SOS-San Francisco Outreach Report
Dear Christian friends,
For the past 20 years, we have sent out an “SOS” call for Christians
to help us reach the people of San Francisco for Jesus. Each
year, God has been faithful to bring many Christians to help us
reach this city. This year, teams of Christians joined us from
Canada, and from Salem, Oregon, and from Redding, Paradise,
Leggett and Riverside, California.
We were blessed to meet at Glad Tidings Church this year. We had
held our SOS outreach in this church from 1981-1986. They have a
large facility for meetings, sleeping, meals, and even a parking
lot. Our workers took showers at the YMCA two blocks away. We are
so grateful to Pastor Jeff Green and the rest of the Glad Tidings
congregation for opening up this wonderful facility to us.
On Saturday morning, evangelist Mario Murillo spoke to our group,
giving a word of encouragement and congratulating us for 20 years
of outreach in this city. Mario is involved in a major outreach in
San Francisco this summer, culminating with a week of meetings at
the Cow Palace in October.
That afternoon we held a five hour worship rally at United Nations
Plaza in downtown San Francisco. This area is filled with homeless
people, drug addicts and drug dealers. We prayed with many people
that afternoon, including Ray, a security guard who had been a
crack addict for 13 years.
A week before the outreach, a friend told me about Arthur Blessitt’s
web site. When I looked at it, I noticed that he was planning to be in
San Francisco during SOS week. I e-mailed him and he responded
that he would be happy to speak at our outreach.
Over the past 30 years, Arthur Blessitt has carried a cross for
33,000 miles — in every sovereign nation on earth. He has wit
nessed to world leaders and thousands of other people on his
journeys. He also was arrested 24 times and once faced a firing
squad. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, he shared some of the
things God had taught him through these experiences. We joined
him on a cross walk through San Francisco on Monday and Wednesday
afternoon. On Wednesday, he preached at Justin Herman Plaza. His
involvement in this year’s outreach was a great encouragement to
This year, San Francisco has restricted our permits. It is hard
to get a permit over an hour long anywhere in the city on a week
day. However on Tuesday, we managed to get a four hour permit at
Haight and Masonic Street. We kept our volume so low that people
across the street could barely hear us. Still, a police officer
ordered us to turn down our volume even further.
Fortunately, this was the only time the San Francisco police
complained about our sound level all week. The police could have
arrested us and confiscated our sound system at any time, as they
did last year, but this never happened.
Mark Zulim took two days off work to attend the SOS outreach on
Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, he had two long conversations with
Michael and Peter at Justin Herman Plaza in the financial dis
trict. Michael prayed with him to rededicate his life to Christ.
Peter was a Hindu, but was open to Mark’s witness. Amazingly,
Mark saw both Michael and Peter the next day at Haight and Masonic and spoke with them further. This is a totally different part
of the city, filled with hippies, not businessmen.
On Wednesday night, some Christians from Michael Long’s team met
a family of five from Lake Elsinore who had locked their keys in
their van at Fisherman’s Wharf. They witnessed to them, and the
whole family said they wanted to receive Christ. They had been
waiting for a tow truck for over an hour. At 10:52 PM, they
prayed that a tow truck would come before 11 PM. At 10:59 PM a
tow truck (not the one they called) drove by. The driver stopped
and unlocked their van for them.
Also that night, Paul and Noreen Coca saw some street kids on
Haight Street that they had witnessed to in San Jose. They invited
them to get a hamburger at McDonalds. By the time they got there,
20 street kids had joined them. The restaurant wouldn’t let the kids
inside, but Paul and Noreen bought them hamburgers and wit
nessed to all the kids. They also prayed with several of the
kids.
Castro Street is the center of militant homosexuality. On Thursday
night, some Christians were praying for a divine appointment on
Castro Street. A minute later, a man approached them and said he
wanted to be saved. They prayed with him. On another night Greg,
who came from a Christian family in Atlanta, prayed with some
Christians on Castro Street. He said he wanted to get out of the gay
lifestyle and came to Glad Tidings the next day.
