WEST COAST MEMORIAL DAY OUTREACH

UC Raven (West Coast) will be hosting a Memorial Day Weekend Outreach at the University of California, Santa Barbara May 27th - May 30th.

Joshua Rowden (Pastor Troy's son-in-law to be and a Senior at UCSB) will be serving as the outreach coordinator for this event. He can be contacted for more information at 707-327-6343

The host site will be: Shoreline Community Church: 935 San Andres Street, Santa Barbara, California 94101 >> bring your sleeping bags, air mattresses, personal hygiene items, etc.. The church will be providing us a place to sleep, shower, meet and UC Raven will be providing meals during this event.

UCSB islocated about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles and is situated right on the Pacific Coast. With nearly 20,000 undergraduate students on campus, this will be a prime location to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a generation deeply in need of an encounter with the Holy Spirit.

Joining Joshua and the UCSB team will be Raven West Coast director, Pastor Rudy Gonzalez and a team from Santa Rosa, California along with teams from Cal Poly, Berkely, San Francisco University and UC Davis among others.

The Outreach Schedule is tentatively set as follows:

Friday - Preaching and ministering on Del Playa (a very busy party street/area)

Saturday - (AM) Ministry to the Homeless at Plaza Del Mar park (afternoon) Ministry at Beach (PM) Ministry on Del Playa

A detailed (hour-by-hour) schedule is available by contacting Joshua at the number listed above.

Sunday we will have a special guest speaker with us: Pastor Patrick Ersig of LA's (Skid Row) Jonah Project:

Pastor Patrick Ersig was born in 1970 and has a wife and three children. Patrick was saved by the grace of God from a life of drugs, violence and alcohol. After surrendering his life to the Lord, Patrick always had a burden to help those who were in the same bondage that he had been held in for many years.

In the spring of 2005, the Lord called Pastor Patrick to mission work in the inner-city streets, parks and projects of Detroit, Michigan. Since then, Patrick, his wife Mary, and three children have been working with the homeless, gangs, prostitutes, drug addicts and drug dealers in some of the worst ghettos of America, including Cass Corridor in Detroit, MI and Skid Row in Los Angeles, CA. God has called us “to preach the gospel to the poor”.

He has sent us to "heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised" - Luke 4:18. Pastor Patrick and his family have answered this call and have taken the love of Jesus, the message of the Cross and the Good News of the Gospel to inner-city streets. As a result they have seen many precious souls come to repentance, devote their lives to Jesus, be freed from the bondage of drugs and addiction through the power, mercy, grace, love and glory of GOD!

After spending much of the spring of 2007 traveling the country and preaching at revival and street ministry conferences, the Lord called Pastor Patrick and his family to sell what they had in Detroit, MI and drive cross-country to Los Angeles, CA to minister to the lost and hurting souls of Skid Row.

Once in California Pastor Patrick began preaching on the streets of Skid Row, ministering to the residents there and began an open-air street church in Skid Row. For a year and a half Pastor Patrick and his family were feeding between 200 and 300 people a week, along with providing clothes for those in need along with the operation of Skid Row street church. Each Saturday and Sunday they would have live worship music and preaching prior to feeding the homeless.

Wednesday evenings Pastor Patrick be would on the streets, personally mentoring, discipling and doing Bible study with those we have met on the weekends. Lives were being touched and changed, and people were being baptized (in the back of a pickup truck!) Most importantly, Jesus Christ is being lifted up and the Gospel trumpeted right in the midst of the devils camp! Through the calling of God Pastor Patrick continued taking the message of the Cross, the Good news of the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ to desperate and needy people of Skid Row!