Jimmie Radcliffe and City Reach 2016

Tonight will be an emotional night for us as we see City Reach 2016 come to a close. City Reach Fayetteville is the last City Reach of the year and tonight is the last night of service in Fayetteville. We planned and prayed for over three years about City Reach and then 2016 has zoomed by in a flash! It is very hard to believe it has come and gone.

I am sure I will have more to say about the conclusion of City Reach 2016 in a later post. My heart is full of stories, details and emotion and I know that I want to share at least some of that with you eventually. But today's post is more about the strong emotions that welled up inside of us yesterday, in the service last night and today.

What is going on? Well, tonight is the last service of City Reach but last night was the last service of City Reach 2016 for Bro. Jimmie Radcliffe. 



Bro. Jimmie is flying out early this morning to California. He is a certified Grief Recovery Specialist and is attending an international convention and training session that begins tonight.

This has been part of the plan for many months but now that the day has arrived, it is a sad day for all of us. Bro. Jimmie has been and continues to be an integral part of City Reach. Those of you that were able to attend even one service of City Reach any where in the country, know that fact very well. We have conducted many, many tent revivals all over the country for many years without Bro. Jimmie, but we could Not have completed City Reach without him.

We truly believe that God sent Bro. Jimmie to be with us this year.

Bro. Jimmie Radcliffe has worked so hard and been so faithful. He has helped carry the physical load of City Reach but he has also helped carry the spiritual load of City Reach. He left his home, his business, his own ministry, his home church and his family and friends to spend nearly a year with us, helping to fulfill our vision. Who would do that?

Bro. Jimmie would and did. In the process he has endeared himself to our family and to Pastors, churches and new converts in every city. Folks all over the country are now blessed to have a lifelong friend because Bro. Jimmie spent time in their city reaching for the lost and hurting as part of City Reach. How cool is that?

It has been a pleasure to watch him connect with Pastors, church members, strangers on the street and people in the altar. He has lead people to the Lord during service, during the day and even in the middle of the night. God has used him to bring hopelessly lost folks into the kingdom of God!

It has been an amazing experience for our old friends, new friends we have met along the way, for our family and I hope for Bro. Jimmie.

Thank you, Bro. Jimmie for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your selflessness. Thank you for your strength. Thank you for your sincerity. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for working so hard for the promise of so little. I know you have told me that God has already blessed you for blessing us but I am praying that God will bless you abundantly more in ways that you can not even anticipate.

The good news is that Bro. Jimmie will be flying back to Fayetteville Monday and then pulling his trailer to Ohio to join us for several more days. We need to remove all the tent stuff from his trailer and move it to our tent trailer that is stored at the barn. Then if all goes as planned he will stay a few more days and help me with a few projects at the Lazy OD Ranch.

That means that today's goodbye is really only "see you later." That sounds and feels much better.

Thank you for reading, friends.

Davy

Weather In Fayetteville, North Carolina

Would you help us pray about the weather? This area of North Carolina was very saturated with rain the two weeks before Hurricane Matthew. During the hurricane they had at least 24 inches in two days here in Fayetteville. I do not think anyone in North Carolina is praying for rain right now.

It has been beautiful every day this week with lots of sunshine and no rain. It has been getting a little warmer each day but it has mostly been 70's-80's during the day and 50's overnight. You can not get much better weather for tent revival. It has been wonderful!

I am concerned about Friday though. Friday's forecast has been up and down all week long. Right now the weather guessers are calling for a 50% chance of rain for Friday. 

Wednesday morning it was 10% for Friday and a few hours ago it was saying 70%. I really need to get this tent down dry on Saturday and with much cooler temperatures forecast on Saturday, it may have a hard time drying if it rains much Friday.

I know God can take care of all this for me and I would appreciate you mentioning it to Him when you pray.

Thank you very much and thank you for reading.

Davy

82nd Airborne Museum

We have been having great services each night in City Reach Fayetteville. As I mentioned earlier the churches are small so the crowds are not giant but we are having plenty of visitors and they are responding. Praise God for every person God has touched and brought into the altar this week.

One Pastor's wife posted this tonight and I had her husband send me a screenshot. I think her note is hilarious.

82nd Airborne Museum

One thing we wanted to do while in Fayetteville was visit the 82nd Airborne Museum on Ft. Bragg. There is an Airborne and Special Forces Museum in town and I have heard that it is a little better. But I had two reasons for visiting the one on base. Number one, it was highly recommended by a close friend and number two, our Pastor, Bro. Bennie Sutherland was stationed at Ft. Bragg as a member of the 82nd Airborne.

The fact that Bro. Bennie spent 2 1/2 years there as  young man makes it interesting to us. I am sure that things have changed at Ft. Bragg in the last 50+ years but it was neat to see the whole place. It is absolutely huge. According to online sources, Ft. Bragg is the biggest military installation in the world by population and covers over 251 square miles.

We really did not know if we could go because our schedule during City Reach is pretty full. But we had a man volunteer to watch the tent Monday night for several hours and another watched the tent last night. That allowed us to rest some and have a few hours to spare in the afternoon. 

Bro. Jimmie stayed with the tent and we went for lunch with the Mayhan's and then on to the museum. We did not realize we would have to go inside a building, get a background check and get our picture taken for a pass to get on base. That took some extra time so we did not spend as long in the museum as we might have.

I am glad we went though. The Museum shares a lot of history of how the 82nd came to be and information, displays and pictures of various campaigns they have participated in. It is plain to see that the 82nd has been pivotal in a lot of critical situations. They liberated the first city in France during WWII and they lead the way in more battles than I could count. A bunch of heroes sprang out of the 82nd Airborne. 

The museum also includes a 25 minute film about the history and exploits of the 82nd Airborne. It plays on the hour or by request if they are not busy. We enjoyed that too. We spent some time in the gift shop so we did not have much time to tour the outside exhibits. I would like to go back to do that if we had time.

It was worth the trouble of getting the pass in order to get on base but I do wish we had more time to see it all and more of the base. Maybe next time we can do it better.

Our inside pictures did not turn out too well because of the lighting so I did not post any of them. Here are the few we took outside.

Thanks for reading.

Davy