I just got off work on Tuesday and I was thinking about going home, taking a shower and resting for the rest of the evening. God said, “No, you have to go to Colorado Springs now.” Normally, I do not get a request like this on a Tuesday and I usually fill my tank midweek. I would never fill my pickup on a Monday because of all the traffic at the Costco pumps on that day. But for some reason I filled my pickup on a Monday so I had a full tank of fuel to make it to Colorado Springs. Halfway there, I received a phone call. It was a young lady from one of the gangs. She said, “Sonny, I know you live in Loveland but could you come to Colorado Springs. I want to leave the gang.” She then shared with me that the testimony about Blue Mustang and Terry Bird and the other people involved convicted her to want to go home. She had a good recollection of everything that I said. I do remember who she was because she thanked me a lot for the burritos and the other food that I brought down to to them. She then said, “What you did had a great impact on my life and I cannot sleep at nights. I just need for you to come and get me.”
I said, “Yes, I can come. In fact God has already sent me to you.” She exclaimed, “Really!” I said, “I am already passing through Denver and I am heading towards you right now.” She then said, “God really is amazing. I just want to get out of this gang. I just want out!” I usually rescue women from gangs around midnight. That hour is when the gangs are usually asleep. I pull into the alley, the girls get in and I leave. No one knows that I’ve been there until morning. I do this to make sure that nobody gets shot or hurt. But today was to be daylight rescue. She gave me the address where she lived in Colorado Springs. When I got there, I made no effort to hide myself. I parked in front of the house. The entire gang was standing outside as I pulled up. The gang leader whose name is Jonathan said, “Sonny what’s up? Did you bring anything for us to eat?”
I pointed at the girl who called me and said, “No man. Not this time. I have come here to take her back to her family.” Jonathan said, “Yeah, she told us that she was going to go back home.” Jonathan then looked at me intently and said, “You know what. I’ve only met you one time but when you talked about John 3:16 , that just tugged at my heart. Then when you brought food from Blue Mustang and you told us about this guy named Terry Bird. I think that is just crazy.” Jonathan then became serious and said, “I think that serving God like you do is so cool. I just love that. I inturn don’t serve anybody but myself. I have been reading that Bible that you’ve given me and always ponder John 3:16. There are givers and there are prayer warriors and sometimes they are both like Blue Mustang and Terry Bird. I just laugh every time I say those names.” Jonathan paused a second then asked, “Are those real people?”
I laughed and said, “Yes, they are real and I love them.” Jonathan began thinking about this relationship I have with these guys. Jonathan then said, “I never belonged to a family. I was abandoned when I was really young.”
I said, “God’s Kingdom can be your family. His family knows you, loves you and created you.” The Holy Spirit was hard at work on Jonathan’s heart. Jonathan replied, “You came here to take one girl home. Maybe you came here for all of us to give our hearts to Jesus Christ and go back to our families. Last weekend, I went to Denver trying to find you but I never saw you.”
I said, “I did give you my ministry card last time. You could have called me. He said, “Yeah, but I threw it out the window.” I said, “That was good, somebody else did find it. Two days ago, there was a guy out on the streets that called me. He said he found my card laying out on the street. He was on his way to the overpass so he could jump. But when he found the card you threw out the window, he called me. You saved somebody’s life. God used you and because of you this man is still alive today.” Jonathan started to cry. I said, “That is the first thing that God has used you for.” Jonathan must be trying to share Jesus on the street. He said, “I love being out on the street and talking about Jesus. If Blue Mustang and Terry Bird can help people like that, I want to be able to help people like that.” Now I was starting to cry because of the words he spoke. His men felt the same way he did. They said, “We don’t want to go home unless we know the Jesus Christ you know.” I felt it was getting time to celebrate.
I asked, “Is everyone getting hungry?” They replied, “Yes, we are starved.” I said, “I’m going to go get something and I will be right back.” The gang asked, “Hey, can we ride in your pickup with you?We just love that ‘Kingdom music’ that you play through those speakers. Those guys sure know how to play music.”
I said, “Yeah, I can put five people up front with me. They said, “No, we want to ride in the back. You have subwoofers back there and we want to listen to that.” I said, “Blue Mustang helped me get that awesome sound functioning back there.” While we were driving, everyone decided they wanted to go to Little Caesars to get pizza. Everyone was still carrying their pistols and you could easily see them on their shirts while we were driving down the street. It was so fun watching the expressions on people’s faces as we stopped for red lights. When we pulled into the Little Caesars parking lot and parked, everybody jumped out with their guns still visible while we walked into the store. Just remember these guys have not given their hearts to Jesus Christ yet. You should have seen the eyes on the manager when those guys walked in with those pistols strapped on. He cautiously asked, “How can I help you guys?” I said, “We need 12 pizzas.” Then Jonathan stepped in and said, “Sonny, I don’t think that will be enough. We need 14 pizzas.” We ordered them all with pepperoni and jalapenos. It took a few minutes to get that many pizzas ready. I stepped up to the counter to pay for them. I had my card in my hand to put into the slot. This older gentleman who was standing beside me had his card already out also. He raced me to the credit card machine. He stuck his card in before I could put mine in. He said, “I beat you to it, man.”
I said, “You know that is 14 pizzas.” He said, “Sonny, it is all about the blessing. Never forget that.” I found out that this guy watched me when I was bringing Jesus Christ to the Chinese Mafia a few years back. He was there all three times when we met to bring them the message of Jesus Christ. When the gang members were riding in the back of my pickup, he realize that the pickup he saw was mine. He began to follow me and God said, “I want you to pay for the pizzas this man is getting.” He never knew my name because he only saw me from a distance. He knew who I was today because my name is visible on my pickup. When anyone pulls up beside me they can read my name. He was listening to me talk about Jesus Christ to this gang all the time while we were getting out of the pickup and going into the store.
