I had arranged for Giles Wilkes to join with me for an open air witness in Hailsham.  We had met originally in All Saints Hospital in Eastbourne where Giles had visited and came across us in one of our meetings.  Now he was coming from Eastbourne to join me on a Wednesday morning.  When he arrived at our home we had a short time of prayer before venturing out.  As we walked to the town I was giving out a few tracts.  I have always believed in sowing as you go!  It only takes a few minutes to get through the narrow twittens which lead to the town and soon we were there.

I was appalled when I realised the town was virtually empty. We gave tracts to a few folks passing by but the town looked and was deserted.  “Oh Lord, What shall we do? ”  I was partly embarrassed for Giles having made the effort to come out with me and partly ashamed of my pygmy prayers.  Could I not touch God’s heart?

We had got separated somehow and I was praying, “Lord, help”.  Then it happened.  The Lord prompted me to preach.  There were just two folks sitting on the seat waiting for a bus.  “Now, preach now”.  I looked at the two but felt the prompting again.  “Preach now”.

Lifting up my voice and standing just on the edge of the pavement by the bus stop I commenced to preach Christ and Him crucified.  Bless them, the two folks sat and listened for which I was grateful.  Many folks get up and walk away when you begin.  I was fully into the Word when I spotted a gang of youths running around the corner from the Health Centre and aiming straight for me.  Were they going to cause trouble?

There were around twelve or more of them, aged, I guessed, from twelve years to fourteen years of age.  Wonderfully, they sat on the available seats and the rest squatted on the ground cross-legged.  I had great liberty and love to preach.  The Words of Life flowed from me.  I preached on all subjects going from Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, to Abraham’s offering of Isaac, to the two blind men, the parable of the good Samaritan, of the course the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ.

The youths showed great interest and paid attention all the while.  I made an appeal and thought to make it as difficult as possible.  “I can offer you a Gospel to read on one condition.  I challenge you to read a chapter a day, every day for a month and see if God will speak to you through His word?”  When I offered John’s Gospel, “Love is the bridge” I was thrilled when they swarmed around me all seeking a booklet.  Giles and I talked with the group for some time.  I asked Giles to give his testimony and I shared mine with them.  They seemed hungry for more.  Later, as the group began to split up and separate, I found myself speaking to a young woman.  She confessed that she had been drinking the blood of a goat in a ‘Satan sacrifice’ in the nearby Arlington woods.  I was shocked to the core.  I asked the girl, “How old are you?”  She replied 14.  I told her in a long counselling session that she was in ‘great danger’ that if I were her, I would go home, get on my knees and ask God to forgive me in true repentance.  I urged her to read the Gospel and to ask Jesus to save her.  With such like thoughts I left her and we returned home.

Once again, God turned the water into wine, made a blessing from apparently nothing.  How He loves to get honors to Himself by using the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, the foolish things to confound the wise and the base things which are despised hath God chosen.  Yea, the things that are not, to bring to naught things that are.  (1 Cor. 1 v 27 & 28)