It was Tuesday and I finally got permission to fly into New York. This covid thing is definitely causing a lot of problems when it comes to traveling. When my King needs for me to go, He makes it happen. I climbed aboard their private jet and flew directly to New York. They circled the jet over the area where I was going to be witnessing; so I could view the layout. I said, “I’ve been here before.”
My informer said, “A lot of things have changed since you were here last time. This gang that we are showing you has 42 members and they all drive nice cars. They have a good business with the drug cartels. We can never get them at the right time to arrest them.” I continued watching the airial monitor as they were speaking. He then asked, “What do you need for tomorrow?” I already had the Bibles and crosses in my possession for these guys.
I said, “I’m going to feed them breakfast. I need donuts, milk and orange juice. I will need wagons to take all this food in.”
The informer asked, “You mean like the Costco wagons.”
I said, “Yes, they need to be big.”
He replied, “We have two of them for you. Just remember we can only get within seven blocks from the area the gang controls.” They drove me to that point and dropped me off with my supplies.
They said, “Sonny, we just cannot get any closer than this.” I looked to see what was in front of me. It looked like a war zone from here to where they live. I swear that it looked like I was going to walk through a Hollywood movie set. The undercover police warned me that anytime a car drives through here, they just start shooting at it. The gang does not trust anybody.
I said, “Okay, I will go on foot from here.” I started my journey walking down the middle of the street. I never walk on the sidewalk. There is a lot of curbs on city sidewalks and it is tough getting the wagon wheels rolling over all the bumps. I am also more visible to the gangs on the street. It is dangerous to sneak up on a gang. It is not like traffic is a problem. While I was walking, I began praying as I observed my surroundings. The houses had broken windows and were all shot up and everything was tore up. There were burnt cars along the street and lots of damage.
Suddenly a homeless guy showed up on the street in front of me. He warned me that I should not go any further because the gang ahead of me is mean. They just shoot at people for the heck of it. While he was talking to me, he noticed the food I had in the wagons.
He excitedly asked, “You got donuts?” I said, “Here.” I opened up one of the boxes and gave him a couple of doughnuts. I picked up a glass and poured him orange juice which he had requested.
My King revealed to me that this man has been living for himself. I said, “Let me pray for you. What you see here today is temporary. If you give your heart to Jesus Christ, he will save you. Jesus Christ is eternal. When you die, you will be in God’s Kingdom. Your name will be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” The homeless guy began crying.
I then said, “You stopped for a donut. Jesus Christ will give you the real food.”
He began thinking more about what I said in turning his life to Jesus Christ. He then said, “What do I have? I have nothing to lose.”
I said, “Yes, you have everything to lose. You have your soul.”
The homeless guy paused a minute to process what I just said. He then said, “Yes, I am going to give my heart to Jesus Christ now. Everything that I am is here and I have nothing to take with me.”
I began praying over him and I gave him a Bible. The homeless guy then said, “I will be praying for you as you go in. Thank you very much for giving me breakfast.”
I gave him one of my Ministry cards and I continued walking. When I got real close to where the gang was at, two guys came up and suspiciously asked, “Are you lost?”
I said, “No I’m not. I have been found.”
With a puzzled look they said, “You have been found! What does that mean.”
I said, “I have been found by Jesus Christ.”
They then replied, “Oh, you are a preacher then? You came to the wrong place. We want nothing to do with God here.”
I said, “Are you sure? If you listen to a couple of verses you will get free breakfast. But if you don’t want to hear what I have to say, I will take the donuts and I will go feed the homeless.”
He then said, “Oh no, wait right here.” He ran back into the building and soon all of them were coming out. There was a total of 42 guys who came out. One guy started poking me in the side with his pistol. Another guy had a pistol behind my head. He then said, “If this a booby trap, I am going to shoot you.”
I said, “No man. I came here to tell you that Jesus Christ loves you. I also came here to give you some food. I have donuts, milk and orange juice for you guys to eat. I did not come here to hurt you but bring salvation to you. My King has a purpose for you guys. What you are doing now is not it.”
The leader said, “You talk pretty bold man. You are going to get shot here.”
His bodyguard came from nowhere and grabbed a hold me and threw me on the ground. The bodyguard said, “How come your God is not protecting you now?”
I said, “He is; you see that I’m still alive.”
He then challenged me again by saying, “Once you get up, I will body slam you again.” I got up and as expected he threw me down on the ground again.
The Holy Spirit must have distracted him because he then asked, “You really did bring us donuts? Don’t you know where you are? Don’t you know what happens to people like you who come here?”
I replied, “This is all temporary and the pain is also temporary. My heart and my life belong to Jesus Christ and that is eternal. If you kill me here, I will win because I am going to see my King.” I paused for a moment to let them think about what I said. I continued, “Before you guys shoot me, let me pray for you.”
Then the leader asked, “Then you will walk away?”
I replied, “Yes, I will.”
Before I had the chance to start praying one kid came up to me and hit me in the side with a pool stick. I swear that I felt one of my ribs crack. My King must have been there to weaken the blow because the stick exploded into two pieces. The one-piece flew off and hit one of the other guys right in the groin. You should have seen him go to the ground in pain.
My assalent then threw the broken stick down and said, “Dang, you broke my pool stick.”
I responded, “You hit me with that pool stick and I was protected by my King. That is the reason it broke.”
That shook them up a bit so I could begin praying for all of them. While I prayed, they all began to dig into the donuts. I did have cups for them to pour the drinks into but they threw the cups on the ground and passed the bottles around, drinking directly from them. My King told me things about each gang member as I prayed for them. I had a specific prayer for each of the 42 men that were there. As I finished up praying, I prayed for the leader last. When I approached him, he asked, “Do you have any last words to us?”
