Cocke

There is this guy traveling with us named Cocke (c-oh-k-ay) from Chile. Before Joy and I met No Longer Music in Sao Paulo the band did some shows in Santiago, Chile. During the end of one of the shows where David does the ratcage speech this guy stood up and started translating for David. David already had a translator, but this guy insisted that he had to translate otherwise he would 'throw up'. This was Cocke and he became a Christian that night because the power of God came over him. David had the band pay for his ticket to Sao Paulo and he is our sound guy for this tour!

It's very cool because he is a baby Christian and is joining us for our daily prayer and devotion time. You can just see God molding him and teaching him daily through us!!! I tear up everytime he prays. Its amazing.

This weekend at the Thorns festival we had some people come and talk to us and say that they were Christians who had walked away from their faith. They said the show revealed to them God's amazing love for them and they felt strongly they need to get back on track with him. It was such a crazy and disgusting atmosphere but we sensed God's peace in that back room as we talked to the 20+ people that responded to the message.

I talked for a long time to this guy Marcelo that I had been chatting online with since Brazil '03. He is one of the organizers of the massive thorns festival. We talked about God for a while but I can tell that he has not surrendered his life to Jesus yet. I will see him later this week. Pray for him that as we talk more he will surrender to Jesus.

There were some great things that happened that I can't talk about here for an important reason. Please pray for those things... God knows what I am talking about.

It so amazing that God gave us the opportunity to play at Thorns... the band after us was overtly satanic. They had a mock pulpit where a guy dressed up like a priest threw communion wafers out into the crowd. They burned crosses and had all these satanic icons and symbols. I stood right next to the band members as they were about to perform and prayed for them and asked that God would reveal to them the reality of what they are promoting. They just don't really know what they are doing!

There was much more unmentionable stuff going on there, but I felt no fear the whole night. Our team felt God's peace there and we were free to do what we wanted there - under His authority. I even walked around after the show in my virgin man suit! No problems! :)

Last night and the night before was saw more respond to the message of the gospel. Last night we saw another 20+ respond to the altar call and with more resounding voices received Christ. This was at a church and they had a great number of people ready to counsel those who came forward - thank God for their preparation. I heard a testimony of one of the guys who responded and he said that he had known about Jesus but he was living a life of visiting prostitutes. Last night he gave that up! Praise God!

There were many christians at this show and we were able to hand them promo items for our upcoming shows - especially the one on the 3rd. PLEASE PLEASE pray that many will come to our show on Thursday! Please commit to praying for this show as much as possible. If you could let me know how much you are committing to pray for this show I will tell our team and the church we are working with here. They will be very encouraged.

Last thing... I have a praise about my mom - thanks for your prayers!! The surgeon said before the surgery that she would have a 90% chance of having to have surgery again... BUT - because of God's power - after the surgery the surgeon said that she now has an 85% chance of NOT having to have surgery again. AMEN to that! Please pray for her recovery, she has a pretty loose disk that the doctor is concerned about. She will be doing some PT to try to fix that.

OK! This is a long blog! Thanks for reading all of it. You get 350 points.

See you all in 6 days!