July 21, 2003
FSM 204 (FN 313) DO
Copyrighted Feb.1992, by Family Services, Zurich, Switzerland
"Lord, You can still do it! You can still light my fuse & set'm on fire! Hallelujah! TYL! Bless the kids, Lord! Set them on fire! Get them excited, Lord! Help them explode! Don't let'm settle down & cool off, keep them exploding, Lord, in Jesus' name! Keep them excited, Lord! Keep them on fire, even if it causes them trouble, Lord!
"Amen, it'll come. It'll come with the Antichrist. `They loved not their lives unto the death.'—Rev.12:11. (Maria: Right now they can let them get out & witness & win souls & get excited & on fire!—Learn to really witness! Like you said, that's the most important thing they can be doing.) Amen, they've got to love souls & want to witness.
"Set'm on fire, Lord! Show them, Lord, that this is it, the only it! Set'm on fire! Set their hearts aflame that they might win the World, Lord. Let them burn for You, Jesus!" (ML#2703:9,15,18 & 27.)
—From Jay Small, North American Teen Home
We have a terrific personal witnessing situation in our city, where thousands of young people get together in a famous outdoor plaza every Friday & Saturday night to talk & socialise, creating an ideal atmosphere for our Teens to approach them to witness. Most of the young people are of college age, but there are also younger teens, & even adults who our Teens are able to witness to. It's definitely one of the Lord's set-ups!
We have been going out to this particular place mostly with Senior & EA Teens, organised in teams of two or sometimes three—boys with boys, girls with girls, or boys with girls—all the combinations seem to work equally well.
In our particular situation we don't have enough adults to have one on each team. However, since the area we witness in is small, it is easy for the adults to make the rounds & keep "an eye" on each team, as well as discreetly listen to the conversations. There are times when the adults do get actively involved in the witnessing, but most of the time the Teens do a very good job on their own. Sometimes one member of a team will come over to ask the adult how to answer a particular question while the other continues witnessing.
The Teens approach the people they want to witness to very much like we, their parents, did in the early days. They start up conversations using anything that works, from "What time is it?" to "Do you believe in Jesus?" The musicians usually take their guitars & ask if the teen or teens would like to hear a song. It is so moving to see our young people sitting down & singing many of the songs that won us to the Family! One of the musicians' favourites is "On Your Way Down".
They take their witnessing Bibles & Posters to use as witnessing tools, & they especially like to witness with the Endtime & Heaven Posters. Although advised to use wisdom, our Teens have also been instructed not to pull any punches with the real sheep! We've encouraged them to go ahead & win disciples & that we would figure out what to do with them after they are won!
This seemed to liberate our Teens from the "PR approach" that they have been accustomed to using when talking to parents & older people. We explained to them that the kids need more, which got our Teens even more turned on & excited! It liberated them to preach the red-hot Word of God!
As they grew in their personal witnessing, our Teens also started to use some of their own personal lessons when applicable in their witness, which added something very special to their witnessing. Very often the teens witnessed to are really touched to hear our Teens talking about their problems & very encouraged to hear about the victories & solutions. PTL!
After months of personal witnessing, there is a lot of follow-up that needs to be done. Since we have a DF Home in our Area which is regularly having Bible studies & sheep parties, the Teens have started inviting their more potential sheep to the Home. At one of the last parties, about nine young people showed up who had been witnessed to by the Teens. The evening ended up with everyone sitting in front of the TV watching "20 Minutes to Go!" & "SOS!" It was exciting! As a result of the follow-up, two people are seriously considering serving the Lord!
Follow-up & working more closely together with the DF Home has really inspired our Teens! It's beautiful to see them on the phone trying to get through to their sheep so they can invite them to one of the parties or Bible studies. We are in the process of looking for a coffeehouse or some type of witnessing center that can be used as an intermediary place before bringing them to the DF Home. The Teens are very excited about this possibility. PTL!
We can see only positive effects of the Personal Witnessing Revolution in the lives of our Teens. They see that "We Are It!" & have all the answers. We've seen them quickly lose their inferiority complexes in relationship to System teens, as many times the System teens have told our Teens how special we are, how they've never met anyone like us before, how exciting our life is, how they wish they could do the same, etc.!
Our Teens can now see themselves head & shoulders above teens in the World, as a result of all they have in the Family! In one witnessing experience, two of our 16-year-old boys even had two unbelieving college professors completely dominated in the Spirit. They don't seem to have difficulty with the tough cases & actually seem to like the challenge & get fired up with the fight!
Hearing the System young people talk about their boredom & share the traumas they go through has had the effect of making our Teens appreciate what the Lord has given them in the Family. Very often the System young people talk about how routine & uninteresting their lives are & how coming to the plaza to drink & talk, week after week, is all they have to do on the weekends.
