On October 21-22, 18 evangelists (4 of which were new to SFOI) came together from all over the US to share the Gospel to those attending the 'largest free show on earth'; the Circleville Pumpkin Show. Dr. John Rataczak and Heath Pucel were the teachers, teaching on soteriology, and expository preaching, respectively. We had great fellowship throughout the time and were able to get a group picture taken by the historic mural in downtown. We also had a great time of corporate prayer each day led by Warren, and on Saturday Joe led us in some worship songs.

For the evangelism, the weather was perfect and there were crowds of over 100,000 both days. There were three teams of evangelists led by Heath Pucel, Joe Hinson, & Joshua Richards, but as one attendant said 'we could have used 8 teams'! Collectively the teams were staged in three separate locations with respectible foot traffic, and handed out well over 10,000 tracts.

Two evangelists preached open air for the first time, and we had minimal hecklers. There were 3 different cults present, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and Seventh-Day Adventists, the latter two which we saw arguing with each other on baptism for the dead, along with other things I am certain. Two local churches were present; on Thursday Joshua observed folks from Logan Elm Baptist Church in Circleville handing out tracts at the ministry locations I was seeking, and 4 men with Columbus Indian Church of Columbus stopped to talk with Heath on Saturday, who we discovered had a booth they were doing evangelism at and whose Pastor had been invited to join our time prior to our knowledge of their appearence.

As far as one-on-one's are concerned, highlights included Joshua praying with a man named Lenny for his daughter's healing, and an elderly Pastor couple who were giving out chick tracts and who Joshua discovered the Pastor was overseeing a church 15 minutes from Joshua's house (and remembered seeing Gospel signs in yard!) We also had a lady give us chapel library tracts, which were the same ones we brought along and we discovered she had been given them to hand out from our other team (does that count as disciplemaking?). Warren also engaged with a young couple named Skyler and Jessica, who wanted to learn more about our ministry. We got their contact info and followed up (awaiting response).

John and Dan engaged with a drunk heckler, Heath had a half hour talk with some Mormons, Angela shared some Bible verses with a young child, and Joe and Caleb had a great idea of pointing their amp towards a large ferris wheel to make for a captive audience. One of the best (and most nerve wracking) moments came at the very end of the trip when Angela lost her car keys. We walked to the information booth a block or so away and God had graciously prompted someone to turn them in! All in all Joshua thourougly enjoyed leading and organizing this outreach and was told by several attendees that the Pumpkin Show should be a regular event covering multiple days with more team leaders and more evangelists. All glory to Christ!"