Isn't God great?!

Well I apologise for the delay in getting to write this post, a lot has been going on, most notably staff conference and the Thanksgiving holiday...BUT let me begin by going back to the Andre Kole outreach!

What a night! I was really excited about the mind bending illusions and magic and I had heard many times on the great impact that Andre Kole has had with his ministry but i wasn't prepared for the event by any means! Here is a photo from a good 45 minutes before the show started...

Come show time there were well over 3,000 people in Millett Hall...easily the biggest crowd for a Crusade outreach at Miami ever! The show itself was awesome, Andre Kole stepping through a woman's body, making the Statue of Liberty disappear, changing a man into a woman, levitating 6ft above the stage, doing improbable things in a tnet whilst tied up in a strait jacket pose, illusion after illusion which blew your mind! Towards the end of the show he slowed down and spent 20 minutes presenting the gospel and using tricks as illustrations, he based his presentation out of the signs that Jesus promises that will signify the end of the age. It was a great presentation which was only made better by the results of his bold and clear presentation...

FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN PEOPLE TRUSTED CHRIST, yes that was 413!

I was humbled and blown away by what God did, I wasn't prepared in any way fo the results, I mean what we see a handful of people trust Christ at events every now and again...no one EVER sees 413 people trust Christ at the same time. Well actually they do and God used the event to teach me a lesson about prayer and trusting his providence over the lives of lost people!

Here is a photo of Andre Kole (I was going to say the star of the show but that was God!) and Matt Welty, the student who headed up the organising team for the event and a magician himself!

The next job is to get busy on the follow up!

Ever since the event I have been away out of town. I had a great weekend in Indianapolis at the Great Lakes regional staff conference. I felt so refreshed, the teaching was on the concept of Jesus being "Greater than..." which was so helpful, the three talks were basically that he is greater than our situations, our sufferings and ourselves. Awesome.

I came back and headed up to Columbus for a couple of days visiting with people and then came back to Oxford for Thanksgiving. I was invited by my good friends Scott and Kristen to go with them to Kristen's family which was so much fun...my first genuine American Thanksgiving! I ate a lot, watched TV (including the movie 'Cars' which is great), threw a football around and spent plenty of time talking! A great day and experience...I am so blessed to have friends like Scott and Kristen! Thank you Lord...Thanksgiving was definitely a time to be thankful!

Now, on Monday, it's back to work for a couple of weeks before Christmas and most importantly back to those exciting Andre Kole follow ups!