In one witnessing experience, a 19-year-old boy was pouring out his heart about how that very week he had one friend commit suicide & another attempt it! These are the types of things they hear often—traumatic testimonies that make them so thankful for what they have. They see the desperation of these kids firsthand & it's helped them to lose their "Hollywood" perception of what the World is really like!
Hearing the heartcry of the lost & getting involved in their lives has given our Teens a deep love & burden for souls. To hear that the personal witnessing night is cancelled, for one reason or another, has become one of the most unpopular announcements in the Home! The more they witness, the greater the fever becomes! They're hooked! We no longer have to tell them that they should have a burden for lost souls, they got the burden simply by doing it!
They also have developed more of a hunger for the Word & it has become alive for them. They have a chance to pour out everything they know & have learned. In one instance, one of our 15-year-old boys was ministering to a very sheepy 22-year-old computer programmer whom he was able to feed for hours. In another instance, one witnessing team had the Heaven & Endtime Posters spread out on the ground, using them to give a group of young people a class on Heaven & the Endtime. Experiences like these create a vacuum in our Teens for more input, so they can have more to give!
Another effect of the Personal Witnessing Revolution is that our Teens get a firsthand taste of the spiritual warfare we are in. Many times they have to battle for hours for the souls they win & they clearly see who & what they are up against.—Their spiritual Enemy!
A very clear example of this was when one boy who had been witnessed to was contacted to meet our Teens in the plaza for a class. The first time he was on his way out the door to meet us, at the last minute he had to rush his mother to the hospital. The next time he was on his way to meet us, he was in a very bad car accident in which his friend broke his arm. Finally, when he met the Teens about two months later, he turned out to be a potential disciple who wants to start witnessing & serving the Lord! The warfare for the souls & lives of men becomes much more of a reality for our Teens when they see things like this happening!
Last but not least, they clearly see the reason for it all.—Mk.16:15! Even their victories over NWOs are used by the Lord to help encourage System kids! They see that the early days of the Family, in this respect, are not a thing of the past, but we are living the same Truth today! As they come back to the van after a full night of witnessing, that same feeling of fulfillment can be felt that we adults used to have after a night of battling for & winning souls & disciples! PTL! It's thrilling to see their "Hearts Aflame" for Jesus!
—From Silas, Endureth & Cephas, SEA
Though our Teens & JETTs have been going out witnessing during the day or even in the evenings, we felt a longer road trip would be a very beneficial experience for them—to really go out by faith, trusting the Lord for everything from the moment they leave the Home till they come back, believing He would not only supply all of their needs, but also really lead & guide them to His hungry sheep.
It has proven to be a beautiful experience for them, in that the Lord did really lead & guide every step of the way! We're just so excited, we plan to give every JETT & Teen in the Training Center a chance to experience living by faith & witnessing in this way. Personal witnessing, we feel, is a real help & strength to them. We'd like to give you a little testimony of what happened on the first road trip & why we're so thrilled with this vision.
After being out for a day or two, the team called in & they were thrilled, as the Lord had been supplying for them the entire way. They provisioned all their gas, a beautiful resort hotel to stay in, & all their food. They were so turned on that they were also winning some 40 to 50 souls a day, & the Lord was just making it very exciting for them.
In getting together with the leadership, though, & praying about the situation, we felt led to encourage them to not necessarily major on mass soul-winning. They had mentioned that so far they had met quite a few real potential sheep, such as the manager of the hotel, a young singer who was performing at the hotel, plus quite a number of other sheep that the Lord led them to.
We encouraged them to slow down a bit & begin working on follow-up, as that is the area our JETTs & Teens have had little experience in. They're quite good at winning souls, but hadn't really had a chance to learn how to take people any further after that. So we felt that this would be an ideal time for the adults who were with them to train the Teens in following up on these precious people & taking care of them, & this is what they began doing.
The reports we began getting on their follow-up were just tremendous! The Lord was opening so many doors for the Teens to be able to really pour out, teach classes, & He was miraculously moving & working in people's lives. Though there is a barrier here with the language & not all of our Teens are necessarily fluent, nevertheless they later mentioned that it was so amazing to see how even in spite of the language problem they were able to feed these people.
They have our materials in both languages & somehow, when the Spirit took over, they were able to minister to their sheep, at least through the Word they were reading with them. Also many of the people that the Lord led them to could speak English quite well, which also allowed the Teens to get into deeper witnessing, PTL!
We would like to testify that the Teens came back totally changed. All the Shepherds of the team mentioned that it seemed that almost overnight, from the time they started really pouring into people, the Teens themselves seemed to get deeper in the Spirit, to the point that when they were leaving, the Teens were all in tears as they went around to say good-bye to all their sheep. They told their sheep how they were going to come back, they were going to write them, & they were going to take care of them & see them again.
