A Healing Crusade Stirs Faith in San Antonio — Fall 2005

On the average we see 25 people saved monthly. We are also baptizing San Antonio church

By Pastor Richard Rubi

All of us followed the terrible news of Hurricane Katri- ‘ ...some of na’s destruction of the Gulf coast. The flood- said it was ing of New Orleans in their liv and the many people person ha who were stranded there particularly moved the nation. Like many churches we prayed for those effected by the disaster, never realizing how directly God would answer our prayers. By the end of the week 11,000 evacuees ended up here in San Antonio, most of them in shelters within five miles of our church.

On Friday night a van load of people in our church bearing emergency supplies showed up as volunteers to gain access to the largest shelter (approximately 4,000 people) and began ministering the gospel to people who had spent the previous night in the Louisiana Superdome. The shelter consisted of four large open rooms each with more than 1,000 cots. Most of the people were concerned about family members that had become around 25 believers quarterly. We thank God for this harvest of souls, and recognize the need for an active follow up ministry. New believers need i special attention and a val few faithful saints are personally catching this burden and stepping up to the plate to be active in follow up. It’s easy to pray with someone, but we need to have the “Good Samaritan” spirit to care and sacrifice for new converts.

In July several South Texas churches partnered with us to send an invasion team of 50 saints on a 12 day charted bus to Fresno and San Francisco, California to support our pioneer pastors, Lawrence Herstein and Bobby Rugnao. The team spent most of their time outreaching these cities and holding Miracle Healing Crusades with Pastor Joe Moreno. Many souls were saved and healed. In addition a fellowship vih reaches out to hurrica separated from them and the fear that they may not have survived. Desperate the evacuees people have s the first time open hearts , and many ves that a white prayed to be ad served them! saved. Unlike the media reports, everyone we spoke with bore no ill will towards the government, in fact, they were grateful for the help they had received. One young man told me he thought that it took something this enormous to break the inner city cycle of destruction many of these people had become trapped in.

That Sunday we had 60 people in San Antonio ch our morning service Many received from New Orleans with about 45 giving their life to Jesus. Afterwards, we had a dinner for them. Some of the evacuees sion and spirit of evangelism was imparted into these young works. On the way back the team visited the church in Las Vegas, Nevada with Pastor Duane Rens and boldly preached on the main strip in “Sin City.” The saints came back excited and stirred with a fresh vision to reach the lost.

During our summer months we dedicate more time to street evangelism. On Monday nights we outreach a prominent city park with music and movies. Hundreds of people come to this park to jog, walk and relax. On Friday nights we outreach our local neighborhoods and invite people to our Saturday Night “Drive- Inn Theater” that we set up in our church parking lot. These outreaches have proven to be successful tools of evangelism.

A good sign of growth is babies and weddings. We recently dedicated 18 babies and have had several weddings with more scheduled in the coming months! ane Katrina victims said it was the first time in their lives that a white person had served them! Since that day we have never had a service where we have had less than 10 Katrina victims with some of them having made solid hurch serves dinner to hurricane victim d Jesus and are now attending church. decisions to serve God. Please pray for us as we respond to this open door.