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The rest of the choir and many missions workers from TSC joined us from the 7th-14th October, and there were many outreaches to orphanages, hospitals, clinics, prisons, schools, brothels, etc. Many, many souls were won to Christ, and the Lord wrought miraculous healings as well. The first photo below is from an outreach to a technical university (though the building looked rather bombed out). I was playing guitar before a group of children when I paused to snap this picture. A little later, some of TSC's choir and band led worship and again, after several testimonies were shared, souls were ushered into the kingdom.
The second photograph was taken by a fellow choir member when she and some others visited a local market (in Jos).
The bottom tier of photos is my effort to offer a panoramic view of the polo grounds on which our evening crusades were held (10-12 October, 2002). Here it's late afternoon as the speakers' platform is being constructed. We're on a rooftop about thirteen feet above ground level. After the sun set, the polo grounds became a sea of people (over 500,000 the first and third nights; about 610,000 the second night). A mosque in the distance was brightly illuminated the first night, but was completely blacked out the second and third nights (power outages are not infrequent in Nigeria). As our bus pulled in for the first night's crusade, a window on the passenger side struck the side of the grounds' entry gate and was broken. No one was harmed, but it seemed to set the tone for what would immediately follow...
The sun set, and large bats flew overhead. Power fluctuations caused the sound system to cut in and out, even though we had generators. Suddenly, lightning began flashing across the sky, and a fierce gale rushed in. I thought a tornado had touched down. It was clearly a clash between the powers of light and darkness, physically manifested to a degree. Some of the men of the choir had constructed a wall of vertical planks to obscure any would-be sniper's view. This wall fell under the force of the wind and would have seriously harmed the ensemble's sopranos had they not taken flight a moment before. It landed mere inches away from me, crushing two pulpits and overturning several objects. Then the rains began to fall heavily. Some in the choir had misgivings, thinking we had 'stepped in over our heads', but we maintained our position, praising God in the midst of the storm. Finally, one of our speakers prayed that God would stop the rain, and He did. Had we backed out, it would have brought much disorder and confusion to the proceedings, and would have been a bad testimony. Instead, the Lord had His way, and many were touched by the Living God.
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