(Editor's note: Please be sure to give your Teens time to fulfill these promises to take care of their sheep, to write them & follow up on them. You may need to schedule time for follow-up visits, or mail ministry time. One effective method would be to compose form letters which the Teens can use to make follow-up easier & more thorough, enabling them to reach many with the Word & encouragement. If the Teens don't have time to do follow-up letters themselves, you can have someone else write the follow-up letters for them, so that these precious sheep aren't forgotten & left on their own.
(However you are able to organise the follow-up, it is important to keep the promises that the Teens made to these people, to stay in touch with them & take care of them as the Teens said they would. We need to be sure to teach our Teens that we don't want to bring new babes into the World without love & care, but we want them to be "rooted & built up in Him & stablished in the faith...abounding therein with thanksgiving." [Col.2:7.] GBY & your Teens with exciting & fruitful follow-up!)
The Shepherds shared that it was like seeing a whole Revolution being born before their eyes!—A miraculous spiritual change in our Teens occurred, & we're sure it will be the same for our JETTs! For example, some of the Teens who we would have considered a bit shallow before, seemed to deepen almost overnight through the experience of getting involved in these people's lives, helping them, & giving them the Lord & the Word!
Below are testimonies from the Teen Shepherds & outreach team leaders who took out this first team, & later began taking out regular teams of Teens & JETTs on faith trips.
—By SEA Teen Shepherds & Outreachers
One of the goals we had for our road teams was to help the Teens develop a personal love for the people.—And the Lord really did it! None of them ever dragged their feet; they were just so excited about going on the attack & were looking for special opportunities where they could witness & win souls. All the things Dad has received about our Teens, how they're the Lord's & how He's going to use them, came to life right in front of our eyes. The Teens developed a real love for the people we met & they kept talking about them or praying for them, as well as asking if we could go & see them or write them. It was beautiful to see the Teens getting this real love for the sheep & a burden for souls.
The Word Came Alive!
Sometimes we just had to stop to pray & hear from the Lord as we didn't know what to do. We learned that we had to trust the Lord & get His direction on everything. Every morning we had good prayer with the Teens for unity & teamwork, for witnessing, for protection, for supply, etc. And the Lord never failed! We saw every prayer answered! TTL!
For our morning devotions we read such Letters as, "Follow God!", "God's Little Miracles!", "Mountain Island Villa", etc. These spoke to all of us, as we felt like we were really living them.
Provisioning!
We were quite a big team & sometimes we Shepherds thought, "Oh my! How are we going to provision meals for 10 people!" One outreach team leader shared, "At first I didn't have much faith for it, but the Lord really increased my faith by showing us that `God isn't limited by many or by few.' We claimed that verse & He did it every time! We never had to split up into smaller groups for meals. Everyone we asked was willing to help our whole team.
"With the provisioning, I first felt that I'd have to do it all because I speak more of the local language. But my not seeing how the Lord wanted to use the Teens was a real lack of faith. It was good for me to stand back & let the Teens do it. I was a little afraid that they would make a mistake, but when we let them go ahead & present our Work & explain the need in their simple vocabulary of the local language, the Teens did fine! The people always agreed to help!
"So it was good not only for the Teens, but for myself as well, to see that the Lord can use anyone. God's Work doesn't depend on any one person! I am really thankful that the Lord strengthened my faith in this way & taught me to step back & let the Teens burn free."
Let'm Do It!
One good lesson we're learning in working with Teens is seeing how much the Lord can use them. They've had a lot poured into them & all of them are very talented in many ways. It's not so obvious at first, because they're so sweet & humble, but they have a lot of talents which we saw the Lord use on the road.
They sometimes helped to organise the teams, as well as the breakfast preparation & the cleanliness of the house we were using. They've had so much training that we didn't need to point things out to them very much.—With the slightest little direction from us, they jumped right in there, so eager to help carry the ball.
It's just like Dad said in his early Letters about the first Family disciples: Just give them a bit of direction & let them go to it. It was quite inspiring to see how yielded & willing our Teens are to do anything. Sometimes we had to break up into different teams as there were so many different jobs that had to be done. Some would go on follow-up & some would stay back to write "Thank You's" & plan the meals for the next day. Others would be on personal witnessing teams or out singing for some of our contacts as we had a couple of singers along.
We tried to give the Teens lots of variety by giving them an opportunity to be on all the different teams—even if they didn't have an outstanding talent in that particular area. We especially wanted them all to have some experience with follow-up. Taking them out on follow-up really seemed to encourage them & by the end of the week even the quieter ones were coming out of themselves & boldly sharing their lessons & experiences with the sheep. TYJ!
