on two of those days. I ended up losing my voice but had enough to give the Gospel on Friday and preach a message on Sunday. These past five weeks make me appreciate Sarah and her support even more through these seasons. She has always championed the crazy things and seasons that God has called us to. I have no regrets about anything in the past five weeks. There were so many glorious moments that I would never trade for anything. 13 people were baptized. Most of all, 14 people gave their lives to Christ. I’m tired but never too tired to treasure the joy of seeing God at work in my life and in the people I love and seeing the eternal destinies of people’s lives being permanently turned to God through my church and my life.
What’s next?
- Well, again, I’m going to try and blog more regularly…hopefully weekly. But, we’ll see…
- Getting ready to send Hudson to La Viña’s first summer servants. But, that’s kind of misleading since I feel like we’ve been living Summer Servants since we moved here in 2004. After that, a long road trip to take Hannah and Matthew to school in Chicago, visit Kela on the way and visit Mark on the way back.
- Gearing up La Viña for a fall focused on getting our people in groups intentionally focused developing their foundation to spiritual maturity.
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