Series has Ended

            Joseph Cruz a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Father.

    Greetings my brethren that are spread out in the land of California. May God continue to bless you as you campaign for His Kingdom that will last for eternity. I, your brother in the faith bring good tidings from the city of Madera... (I've been listening to Word of Promise) Revelation.

I am blessed. God is so incredible it brings me to tears when I listen to chapter 1.

"To Him who washed us from our sins in His own blood." -Rev. 1:5
"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." -Ps. 32:1
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."-Heb. 8:12



I am blessed.

We had a list of 22 people we have started following up with 9 of which we are working to prepare them for the baptismal waters.
The photo here shows Dale Leamon a retired pastor and our evangelist facing a very special and particular group. At the Madera SDA Fellowship we have a Deaf Group! and over the course of the meeting we found a way to work around not having a translator present, because that wasn't always available. We used Apple's "Messages" to transcript the whole talk. They loved it because it was available for those who weren't able to make it, and so they could study it later. It was shocking to us when they asked to keep the transcription even with the translator present.

Our original translator Rosanda had planned to stay with us throughout the series. But cause of some unexpected emergencies she was unable to help from the 3 meeting on. We were in some what of a panic trying to get someone to translate for us. Pastor Dean had made friends with a translator in the past. Her name was Jane, she was fresh from the sign language school and the group could sense it. They would help her with a word or two she didn't know. Later she told us, "I had never heard things like this!, or seen young people so on fire." She was from a Russian Orthodox church. In A later encounter she told us her story about how she came to know and love the Lord.

               She had been raised as many are going to church but she didn't understand anything, because it was all in Russian and she was from Ukraine. At first it was because her parents asked them to go, but she witness one day in her mid-teens that Jesus was real and he wanted to have a relationship with her. Since then she has gone on several mission trips, and dedicated her life to a group of people that are virtually over-looked. She said "school is hard, but my father told me that nothing worth living for is easy." So she kept going and now she is working with a company that sends her anywhere she is needed.

               As she finished Joey and I began to transition into what we do. We told her about YouthRush; about what we do and the beauty and joy it brings, not just us but the people as well. Testimony after testimony, we saw her eyes light up and her jaw slightly drop as we described the the reactions of people who needed those books. We told her we were just 2 of thousands of young people who have stories of their own. We left her with a magazine style Peace Above the Storm, and Great Controversy. We told her these are some samples of what we share. As we walked her out an hour after the meeting had ended, we told her to really consider trying the program. She said she would.

Please pray for our up coming baptisms and for the candidates we are preparing, for our deaf group that will be having a deaf evangelistic series this month, and for Jane.

May God Bless each and everyone of you.