Good News for the Valley (The Surge)

We went to CT on Saturday the 31^st of May for a week-long Gospel outreach! The Waterbury Christian Fellowship, Good News on the Move Team III, and a few local assemblies teamed up with people from across the U.S. to help evangelize the Naugatuck Valley region.

Saturday several people were at a local park for a family fun day, and had many good conversations. One young girl professed to put her trust in Christ!

Sunday afternoon we hit the Naugatuck Green for Duck Day and an Earth Day event. We handed out lots of CD's entitled "Hope in the Storms of Life", and some people were able to have good conversations.

Jabe Nicholson thought of these signs to use during Duck Day.
(Click on the picture for a better view.)

The signs in action.

(Above two photos taken by John Nicholson.)

On Monday morning after breakfast, which was always at 7:00, we had a meeting and discussed the contacts we had made on Saturday and Sunday. Every morning except Sunday morning there were meetings from 8:00-10:00. After that, door-to-door teams were arranged and the dtd groups went out. There was also a 2-hour planning meeting for the kids’ clubs that would be going on in different parks for the people that would be involved with them. We all were in on the planning meeting. At 1:00, everyone met up at the Green in Naugatuck for lunch. The kids’ club at Salem Park (across the street from the Green) wasn’t going to start until 3:30, so we visited and stuffed some packets. Some people played a game of ultimate frisbee until it was time for them to leave for door-to-door.

The first kids’ club at Salem Park went pretty well. About 12 kids came and stayed for the whole time.

There was also another kids’ club going on over at Baummer Park in Naugatuck, so after the Salem club was over, we headed over to Baummer’s for supper. After we had supper, we all went back to the hotel.

Monday night was the evangelism training, so various members of the GNOM team did some door-to-door scenarios, and described some of the literature that is helpful to have when doing various methods of evangelism and follow-up. Daniel taught some of us how to do a three-rope trick to use in sharing the Gospel.

On Tuesday morning, the majority of the people went out dtd. After lunch, kids’ clubbers went off to the different parks, and dtd teams went out again. On Tuesday evening, Mr. Rob Sullivan gave an evangelistic talk called “Can we trust the Bible?”. It was very interesting! He gave different examples about how the Bible is accurate, from different methods of how to stay healthy to different prophecies. After that ended and all of the guests left, a group of us did some singing in the hotel lobby. We were told we had to move out of the lobby, so we went to the ballroom, which was the room the talk had been in. We stayed up pretty late, but we had a lot of fun.

On Wednesday morning, we did pretty much the same thing that we did on Tuesday morning. Most people did dtd in the morning, and then some did kids’ clubs in the afternoon. After the kids’ club at the Naugatuck Green (they had to relocate to the Green instead of the Park), the group there went to Baummer’s for supper. The kids’ club there was finishing up. Wednesday evening, there was another evangelistic meeting with Mr. Sullivan as the speaker again. The topic that night was “You can know your Future”. It was about Bible prophecy and how we can trust it when it talks about our own personal destiny. After that meeting was over, we did some singing and then played a game of Mafia. It’s a game where everyone sits in a circle and is given a card. The Aces and the Jokers were the “Mafia”, the Kings were the sheriffs, and the Jacks were doctors. The Mafia would try to “kill”, or eliminate all of the other players, the Kings would try to eliminate the Mafia, and the doctors would try to save whoever the Mafia was trying to kill. It’s pretty hard to explain, but if you play it you’ll get the hang of it (no pun intended!).

On Thursday morning, we pretty much did the same thing that we did on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. We didn’t have supper at Baummer’s, but we went back to the hotel instead. We got back a little bit earlier than usual, so we had time to do some singing.

Jessica and I went out to eat with a few other people. That evening Jabe Nicholson gave a talk called “Does God care when I Suffer?”. It was very good. After the meeting was over, we did more singing.

On Friday morning it was raining, so we didn’t go door-to-door. Instead, we had a pretty relaxed morning after the meeting. We had lunch at Cheshire Bible Chapel around 12:15. After lunch, some of us went back to the hotel, and some people stayed at the Chapel until the kids’ clubs were going to start. The rain had stopped, so we went door-to-door in the afternoon.

That evening Jessica and I had bagels with ham, and then ice cream for dessert! There was no evening meeting on Friday, so we mainly had visiting time on Friday night. We did some singing, played Mafia, and got a lot of group shots, among other things. Many people were leaving early the next morning, so we said our goodbyes to them.

On Saturday morning, we said goodbye to some of the GNOMers that had not yet left. We got several more group shots between bites of breakfast. A couple of us girls ran out to get a quick picture of the bus before it was driven away.

After we’d packed up all of our stuff, we said goodbye and left. It was an amazing week!

So, there’s a much-abridged version of what we did at the Surge!