Dear Christian friends,
Each month we try to include a short teaching in this newsletter, along with our outreach reports. This month, however, we would like to give you a more complete report on what is happening in this ministry, along with a financial report.
Chinese New Year Parade
Saturday February 26
For the past twelve years, we have been witnessing at the Chinese New Year Parade. This is the largest annual event in San Francisco, drawing about 300,000 people. We will begin with a worship rally at the Powell St. BART station at 3 PM. Many of those coming to the parade will arrive at this station and hear the music and preaching. We will witness at the parade from 6-9:30 PM that night. This is an exciting outreach, and we strongly urge you to join us.
San Francisco
On Friday November 26, we witnessed in the Tenderloin. A rap concert at the Warfield Theater featured groups such as “Souls of Mischief” and brought hundreds of people to the area. We were able to preach to the crowd as they entered the theater. We also spoke with a young street person named Larry whom we had witnessed to many times. He said he had committed his life to Christ, had gotten off drugs and alcohol, and had been attending the Vineyard church for the past three weeks! Please pray for Larry.
The next day, Evangel Christian Fellowship in San Jose led a worship rally at the Powell St. BART Station. They also made 100 sandwiches to give to the street people. Their church is really stirred up to witness and they have a regular Friday night outreach in San Jose. They are dedicating 1994 as “the year of evangelism.”
Thirty-five Christians from New Hope Christian Fellowship in Sacramento came down by train and joined us on the streets that day. The area was packed with thousands of Christmas shoppers. Richard Paradise led the Sacramento team and preached. They also sang Christmas carols. Many of them had never witnessed on the streets before. As they were about to leave, two women from Sacramento watched a man respond to an altar call. It was the first person they had witnessed to!
Berkeley
We have been witnessing on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley for the past five years. This street is filled with thousands of people — students, parents with children, and street people. We witness there once or twice monthly on Saturday afternoons. We used to have problems with threats and arrests by police and violence from those who don’t like our message. Today, the only real problem we have is from hecklers. Java “the Hate Man” has been “discipling” others to join him in heckling Christians. When we preach, we sometimes have three or four hecklers mocking the message and making it very difficult to minister to people. Normally, we only have four or five Christians there and we spend much of our energy guarding our equipment.
Knowing that we were getting weary and a bit discouraged, God sent us reinforcements on Saturday December 4. I called a few groups, but did not know if anyone would respond. But that afternoon, teams came from Oakland Teen Challenge, the Richmond Rescue Mission, and Great Expectations Ministries Church. Thirty-five Christians were on the streets witnessing that afternoon! The people who normally heckle us walked by without stopping. We had total freedom to preach and witness and were able to share the gospel with hundreds of people. Please pray that we will be able to continue to bring teams of Christians together to witness in Berkeley.
We continue to get responses in the mail from our gospel tracts. Several responses have come from Berkeley, including a man who works at the bookstore across the street from where we witness! Please pray for Oden. Please pray also for the others who have responded to tracts this past month: Crystal (Sebastopol), Joan (Daly City), Nasim (Berkeley), Maria (Sacramento–age 11), Nellie (San Francisco-age 14), Kitty (San Francisco), Rene (Oakland), Lai (San Francisco), Reginald (SF jail), and Keri and Eugene (San Bruno jail).
Financial Report
Recently, we completed our financial report for our fiscal year, which ends October 31. We want to let you know our financial condition, so you can know where your donations are going. Our donations decreased 17% from last year, which caused the deficit. As you can see, we have a “bare-bones” budget with no rent and very little for salaries.
God is our provider and we are thankful that He has been faithful to meet every need and pay every bill. We are thankful to each of you who prays for us and supports this ministry financially. We do ask that you pray about supporting us monthly or on a one-time basis. Perhaps you could contact your pastor about inviting us to speak about evangelism at your church. Or you could ask your church missions committee to consider putting this ministry on their budget. One need we have this month is for a new computer. Our present computer is five years old, has a short circuit in it, and needs to be replaced with something more reliable.
On Saturday January 22, Bethel Church in San Francisco will lead a worship rally at the Powell St. BART Station from 3-6 PM. Almost 200 persons from their church including their head pastor attended their last rally with us. According to their worship leader, the outreach really stirred up the church in evangelism. They were surprised to see some people they had witnessed to at church on Sunday morning. They are really excited about the January 22 outreach and hope even more of their church will participate. We hope you too will join us and experience the power of God touching thousands of lives.
We are happy to have Eric and Cammie Livingston join our minis try. They moved into an apartment two blocks from us and are participating in all our outreaches as well as helping with setting up the sound system. Cammie is also helping with the office work. Eric was saved 3 1/2 years ago in Berkeley during the SOS outreach. He went to Teen Challenge in Watsonville and the Great Commission Bible School in Oregon. He married Cammie a year ago. Eric loves to witness to people and has a special burden for the young people who follow the “Grateful Dead” rock group like he used to. It is exciting to see someone get saved on the streets, get discipled in the Lord, and return to reach others for Jesus.
Our evangelism house in Oakland is doing well. Paul, Robin, Steve and Scott have been with us for over a year and James joined us right before our SOS outreach this summer. Robin is finishing work on a new bedroom that allows us to have one more person in our house.
Our Tape of the Month is “How to Turn Your Church into a Soul- Winning Church” by Pastor Tommy Barnett of the Phoenix First Assembly of God. This church has grown from 200 to 10,000 through various evangelism ministries. They now have 180 different minis tries in their church–bikers ministries, outreach to people in wheelchairs, AIDS ministry, etc. Every ministry in the church is centered on the winning of souls–singles ministry, women’s ministry, etc. Every pastor, elder and deacon in that church is required to participate in evangelism ministry. They have a pastors’ and leaders’ school on February 7-9. Over 6000 attended last year. Free housing in homes is available. If you are interested in attending, call them at (602) 867-7117.
By the time you get this letter, we should have our dates for SOS-San Francisco 1994. Call us if you need the dates to arrange your summer vacation time. God bless you all. I hope you can join our January 22 outreach.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