Explaining Everything!
Some of the Teens are quite big physically, even compared to some of us adults, & sometimes it was easy to forget how little experience they've had out in the System. As far as the ways of the World, they don't know much & we realised that we do need to keep close oversight over them. When travelling around or on public transportation, we saw that it was important to stay close to them & remember that they haven't had that much experience in these things.
We also saw the importance of explaining to them what is happening in every situation we're in so they can learn, as that gives them training, too. When we take them out witnessing, it's so important to take every opportunity to explain to the Teens how the Lord sees the situation & why people do certain things, etc. We also saw that it's important to include the Teens when praying for the many different things that come up on a witnessing trip.
The Clinical Method!
When going on follow-up with the Teens, we tried to fill them in beforehand on the people we were going to see. We made suggestions to them about what role they could play in the visit & what they could say. For example, they could tell about recent witnessing trips they've been on, what they're studying, etc.
It's good to go over these subjects with them beforehand, otherwise they might not be sure how to answer some questions they may be asked. When we prepared them ahead of time, they had more of a full heart & felt more confident in answering. That's been a real blessing for the Teens, as well as a good lesson for us, too. It helped us to be more of a team in follow-up.
When they weren't sure of what to say, we tried to draw the Teens out by asking leading questions that they can answer, thus making it easy for them to participate. We didn't want them to go along as just the "silent partner", but for them to learn to participate & share their hearts. We find that the Teens have so much to share & people really respect them for wanting to give their lives in service to Jesus & others.
The Teens are also very open to any kind of counsel & correction regarding outreach or follow-up. Any instances that are lovingly pointed out they really receive & take to heart, GBT! They have such a vacuum & want to grow in these areas.
When out with them, we have to be constantly aware that we're there to train them & pour into them so that they can learn to participate in the witnessing. We learned to use different times during our trip, such as while travelling, to pour into the Teens & share personal lessons that we're learning, etc. We had to be constantly on guard & on the attack & couldn't afford to get into ourselves at all!
As one outreach team leader shared, "It's been quite a change from going out with an adult partner, but I find it very challenging because the Teens themselves are so excited about going out witnessing. The Lord always does something special for them every time, so that they can see the Lord's hand working in so many different ways." TYJ!
—From Francis, SEA
Recently we took a road trip to a neighbouring area with some of our Teens. It was quite an interesting experience travelling for a week with six Teens, who all had very different personalities.
For example, one girl was a light-hearted type of person, although she had been growing & learning many beautiful lessons in her life. She was quite excited about going, but in the beginning, her excitement came more from thinking about the fun we would have on the trip. However, as we started meeting people, not only leading them to the Lord but also going on the attack on follow-up, she really changed.
We had about six people that we visited to follow up on, praying with them to receive the Holy Ghost, & giving them Word classes. This girl was quite involved in following up on these people. The more she got involved in feeding these sheep & helping them grow, the more she herself began to change. Her light-hearted outlook began to deepen, until she started becoming someone with depth & real concern & personal love for those we had met, & the lost in general.
By the end of the trip nothing else mattered to her—not the food or the place that we were staying, or any of the excitement of the trip. What mattered most to her was that we were seeing people through, they were growing & becoming linked up to the Word. Seeing people change & being drawn to the Word & getting saved & growing into close friends of the Family was a beautiful experience that really changed her & her attitude toward life!
Another girl on our team was more the quiet, shy type of personality in the Home. She is sweet & quiet & in her relationships with others is not very outgoing. But on the trip, I was quite surprised to see her become one of our main witnessers! She speaks the local language quite well, so she was involved in doing the provisioning for the team, as well as personal witnessing & follow-up. It turned out that every time she went provisioning she would win 18-20 souls on her own. She had a real anointing for witnessing & a way of talking that drew people & made them listen.
We saw this quiet Teen girl transformed into a bold, winsome witness! She was one of the most on-fire witnessers, with a tremendous outgoing personality & concern for others. While at home, these talents had passed unnoticed, & through this experience she gained more boldness to speak up & be more outgoing in the Home also.
Another girl is one of our main singers & recently had been going through quite a few trials in her life prior to going on the road, so she was very broken. The Lord had us meet a musician (a band member) who got saved, & we started following up on him nightly. She was responsible to take care of him. Although she was quite broken & going through a lot in her own life, the minute she got involved in ministering to this sheep & seeing him grow, she completely forgot all of her trials.
Her faith started to shine once more, as she was now living for others & for the sake of this particular sheep that she was witnessing to. All her trials melted away & didn't matter any more, all she was concerned about was what this little sheep was going through.
