A small AIA team was in Perth last weekend for the 2007 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships. The Lord did some phenomenal things over the entire week.
Terry Legg, AIA worker and team leader for Life Saving Chaplaincy, was (as usual) the driving force behind this tremendous outreach. I was privileged to watch him work his special “magic” with the Life Saving Community. Here is a brief report from Terry with a few of my own observations in closing…
Hello Everyone,
God is so gracious to allow us to work for him. We had good volume of contacts at the Aussies both in content and quality. Many heard the gospel and a lot asked questions. The (annual sunrise ecumenical) service was held in the amphitheatre where the beach cricket finals were held. The attendance estimates were between 700 and 1000. Again we don’t know how many were looking at the big screen or listening at the beach.
The morning service was exceptional. Pastor Margaret Court (former Australian tennis multiple grand slam champion) spoke exceptionally well, His Excellency (the Governor General of Australia) read the scriptures with great passion…and Lachlan Baker sang with conviction.
It was awesome to see people queuing up for (Surf Life Saving Edition) New Testaments at the seven stations we had set up at the exits to the amphitheatre. One of our helpers said he couldn’t open boxes fast enough.
All during the final day of competition people were saying complimentary things about the service…and the work of Life Saving Chaplaincy.
The highlight of the week was the distribution of the special life saving edition of the New Testament with testimonies of well known people in the Australian Life Saving Community. 1600 (fully funded) New Testaments “disappeared” during the week. More than 300 were taken over the first 6 days and the rest on the last Sunday of the service.
Blessings
Terry
The last day distribution of the New Testaments was a highlight for me.
Two of us worked together as a team with one guy carrying a box of 40 and the other approaching each of approximately 30 team tents on the sand dunes overlooking the surf and final competitions. After securing permission from the current “tent boss” we simply asked if anyone in the tent was interested in a complementary copy of the Life Saving New Testament. (Sometimes we would mention it had stories in it about a number of Australian life savers…as well as a story about the greatest life saver who ever lived!)
We experienced a refreshingly unusual response. Most of the people in most of the tents were not only eager to receive a New Testament, some of them were clamouring for them. We distributed every single New Testament that we had taken to Perth (1600).
We are praying for those in this life saving culture to be drawn by their reading into a life saving relationship with Jesus?
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