Andre gave his testimony at our Friday service. He had been a
Mormon, but some Christians had witnessed to him in the Haight
and he felt that God was leading him out of the Mormon church. He
joined us for our outreaches on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday night, Derek Scholl witnessed to Christy, a psychic
woman on Haight Street. As he spoke with her, she started to cry.
She said, “I know that what you’re saying is the truth.”
Please pray for those whom we prayed with that week, and who re
ceived a gospel witness, including George, Marcus, Laurence,
Yolanda, Dimitri, T.C., Ralph, Craig and Guy (SF), Armando, Lucy,
Jessica, Jacki, Margaret and Lucy (Lake Elsinore, CA), Chandra
(San Luis Obispo, CA), and Emma (Brentwood, CA).
Permit Appeal — Wed. November 3
Over the past three years, the police department has denied or
restricted our permits at almost every location in the city. Two years
ago, we started getting permits at Powell and Market, the busiest
place in the city. At first, we were getting permits for seven hours at
this spot. However, since we were the only group seeking permits
here, the police decided to restrict our permits. Now, they are
limiting us to one hour, from noon to 1 PM or 5 to 6 PM.
For the past few months, we have ministered here for one hour.
They we tear down our sound system and set it up a few blocks
away at Union Square. This is really difficult for us. Also, we
cannot always get permits at Union Square. So we are appealing
the police department decision to the Board of Appeals.
We have obtained over 2000 signatures on a petition supporting us.
However, the police ignored this petition. The main reason they gave
for limiting our permit to one hour is that they once measured the
sound of a rock group at Powell and Market at 96 decibels. They
claim this could harm people’s hearing. This is ridiculous since
many events in the city are over 100 decibels, including the
Folsom St. Fair and the Carnival. These events last over 6 hours
and the police have never restricted their permits.
We need four out of five votes to win this appeal. The more people
who attend the hearing to speak on our behalf, the greater our
chances of winning. I urge you to come to this hearing, and bring
other Christians if possible. The hearing is scheduled for Wed.
November 3 at 5:30 PM at San Francisco City Hall, Grove and Van
Ness St. room 416. Any one can speak for 3 minutes. (Note: the
city could change this date, so it’s best to call us by October
19 to see if they moved the date up.)
Coming Events
Note: All outreaches are subject to change. Call (510) 531-5325 the
day before to confirm outreaches or for more information.
Friday October 1, 8, and 29 7:15 PM. Witnessing in various S.F.
neighborhoods. (Call us meeting location and directions.)
Sat. October 2 and 9 . San Francisco Worship Rallies. 12-1 PM
Powell and Market St. 2:30-4:30 PM Union Square (Powell and
Geary St.) Mario Murillo will be preaching on Sat. October 9 at
Union Square.
October 15 – 17 New Hope Christian Fellowship Worship
Conference, Sacramento. (916) 348-6997.
October 9 – 17 Mario Murillo Ministries San Francisco Outreach
(925) 820-5470.
Ministry Needs
A city like San Francisco cannot be reached in one week. By God’s
grace, we have continued to minister in this city for over 20 years.
We have a street witnessing team that ministers in neighborhoods
throughout the city on Friday night three times a month. We also
hold three “church on the street” worship rallies three times a
month on Saturday afternoon. Two rallies are in San Francisco,
usually at Powell and Market St. and Union Square. One rally is in
Berkeley at Telegraph and Haste St. We schedule worship groups
from different churches to minister at these rallies.
During the past few months, we have seen a decrease in workers.
Sometimes, we only have two or three Christians on Friday night.
On Saturday, we often only have one or two Christians to witness to
the people who are drawn by the worship group. We really need
your help. We also need one man to live in our ministry house in
Oakland. We are looking for a mature Christian with a calling in
evangelism. We also need help in setting up and operating our
sound system. Eric needed to reduce his outreach activity so he
could spend more time with his growing family.
Our Tape of the Month consists of two messages from our SOS-San
Francisco outreach: Impacting Your City by Mario Murillo and Take
Up Your Cross by Arthur Blessitt. We weren’t able to tape the
entire messages, but we did record most of the messages, and they
are dynamic. I hope many of you will join us for an outreach this
next month, and at the Board of Appeals hearing on November 3.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