It's so true what Dad has said about the battlefield being one of the best cures for personal problems. In this particular case, when our Teen was faced with the need, she completely forgot about her problems & became very concerned about others. We can see how personal witnessing is a tremendous answer to our Teens, especially those who are going through big things in their lives. By getting their minds off them-selves & getting into others, they can find more of the joy & happiness of serving Jesus & others.
For us as their Shepherds on this trip, it was a beautiful experience to see these changes take place in their lives. They saw the Word being put into practice on the witnessing field, they saw it helping others & it made their own training come to life & take on new meaning for them. When they get to go out personal witnessing they start to see the reason for all the Word & the training they receive! TTL!
—From Emmanuel Rest, Enterprise Training Center, South America
The Outreach Home here in our city pioneered witnessing with their Teens, finding a relatively quiet & secure place where potential young people "hang out" at night. When they shared their witnessing testimonies with us at the Training Center, we got really excited & inspired, organised an outing for our Teens to go to this spot to witness in combination with the Outreach Teens, & went at it!
The very first night we went, the Teens got so turned on that they were begging to go again the next time. Returning to the Outreach Home after the evening's witnessing, the Teens were bubbling over with enthusiasm & sharing their testimonies with the other Home Members! We spent the night there, since we live some distance from there, & the next day we went on the attack to follow up on other sheep we had been somewhat neglecting.
The Lord really blessed it & we were able to see Kathy, a 25-year-old tour guide, & give her a Bible class. Since then we have seen her about five more times, shown her both Teen Videos, met her parents, who really love us, & given her other Word classes. On all these visits, the Teens' testimony of seriously serving the Lord at their age is what has most impressed both Kathy & her parents!
On other personal witnessing outings, more Teens got the opportunity to go out & experience the thrills of soul-winning. Heidi, 17, met precious sheep such as Jenny, whose ex-husband used to both take & deal drugs. Jenny told us of experiences where her husband had been totally crazy, begging her to tie a rag around his arm & to help him inject drugs straight into his veins. Heidi later wrote that she really saw how much everyone in the System needed Jesus & that she felt ashamed of her little battles compared to the Hell that the people without Jesus go through!
We began having weekly classes in town for our sheep. We first held them in a restaurant that a sweet man opened up just for us to use for two hours before his regular opening time. Later we began to have our classes in a park in the city. Some of our sheep have been having classes for weeks now!
On one such afternoon in the park, after a class on Rev. 21 & 22, we invited two sheep to come along with us for a witnessing class! They heartily agreed, so we split up into two groups & began witnessing. Within a few minutes both groups were witnessing away & soon three more souls were won!
We now have about ten sheep on the line that we are frequently following up on, as well as about ten more who are showing interest! The Lord was faithful to answer our many prayers to lead us to hungry potential disciples! Two of the three teen boys that the Home met on that very first night they went out pioneering are still having classes & are now even visiting the Home, jumping in & helping around the house! GB'm!
In summary, personal witnessing has really instilled in our Teens the vision of why we are here. Carmen (18) commented that after witnessing to System teens, she sees how much we have to give & that it was sometimes even hard to decide on what to feed the sheep, they were so hungry! She felt that we had limitless treasures to share, & that it was indeed a priceless privilege to be able to partake of so much Word & to be part of such a wonderful Family.
—By Peter Pioneer, Pacific
Recently we asked the Lord to refill us to overflowing with the Holy Spirit in all areas of our lives & we found that it made a tremendous difference in our witnessing!
We have also learned what Dad says in the Letter, "Witnessing": "I found out the exciting truth & thrilling fact that you can win more souls witnessing individually to individual people wherever you could find them, without a church or pulpit or a meeting of any kind, anywhere & any time & all the time, everywhere to everybody!" (DB8, ML#344:12)
By learning to "Be instant in season, out of season," it seems we are now meeting sheep wherever we go!—And witnessing wherever we go—on trains, to & from appointments, on Family Day, even on outings.The Lord showed us that when on an outing with our children, it wasn't a time to only go & have fun & minister unto ourselves, but also a time for us as families, or as the Family as a whole, to help our children of all ages experience the joy & thrill of personal witnessing, winning souls & pouring out to hungry sheep.
It was the day after we had prayer for more Holy Ghost power that we went on our Family Day excursion to the beach. We went to a little cove which we usually have to ourselves, but this time there was a group of about 12 people who turned out to be working companions from the same company.
At first, we weren't paying so much attention to them as we were into the children & having a good time, but the Lord must have turned on the power & light of His Spirit, because these people were drawn to us, & they soon came over & started talking to us. They were having a barbecue & invited us to join them. They gave us the royal treatment, practically rolled out the red carpet & fed all of us (about 30 people) a delicious barbecued lunch.
