Greetings! 

"This week was an incredible example of how God can use you to call His sheep to Himself by initiative witnessing."

This was CSP mentor Alanna's reflection after the hometown trip that she and six of her peers took to Bakersfield last month.

Bible club students during training

Ollie, Betsy,

Natalie, Leah, Gray, Mike and Alanna saw God move in incredible ways at Wasco, Bakersfield, and Shafter high schools. The rallies were 

powerful, each drawing 150-400 people to hear the gospel. But, as Alanna shared, the most impactful part of the trip for the CSP mentors and Bible club students was the initiative witnessing.

students at a rally at Wasco High

Here are four of the mentors' responses to the week of evangelism:  

After sending out the Christian club members to talk to their peers, Betsy reports, "I'm sure that twenty-four hours before they would have never imagined that they would be proclaiming the love of God on their public school campus." One of the Bible club members shared her faith with 20 of her friends who all made decisions for Christ!

praying the sinner's prayer at a rally

Mike shared with two students, one of whom was an atheist and the other a nominal Christian. He explained,  

"If seeing is believing,

then what I witnessed was the Holy Spirit changing the hearts of men, taking one from a place of hostility toward God and opening him up to Him, and moving the other from treating God with apathy to dedicating his life to following Christ."

students praying after school

Gray shares a story of his conversation with another high school student:

"With great excitement he said to me:  

'I never knew Jesus did that for me. I want that.' Holding back my tears I prayed for him and I gave him a Bible. This is what is worth living for. It is absolutely wonderful. And I thank God that He has put me in this trip. It's been a momentous, glorious, and humbling experience!"

The joy of leading others to Christ energized the CSP team all week and now into the Spring semester. As Leah remarked, "Stepping in humility was worth hearing students say, 'It's too good to be true. What's the catch?'"

 Thank you again for partnering with us in prayer!

- The California School Project
www.californiaschoolproject.com