Jonathan asked, “What’s your name.” He said, “My name is Paul. The Paul in the Bible was a mighty man of God.” So Paul started preaching to this gang. Meanwhile, my pickup was still running outside and some of the gang members were still sitting in back listening to the music. Before I went outside, I picked up some 2 liter bottles of Dr. Pepper for them to drink with the pizzas. Of course, gang members don’t use glasses. They just screw the cap off and passed the bottle around. Then they asked Paul if he was a giver like Blue Mustang, Terry Bird and Sonny. Paul said, “It’s not about the giving. It’s about blessing. Those men you are talking about are a blessing from God and you don’t even know who they are.” He then pointed at me and said, “This guy does an amazing ministry reaching out to bring you guys to Jesus Christ. I was told by God to stop here because there was going to be a man who is going to buy a lot of pizzas. He wanted me to pay for them to bless you.”
We all went outside the store and went to the pickup. I put the tailgate down and laid the pizzas out. I blessed the food and we began eating the pizzas. It was now 7 p.m. and there was a lot of light out for everybody to visit. Jonathan said, “Paul, you bought the pizzas. Why don’t you join us.” Paul said, “I would love that.” Paul only ate one slice. As we were beginning to eat, suddenly all these cars began pulling up. I found out it was all the families of all these boys and girls that were with me. The Holy Spirit is working on their hearts as they started calling their parents. They had a strong desire to go home. Soon the whole parking lot was full of families from the gang. Some of the Dads came to me and said, “You reached out to my son. I need to rededicate my life to Jesus Christ. My son is coming home and that is a miracle! I want to be the father that Jesus wants me to be.”
The families began going into the store and order more pizzas. The store was having a difficult time keeping up with all the orders. The manager came outside and said, “We have been struggling to sell pizzas at this location. You guys just made our day by ordering all this food.” This all started by going after the one. My intent was to bring a girl out of a gang. While the Holy Spirit had prepared their hearts when I previously met them, now they all wanted to go home.
While the celebration was going on in the parking lot, the police were driving by and noticing all the commotion going on. The police could see all these guys wearing their pistols. Most of them kept driving by. One of the passing patrol cars started driving real slow into the parking lot. He kept driving until he parked in front of my pickup. He got out said, “So you are Sonny?” I found out that he did a license plate check on my pickup and that’s how he knew my name. I found out later that the undercover police and other cops that knew me, were disappointed when he stopped because he could have ruined something by showing up in front of the gang. The police officer told them, ” I need prayer and this guy is like a magnet. I just felt like I was drawn to stop.” I prayed for him and that police officer rededicated his life to Jesus Christ right in front of the whole gang. Jonathan said, “Are you hungry, sir? We have pizza here.” The police officer excitedly said, “I will take a piece. I’m starving.” Jonathan said, “You have came to the right place.” Now there was a police officer eating with the gangs. You just wondered if he ever had to arrest any of these guys. The police officer then asked, “So you guys have given your life to Jesus Christ.” Jonathan said, “Yes sir, we are about to. We are tired of this life. We have a new purpose for our life.” The police recommended him not to be carrying those pistols around anymore. Jonathan replied, “We live in America. There aren’t going to be any terrorist messing with us.” At that response the police officer said, “That’s okay. Let’s just eat pizza.” The police officer even went into the Little Caesars store and he bought the entire shelf of soda pop and began passing that around. Again, no glasses were used. They just passed the bottles around. The police officer then climbed up on my pickup and stood where my speakers are. He asked everyone to come closer and gather around the pickup. The gang all started moving closer together as they were looking at each other wondering what was about to happen. The police officer said, “I want to pray for all you guys.” The police officer then made an altar call and asked, “All those who want to come forward and to give your life to Jesus Christ, stand here.” God sent him here to refresh his spirit. He can now say that he led the entire gang to Jesus Christ. He was responsible for many of the parents giving their life to Jesus Christ.
An older gentleman pulled up in a 39 Coupe. He must be in his mid-80s. He asked, “Who is Blue Mustang and Terry Bird. The kids were talking to me about how they were bringing food to us. I feel like we need to pray for those guys.” So we got together and prayed for those guys. It was finally getting late and everyone was was ready to go back to the house to get their stuff. They realized that this is it. They are now ready to go home and start a new life with Jesus Christ. And you could see the tears in their eyes as they were pondering that. I continue to minister with them late into the night. I asked, “Do any of you guys have any prayer requests?” Everyone of them had at least one prayer request. Some of the Christian parents came up with me and helped pray for the prayer requests that I received. Everyone from the street could see that we were praying. We had many cars stop and they said, “I see that you guys are praying. I need prayer really bad.” So we ended up praying for many people who came directly off the street. One of the prayer request off the street was the guy who lost his landscaping business because of the covid. The police officer came forward and said he had a brother who needs a supervisor for his landscaping business. I will check with him. I found out he is now employed there.
There were over 220 people here who got saved in this parking lot this evening. In fact, it got so late that I didn’t even have time to go home. I had to go directly to work and I got there 20 minutes before work started. But as I got ready to start work, God energize me. Even though it would have been great to rest, I would never trade it for this experience that he let me see. God gets the Glory and the Victory and I got to see it all. One of the people I worked with came over and asked me if I had anything to eat. I said, “Yes I do.” I had two sandwiches in my lunchbox and I said, “You can have it all.” He was grateful and gave me thanks for the lunch. A few minutes later, my supervisor came to me and said, “God said that you were hungry. So I ordered lunch for both of us.” Everyone at work found out that I did not have any sleep the night before. They all came up around me and prayed for me during break time. It is great to have a family even at work.