After we had all eaten, our children sang songs for them, which was a real hit & really touched the hearts of our new-found friends. Then we passed the guitar around & some of the adults sang songs. It was like a Family inspiration & these sweet folks entered right in!
One young man in particular, who had quite a strong personality & was kind of a Don Quixote type, seemed to be rather foolish & drunk. However, he was the one the Lord used, because when we finally witnessed to them about Salvation, he turned out to be a real sheep! Before, he was leading everyone in rowdiness & foolishness, but then he rallied everyone together into receiving the witness & all 12 of them got wonderfully saved & gladly received our Kiddie Viddies & Tapes.
It was exciting to see the Lord's set-up, because we hardly had to do anything ourselves! The Lord did it all & we just had to float along with the Lord's current. It seems now that everywhere we go, the Lord puts sheep in our path.
Children's Holy Ghost Sample & Personal Witnessing!
Our Happy Hearts (6-7 years old) & our OCs, along with their teachers, went to a Home near the beach for a week-long change of scenery & break from their normal schedule. They went with the vision of not just going to have fun & play time, but also to win as many souls to the Lord as they could. They did an inspiring Holy Ghost sample on the beach, which is something that our OCs & Happy Hearts had never done before. They have all done shows before & sung for people, but they had never done a wild Holy Ghost sample with gypsy dancing & getting others to join in, right on the beach, PTL!
It started off with the children just singing to a group of teens, but then the Spirit got heavier & as the excitement grew, the System teens ended up joining them in dancing! Then an old grandma came by & the children grabbed this old grandmother & got her to join them in dancing & singing as well, & she danced around on the beach with them for about ten minutes, wild & free! Then after the Holy Ghost sample & gypsy dancing, they got a chance to further witness to the group of System teens & the grandmother & they all got saved! TYJ!
This was really exciting for the children because it was the first time that they had experienced something like this, where they did a Holy Ghost sample & people joined in & danced & got moved by the Spirit & got turned on & saved. The kids also had a real thrill experiencing personal witnessing one on one themselves, speaking in their very simple Japanese, approaching people & using very simple phrases like, "Are you happy?", "Do you believe in God?", "Would you like to go to Heaven?" & then praying a simple Salvation prayer with people.
They were able to see the Lord's Spirit work & win people, which is one thing that the Teens in our Home have also expressed, that they've been thrilled to see that winning a soul to the Lord is really a work of God's Spirit, & that it's not in the multitude of words or how eloquently we speak or how well we put it, but the Lord's Spirit & our sincere love is what wins people to Jesus.
Later, we asked the children what they liked the most about this special time at the beach Home. Considering they got to go to an exhibition here called "Sea World" where they could watch whales & dolphins do tricks, as well as other exciting excursions, still, witnessing came out as the winner, number one, their favourite activity! Witnessing was what they were the most excited about & what they appreciated the most!
Teens Share Witnessing Testimonies with Our King!
Our Teens are also very excited about witnessing & it's the high point on our weekly schedule. Feeling inadequate & handicapped in communicating with people in the local language & not feeling like they know how to relate to people, they had been somewhat hesitant & cautious about jumping into the witnessing. However, when face-to-face with hungry souls & broken-hearted people who poured out their hearts to them, the Teens have realised how much they've got & how rich they are & that they really do have the answers. Getting out there confronting the darkness demonstrates how much "We Are It!" & that we do have Heaven on Earth in our Heavenly Homes, with the Heavenly answers to all their problems & all their questions.
We had one of our precious kings over for dinner the other night, celebrating his birthday, & the Lord gave us the idea to have the Teens share with him their witnessing testimonies & lessons learned while witnessing. It turned out to be really, really inspiring & probably one of the evenings that impressed our dear king the most, because of the fire & conviction & excitement with which our Teens were talking about their life for the Lord & concern for souls.
At first, when the Teens were asked to prepare for this activity, they couldn't think of too much to share. But when they started sharing the testimonies, the Lord really anointed them, & once they started they couldn't stop. There was so much that the Lord had done, & our king was thrilled! Later he said that he was most impressed by the Teens' dedication & love for souls! PTL!
—From Shepherds in Europe
Our Teens & EAs have been turned on to the idea of going witnessing on Family Day! We have organised one team of four Teens with a couple of adults to take them out personal witnessing on this day, as one of our Family Day activities. It has turned out to be very exciting & a good experience, as they feel relaxed & not under time pressure, so that they really enjoy the witnessing & take time to minister to the sheep. They have come home with some very sweet testimonies & are really looking forward to seeing who will get to go personal witnessing next Family Day!
