God's Heart for Inner City of Los Angeles

I recently returned to North Carolina after one of the most incredible ICE events that I have had the privilege to participate in. The six churches involved were very well prepared and many of the members came out to hit the streets with the 22 ICE team members assembled from all over the United States. God blessed our efforts with 265 salvations for the entire ICE team. The church where I worked saw 18  of those people come to Christ.

My team of Martin Davis from San Diego, California and Jerry Hunter from Charleston, South Carolina worked with First Baptist Church of Southern Los Angeles. This is a small church with a big heart. Their neighborhood is part of the same area that was affected by the Rodney King riot several years ago. We had six members go out with us to witness on Friday and three join us on Saturday.

The main gang in this area is the Hoovers - which is one of the largest gangs in LA. Junior Deacon Jones, a young man in the church, still has some affiliation with Hoover gang members. However, instead of gangbanging, he is now using his connections to reach out to gang members. His fiancé used to be a part of the Piro gang and she is heavily involved in the church today.

The highlight of the trip for me had to be the outdoor baptism celebration that took place on Sunday afternoon. Three ICE churches came together at out location and three at another. Together, we baptized a number of new believers including some of the ones that the ICE teams led to Christ.

Our ICE team members were able to lead gangbangers, prostitutes and drug addicts and dealers to Christ. One of the team members, David Cobb, led one man to Christ who was selling pornographic videos right on the street. I know that I personally witnessed to at least four Hispanic gang members, one drug dealer, and several homeless people.

Please pray for these churches and that the excitement of ICE would spill over into the day to day witness of these churches. Also pray for the intentional follow up for each decision made.

Darrel Davis, North Carolina