Final County Fair 2006 Report

What an incredible week. The Lord worked in a mighty way, and sustained us through the late nights and hot weather. Today, as the Lord's day, has been a wonderful day of worship, rest, and recovery.

Friday was a much busier night. The temperature was more moderate (lower 90's, but as soon as the sun had set it was very pleasant), and the crowds were quite large. We probably gave out about 750 sodas and/or waters. The goal was to give each person two tracts with each soda (although some people already had received a certain tract, and we gave them a different one; or, a parent might stop by with several children and the parent was the primary one to receive a tract).

Again, I did hundreds of balloons for children and a number for teenagers.

We had more opportunities to speak one-on-one with people. The wonderful thing was that the tracts we handed out focused on whether we are "Good People" in God's eyes. By handing those tracts out, we could immediately start a conversation with the person about being a good person, or, the next night, if they said they had already received a certain tract, we could ask if they read it, and if they were a good person.

The days seemed to run together, but Friday and Saturday brought even more opportunities to share one-on-one. I recall several instances being able to share with teenage boys about salvation. One had started asking about unicorns in the Bible, and then after we talked about unicorns, we branched into salvation (check out AnswersInGenesis.org for more information about Unicorns in the Bible). He said he didn't truly know the Lord, even though he had prayed when he was younger and occasionally attended church. We not only talked about salvation and the gospel, we talked about what it means to surrender our lives to Jesus - and give Him control of everything. In essence, we were "counting the cost" of surrendering one's life to Jesus.

A lot of groups were even open to the gospel. Sometimes we'd be able to run through the "Good Person" test with four or five people. We had a few people get upset and storm off (one Pastor's son, partway through the "Good Person" test - which he was failing - threw his unopened soda to the ground with such force that it burst and then stormed off saying in disgust "Jesus is my Savior and I don't need any of this!" - wow)

Friday night I got to talk to a "goth" couple. They had walked by the booth a number of times throughout the week and refused drinks a number of times. Finally, late Friday night, when I offered them a balloon they stopped and said "sure." Turns out the girl had young twin sisters and was interested in two identical balloons for them - and they accepted sodas and tracts while they were there.

We haven't figured out the total's for the week: I estimate:
- 2,000~2,500 sodas/waters
- perhaps 4,000 gospel tracts
- opportunity to share individually with perhaps several hundred people

One incredible example of how the Lord works in hearts was in relation to the booth that was next to us. On one side we had a sporting goods store that had several ATV's on display. On the other side there was a water purification company. I don't believe they were actually selling units, but they were giving out free pens and asking people to sign up for a gift card and a free water test kit. It appeared to be a mother and teenage daughter that were working at the booth, along with others at different times. The daughter was not dressed in a Godly fashion.

I'm not sure we had any interactions with the daughter the various nights of the fair (other than giving her a soda and tract), but on Saturday afternoon she stopped by to talk with my sister and sister-in-law. She shared that the previous week they had been at a different Fair and had been next to a ministry of some sort, and that she was becoming convicted about her sin and an eternity in hell. Then, she was amazed that we would be directly next to her at this Fair. Turns out, simply by being next to her those nights at the Fair she was feeling the heavy conviction of the Holy Spirit. She said one of the nights she had a breakdown of some sort - and she had a question for my sister. Was it possible for her to accept Jesus as her Savior but still live as she wanted to?

We believe that one of the biggest reasons for our "success" throughout the week was that we were not affiliated with any church, and were not "funded" by a churches advertising budget. We had a number of people ask what church we were with, and they were always surprised to find out that we were just a family with a desire to share the gospel, and were providing the refreshments ourselves. People that were from churches received the regular "salvation" tracts as well as a special tract for Christians.