—From Shiloh, Enterprise Training Center, South America
We are so thankful for the DTR Requirements & suggestions! At first our reaction was the same as probably everyone else's: "How are we ever going to fit all these things into our already full schedule?" But the Lord quickly showed us that we were looking at things backwards! We shouldn't be wondering how we could fit the DTR into our schedule but how we could fit our schedule into the DTR! That's the only way to have a Revolution! It's a metanoia—turning around & going in the opposite direction!
We realised that we needed to re-evaluate everything we had been doing to see if that's what the Lord wanted us to keep doing! And, TTL, He has helped us to see how much more could be accomplished in a day, which has helped our Teens & JETTs to be much more inspired & fulfilled than ever before!
Although personal witnessing was only suggested & not a DTR requirement, we realised that it was very important, as that was what was going to help give our Teens & JETTs the fire & inspiration to want to live the DTR! Since we are a Training Center, although we had been doing some witnessing in the form of visa & faith trips, as well as shows in which the Teens would perform, we weren't really getting out personal witnessing in situations where the Teens & JETTs could burn free & pour out all that had been poured into them.
So we began a witnessing push aimed at getting our Teens & JETTs out personal witnessing! We began with our JETTs, who already had their little busking show ready & had been praying for the chance to get to use it! They began going out faithfully every weekend, & the Lord began to use them to reach many! Most thrilling of all was to see our JETTs begin to really get on fire & get out of themselves!
On one of our first days out, we spotted a tall girl who we thought might be a famous volleyball player! She's a beautiful girl, & seeing her often on the news, we had felt a strong burden for her. So the Lord had actually laid her on our hearts already & we had often prayed for her, & asked the Lord specifically that we could meet her & that she could get saved!
The JETTs immediately wanted to go & witness to her, so one of the adults & a JETT approached her, & she was very friendly. So we began witnessing to her & told her that we had seen her on the news & that we had prayed for her. This seemed to really touch her. She prayed with us to receive Jesus & gladly received an Endtime Poster & a Tape!
We offered to have the JETTs sing for her sometime & she gave us her phone number. We called her & she invited us to visit her at her house. So with a little team of JETTs, as well as a few Teens, we went to see her. We sang for her, shared our testimonies with her & talked more about the Endtime. She was very sweet & receptive! She is actually quite a celebrity, as she is on the World Volleyball Team, which means that she is one of the top volleyball players of the World. She has since moved to Italy where she will play professionally for one year, but we plan to continue feeding her through the mail.
One day the Teens did a show in a big shopping center here, & after the show, they talked to a woman who was in tears & kept exclaiming over & over that this was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She had a JETT-aged daughter, so the Teens offered to have our JETTs visit her at her home. The following day a team of JETTs went to her home, which was quite far from where we live. Although it was so far it would take our whole day just to visit this one person, we felt the conviction to go since she had been so receptive & hungry.
She received us with open arms & again was in tears that we would come all the way there just for her! The JETTs sang for her & her sweet twelve-year-old daughter. She especially loved the song, "You Are God's Child," which she sang along with them! She was a very precious lady who really loves the Lord! She then asked us if we would like to walk on the beach.
When we were only five doors down from her house, a young girl came running out of a different house asking, "Are you the `Happy People'? (the name of the Teens' Show Group)." It turned out that she had seen our van parked right outside of her door & had recognised it from seeing the Teens get in it after a show a few months before. One of the Teens had been writing this girl ever since & in fact had just called her the day before! There was no connection between the lady & this girl, but they lived on the same street, a half block apart!
Her name is Zoila & she is a real potential disciple! She came over to the lady's house, bringing her little sister & her sister's friends. Again the JETTs sang for everyone & then led them all to the Lord. The lady was so turned on & said that she wants to get us shows anywhere she can. She works in a big university here & wants us to do a show there, as well as different clubs in her neighbourhood, such as the Yacht Club, Rotary Club, etc. Tonight we will be performing a show in the Lion's Club, which she arranged. These are good opportunities to meet & witness to new people!
Another door that the Lord has opened through the JETTs' witnessing is at a park full of little cabins which people rent to hold birthday parties for their children. On the weekends there are usually ten birthday parties going on at a time, with hundreds of children. We have been invited to provide entertainment in a central spot to which all the children will be invited, which will include our JETTs' show, our puppet show, games, etc. This should prove to be an interesting way to meet parents who we can follow up on & offer them the Videos! (Editor's note: Birthday parties or other events where you are invited to sing are prime opportunities to personal witness, so don't miss this chance to use your sample as a witnessing opener!)
These are just a few of the many exciting things the Lord has been doing with the JETTs in just the few months that they have been out witnessing weekly! And we're sure it's only the beginning!
