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Evangelist to lead crusade at football stadium

Rev. Richard Nyakaana stands at the Jersey Shore Area High School football stadium where he will hold a crusade on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

JERSEY SHORE — The small town of Jersey Shore is doing something really big next week.

Starting tomorrow evening, you will find many residents of this region at the high school football stadium, not for a game but for the Jersey Shore for Jesus 2017 evangelistic crusade.

A large number of local churches have come together to sponsor the crusade, renting the stadium in the faith that area communities will fill it.

The crusade will be held Sunday through Thursday, starting at 7 p.m. each evening. (The rain place is Jersey Shore Area Middle School.)

The evangelist is Pastor Richard Nyakaana, of Uganda, who will speak each night on a different theme:

Rev. Nyakaana is seen with area congregants recently at Veterans Park in Jersey Shore.

r Sunday — “Breaking News From Heaven”

r Monday — “The Biggest Idea’

r Tuesday — “The Best Foundation for Family”

r Wednesday — Youth Night

r Thursday — “Atmosphere of Miracles.”

PHOTO PROVIDED Rev. Richard Nyakaana, near doorway, stands with members of New Song Church in Uganda.

Rev. Nyakaana has spoken and sung at churches and rallies throughout the United States and Uganda for more than 20 years. He has conducted similar crusades before “with great results,” according to Rev. Charlie Winkelman, minister of Jersey Shore Presbyterian Church and president of the Jersey Shore Area Ministerium.

Activity at the stadium will begin each evening with set-up at 5 p.m. The gates will open at 6:30, with the service to follow at 7 p.m. Music will be provided by praise bands from different churches. After each service, a prayer tent will be open.

“Youth Night will be a little bit louder, I think,” Rev. Winkelman said, laughing. “Several hundred teenagers are getting excited about this.

“We don’t think that Jersey Shore has ever had anything exactly like this in the past,” he added.

“It’s a step of faith,” Pastor Nyakaana said.

Last year, the visiting pastor stayed in Jersey Shore for about five months, while preaching in a variety of local churches and other Presbyterian churches in the region. He has preached in Boston, in Battle Creek, Mich., Silver Spring, Md., Tucson, Ariz., Austin, Texas, the states of Wisconsin and Missouri, as well as in many churches in Pennsylvania.

“Somehow Richard has this connection with the Holy Spirit that gets us out of our seats and coming forward,” his fellow pastor said.

Each night of the crusade, people will be invited to literally come forward, and the prayer tent will be a center for volunteer counselors to meet with them after each service. Pastors will be there to assist the counselors and to give good information to anyone and everyone looking to take the next step in their faith, find a church, or simply connect with Jesus.

“We’ll pray for them that their lives will be changed and for any problems in their life,” Rev. Nyakaana said.

The volunteers also will give out copies of the Gospel of John and pamphlets with follow-up suggestions on how to grow in a newly-found faith in Christ. The suggestions include getting involved in a church, setting daily prayer and Bible study times, and encouraging others.

The volunteers will encourage seekers to reconnect with a church they may have attended in the past, and Rev. Winkelman said local churches are being encouraged to start up new Bible studies for people he hopes will be inspired by the crusade.

A five-night Prayer Summit last week, hosted by a different local church each night, was held to support Jersey Shore for Jesus.

In Uganda, people are praying for it too, Rev. Nyakaana said. His wife, Claire, was here with him earlier in this particular visit to Jersey Shore, but she has since returned home to care for their three children and to organize prayer efforts behind the crusade.

The two pastors from two very different places met at a Moody Bible Institute pastors conference.

“At Moody, we were encouraged to make friends,” Rev. Winkelman said. “I sat at a table with him and told him to stop by if he was ever in America. You don’t expect anyone to take you up on that sort of offer but he called a few weeks later, and I said, ‘wonderful!'”

Rev. Nyakaana often stays with the Winkelmans now when he is in the region.

In addition, Pastor John Phillips, lead pastor at the local Crossroads Community Church, visited him in Uganda for a week this past January.

Rev. Nyakaana has been mentored by the Billy Graham Association, has attended the association’s international conferences for evangelists, and strives to evangelize as Graham did.

At home in Uganda, he oversees seven churches. One has no roof, and another has no building at all. He and his family have walked miles — with all of their equipment — to conduct rallies. The Jersey Shore Presbyterian Church and a church in Ohio have helped this ministry, raising money a few years ago so that he could buy a van.

A gospel singer and songwriter, Rev. Nyakaana has a ministry to provide school support for 45 orphans. He also teaches music and worship leadership — since he does not get paid as a pastor

“He does not have a washer, refrigerator or dishwasher,” Rev. Winkelman said.

“Our source of joy is not from material things, it is from the Lord,” his visiting friend added.

He has lived through times of terror and sorrow, including the genocidal reign of Idi Amin. He has lost all of his eight brothers and sisters, some to AIDS, his first wife to a stroke, and his first son, to an accident that took the boy’s life at age 2.

Yet the pastor says he sees something to be grateful about in Africa’s recent, difficult history: “We seem to pray much more than people here. People here seem to be relaxed and comfortable.”

He said, “For the last three or four years, I have been doing revivals in America because the Lord showed me America needs revival even more than Africa does.”

Americans are Uganda’s spiritual fathers, in a sense, because of the missionaries who brought God’s word to that nation, he said.

“Now we come back here and show our father that he needs to remember the things he taught us,” he added.

A lot of churches in America have empty pews when they should be filled with people, both young and old, he said.

“In Africa, people sit on mats, whatever they have. Here they have the pews, the Bibles, all the things they need, but the people are not in the churches,” he said.

Rev. Winkelman said, “His churches pray every Friday night, all night. They don’t seem to understand we don’t have that level of commitment.”

He is glad to be a connection point for his friend when he visits America. He said, “It helps me reflect and ask, ‘Am I putting myself out there, taking the risks, reaching out, being willing to sacrifice like he is?’

“There is so much need. As Americans we are physically rich but spiritually poor sometimes. There are so many people struggling with drug addictions, marital problems, relationship problems — and Richard comes and says, ‘You don’t need all these things, you need a relationship with God.'”

The two pastors smiled at each other when Rev. Winkelman added, “Sometimes he says to me, ‘You still have too much stuff.'”

The crusade’s primary goal is not to separate people from their stuff, but rather to connect them with Jesus, the local minister said.

“There is a wonderful spirit among the pastors,” he said. “The thinking is, ‘If we have this revival and no one comes to my church, but many people come out of it with a relationship with Jesus, I will be satisfied.'”

The evangelist added, “We need to harvest the fruits. Instead of leaving them to rot by the road, we bring them into the stores, which are the churches.”

How is it possible for one relatively small community to bring many denominations together in a united effort like this crusade?

“Jersey Shore can do something big like this because it has the feeling of a small-town community. You see everyone you know when you go to the store,” the local pastor said.

Twenty pastors and Christian leaders at 17 churches are supporting Jersey Shore for Jesus in specific ways, he said, and other churches are passing the word along. More than 30 churches in total are behind the crusade.

They are getting the word out right now, hoping it will bring their friends and neighbors to the stadium. And from there, Rev. Nyakaana said, maybe the Good Word will spread to Lock Haven, Williamsport… and out across America.

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