USA Scripture Blitz Updates

This fall, Gideons and Auxiliary members participated in over ten Scripture blitzes across the United States. Scripture blitzes are organized distributions of Scripture to cities or large urban areas with the goal of saturating the region with the Word of God. Here are a few Blitz reports from across America:

Sharing God’s Word in the Motor City

Early this September, the Detroit Scripture Blitz team distributed 60,135 Scriptures. Over 100 Gideons and Auxiliary members participated and many people in the city accepted Christ as their Savior.

The Detroit team placed Scriptures at nursing homes, hospitals, prisons, homeless facilities, and hotels. One team member describes an opportunity the Lord provided to share a New Testament with Eugene, the head cook at a homeless shelter:

I showed Eugene the plan of salvation in the back of the New Testament and talked about God’s grace. “I want to accept Jesus, but no one has shown me how to do it,” Eugene admitted. Eugene decided he was ready to commit his life to Jesus. He enthusiastically prayed to receive Him as Lord, signed and dated his New Testament, and was smiling ear to ear as he became a brother in Christ.

Dick Mudge, blitz coordinator, noted the importance of our obedience to tell people about the love of Christ, “Sharing God’s Word should never be taken lightly as we never know when someone just like Eugene has been waiting for our visit.”

The Gospel Reaches Madison, WI

Madison is often noted as one of the greatest American cities to live in. On September 22 and 23, a team of over 70 Gideons and Auxiliary distributed 5,200 Scriptures to college students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

In one account, a student named Heather accepted Christ and signed the back of her New Testament right there on campus. The blitz team also distributed over 4,400 New Testaments to middle and high school students.

The Holy Spirit Moves Through Metro Areas

Throughout the remainder of September, Gideons and Auxiliary participated in the Scripture blitzes in Chicago, IL, Lincoln, NE, Greenville, SC, and Boston, MA. These four metropolitan areas were saturated with over 250,000 Scriptures. The work continues though the official blitzes have come to an end. Pray for those individuals in prisons, schools, colleges, nursing homes, hospitals, and police and fire stations who received Scriptures from Gideons during the blitzes.

Altoona, PA

The first week in October, over 100 Gideon and Auxiliary volunteers distributed 20,163 Scriptures during the three-day blitz. This is a significant number since Altoona and its surrounding counties has a population of about 130,000. The workers covered schools, colleges, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, first-responders headquarters, and hotels.

Oakland, CA: Gideons Bring Light to the Bay Area

Last week, Gideons experienced positive reception from hotel staffs during the Oakland, CA Blitz. Fifty Gideons delivered 19,020 Bibles to nearly 200 hotels in the cities of Oakland, Fremont, Berkeley, Richmond, Hayward and neighboring communities of the East Bay.

In Hayward, I noticed a student in front of me wearing a Chabot College Wrestling sweatshirt. He didn’t approach me, but he acted like he wanted to talk. Since I wrestled in high school, I opened the conversation by asking if he was a wrestler, and we began to talk casually. Soon, I offered Yared a copy of God’s Word. He told me he had been invited to church and even asked Jesus into his life. He then explained his frustration because he was not experiencing any new feeling.

I talked with him about his experience and asked him if I could pray for him. I asked God to reveal Himself to Yared in a way he could recognize. I asked Yared if he wanted to pray and invite Jesus to come into his heart so the Holy Spirit could take over his life. Yared agreed and began praying with excitement for Jesus to forgive him of his sins. He signed the back page of the New Testament I had given him, and he dated it as the time he could reference his commitment to Jesus Christ. Please pray Yared will feel the peace of Jesus and for his continued walk in seeking the Lord.

– Testimony submitted by Terry Boone

With every Scripture Blitz, and each New Testament given on a daily basis, we achieve our common goal of reaching men, women, boys and girls for the Lord Jesus Christ. Please continue to pray for hearts to be open to the Gospel message and for lives to be changed by reading His Word. If you would like to participate in accelerating world evangelism, you can give here.