—From Ruthie Atlanta, Asia
During my time in the States, I saw personal witnessing really helping give our JETTs more inspiration & fire to serve the Lord. Although I've been on the "downgrade" for so long, & don't feel qualified to speak up about much, still the experiences I had in the Home there may be a confirmation as to the fruits of witnessing in our children's lives.
My children & I lived in Matt & Joy's Home, where there were five to six JETT-age kids, some of the sweetest & most polite kids I'd met. The Home agreed to organising personal witnessing excursions, & the first two times we went to a large mall. In this city there are many uncared-for, dropped-out, & drugged-out youth. In our teams of two or three JETTs with one adult, it was a little difficult to get going at first, & the adults pretty much had to approach System kids, to break the ice & show how it's done. By the end of the first evening, though, the kids were making their first attempts at personal witnessing & overcoming their fears.
Then we found a secluded restaurant area of tables in a fast food area, right next to a pinball machine room, where a continual stream of needy kids came & sat with their food & drinks to talk for hours & "hang out". It was the ideal location & became our outreach center in the weeks that followed. By the fourth week, as the JETTs' confidence & skill improved, sometimes the adults would sit at a nearby table & monitor the situations as the JETTs went by twos & threes to the tables.
They would often run over to our table when hit with a difficult question, or to ask us the references of certain verses, & sometimes they would ask one of us to come over to help them witness. I found that the System teens, once they knew we really cared for them & showed up regularly week after week, even accepted us adults & changed from mocking & laughing at us, to really seeking us out to pour out their hearts.
With these radical kids, we could "pull out the stops" & bring along our more radical Posters. The U.S. teens' favourites—that they all wanted copies of to put up in their rooms—were "Watch Out for 666", "When Heaven's on Earth", "When the Towers Fall", "Life after Death", "The Rescue", "Signs of the Times", "The World of Tomorrow", "Inside the Heavenly City", & "Why Worry?"
The kids our JETTs witnessed to were usually about 15 to 22-years-old, quite a bit older than they were, & it took a lot of courage for our younger ones to get the boldness they finally achieved! It was actually a miracle of the Spirit of God taking them over to help them do it! TYL! We also got out some music Tapes to kids who liked to listen to music.
Our kids went through a remarkable change during this time! Saturday night became the high point of their week! Though they were always nervous as we set out, the ride home was absolutely charged with electricity & everyone was bubbling over with testimonies. They were full of questions about how to witness about this or that which had come up that evening.
We had lots of laughs at some of the really funny things that people talked about! (One JETT gave a teen a long talk about physical & spiritual circumcision, which I'm sure he'll never forget! Ha!) Everything that's been poured into them in the Family just started pouring out & being used & coming alive in their hearts, simply by personally witnessing to kids on their level.
They saw the desperate need these kids have for real Love—on drugs, pregnant, in trouble with the law, homeless with parents who didn't care about them, into devilish spiritual trips, abused, neglected, really sad cases of bright kids who were just as turned off & soured to the System as we were 20 to 25 years ago! They're punks, delinquents, hippies, "New Agers", druggies, & just a lot of lost kids!
Face-to-face with the need in these System kids, our kids found they could reach them & they led lots of them to the Lord! Our Home was quite far out of the city & we didn't feel we could bring these sheep over, but our kids had such a burden for them, they would call them on the phone to follow up, & try to make sure they'd be there the next Saturday night. They saw some lasting fruit, as some of the kids began to change their lifestyle, leaving the streets & the "crack houses", trying to get off drugs, showing more concern for others. These experiences turned our kids on to what they themselves can do as missionaries for Jesus.
A touching & unexpected thing happened during the New Year's Eve ceremony that year, as all the kids who participated said that those witnessing experiences were something they were the most thankful for in the past year!
The kids also began to want to memorise verses & references & learn how to teach classes to the kids they followed up on. Sometimes for our Word class with the JETTs, we would just teach them how to teach a class, such as Mat.24, from their Bibles, & then we would encourage them to try to teach that class to someone they were seeing that weekend. Or sometimes we would zero in on a couple of verses such as John 14:6 & Acts 4:12, about Jesus being the only One you can come to God through, to help them answer the "New Age Questions" they were getting!
Other benefits we experienced were quite significant also. Because we had a real work going on amongst needy youth, it gave me personally more conviction to provision some of the needs for the Home. With our youth outreach, I had photos & testimonies that were real & fresh of kids we were out there helping every week! We could also take a photo book along when tapenessing & videoing to encourage people to give to our Work as we got out the tools.
Although I had my problems, which were not such a blessing to the Home, still we did learn a lot through this personal witnessing. Because of the inspirational value provided through such outreach, personal problems really seem to shrink in perspective. The kids & adults gained a truly valuable experience together, which brought us closer together & created an atmosphere that helped us all to see how much we needed each other, TYL!
Copyright 1996 The Family