I said, “My words to you are Jesus loves you and He has a purpose for you. It is to serve Him and not the enemy. The devil is the enemy and what you’re doing is destroying your hearts and destroying your families. When was the last time you called home?”
The leader replied, “It has been eight years.”
I then said, “I bet they miss you. I have one other thing. Do you have any prayer requests for you or your family?”
The leader told me, “When I walked away from home, my dad was an alcoholic and he probably still is. Could you pray for him?”
I said, “Why don’t you call him? I will pray for him over the phone.”
The leader looked around to see how his men were looking at him before he called. He then said, “Okay I’ll call him.” He dialed his number and his dad answered the phone. His Dad asked, “Are you okay?” His son was not sure what to say to his dad so he turned the conversation to me.
His son said, “Dad, there is a guy here who is telling me about Jesus Christ. He wants to pray for you. I am going to give the phone to him.”
His dad quickly said, “Has he been telling you about Jesus Christ?”
The son said, “Yes Dad.” and handed me the phone.
I said, “My name Sonny. Your son wants me to pray for your addiction to alcohol. God is capable of taking any addictions that you may have from you.”
His dad responded, “I have been sober for two years. I still fight the temptation to go back and continue drinking every day. I have given my life to Jesus Christ.”
I said, “Let us pray that God removes those thoughts completely from your head.”
As I started praying for him, I could also hear his wife crying in the background. She asked, “Who is praying for you?”
Her husband replied, “His name is Sonny. He has been telling our son about Jesus Christ.” She started crying harder.
The gang leader felt uncomfortable with his mom crying and said, “I need to walk away right now. I need to do some thinking.” He grabbed his phone and a couple of doughnuts and then left.
I kept ministering to the whole gang while he was gone. I spent all day with them sharing the word. They all had prayer requests that I prayed for and many of them were family related. They soon began calling aunts, uncles and whoever was a part of their lives. I noticed the homeless guy I witnessed to earlier was sitting over by some trees. He was watching everything while I was praying over these men. I went back to ministering to these broken young men.
The sun was about ready to set and I said, “It is almost time for me to go.”
The gang said, “You are the only one we’ve ever let get this close to us. You showed us love instead of hate. You did not beat us with the word of God but you feed us and just told us about the love of Jesus Christ. You read scriptures to us and nobody has ever spent the time to do that. Everyone is always afraid of us.”
I said, “I am afraid of you guys too but I also know that you guys are broken. This is the ministry that my King has given me to come to the lost and the broken hearted. You guys are like lions. Lions can devour people. But you guys have hearts that need to be saved.” I could see the hearts changing in these young men.
The leader finally came back and said, “My dad is different. He hasn’t been drinking in two years. That is a very big thing that he has done. I have asked him to take me home.”
All of a the sudden, his men stopped what they were doing. One guy asked, “Does that mean we’re not a gang anymore?”
The gang leader then looked directly at his men and said, “You guys determine where you want to spend eternity.” I can tell the way he was talking that his dad must have been talking scriptures with him and talking about eternity because the leader has also changed. Even his men could see the change in him.
The guy who threw me on the ground apologized to me saying “I am sorry that I made you bleed. I wanted to shoot you so bad when you walked in here because we just didn’t trust anybody. If you want to pray for us again, go ahead.”
It was time for them to give their hearts to Jesus Christ. I said, “All of you who want your names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, come forward.” As I finish this sentence, all kinds of cars started showing up. I will be asking them this same question later. The cars were all the parents of the young men. While I was ministering to everybody, they were calling their parents wanting to come home. Usually the gangs don’t start calling their parents until they’ve given their hearts to Jesus Christ. These guys just could not wait. When the parents got out of their cars, they began running towards their sons. I stopped everything I was doing and waited. When everybody arrived, I had the parents and their sons come together. I found out 60% of the parents were Christians. It was time for the rest to come to Jesus Christ. I called everybody to come forward again to give their hearts to Jesus Christ. The parents who were not Christians also came forward with their sons and gave their lives to Jesus Christ with them.
Many of the parents shared with me that they have been praying for this day for a long time. And it has finally come to pass. We got to celebrate. Soon a bunch of Pizza Hut cars started showing up. When the delivery boys got out of the cars to hand the pizzas off, you could tell they were terrified coming into this area. Soon everybody was enjoying the pizzas.
The gang leader got up on the balcony of one of the buildings and said, “Just because we have given our hearts to Jesus Christ does not mean that we cannot be friends. My dad said he is willing to have small groups for discipleship. Any of you guys who want to be part of that come with us. We can share our contact information so we can have Bible studies together.”
Could you imagine that in the morning they were aiming pistols at me and body-slamming me on the ground. Now that it’s evening, they were wanting to have Bible studies. It is sometimes tough to get beaten up like that but in the end, serving God and doing what He wants will become Victorious. I will never enjoy being body slammed but the rewards of seeing someone coming to Jesus Christ outweighs the pain. When they all went home, they might have grabbed an item or two but everything else was left in the buildings. They all wanted to put this life behind them. It is also interesting how they controlled such a large block of buildings. They were so dangerous that no owner could even collect rent on those buildings or occupy them themselves. The gangs will physically walk in, put a gun to your head and ask you to leave. No one has the courage to tell them to leave so you are without your property.
But it is the beginning of a new day. The law enforcement told the owners that the gang cleared out and they could go back into their property and claim it. I also found out there were five undercover police watching me the whole time just in case I got shot but I never knew who they were. We actually drove ourselves out of that area.
The homeless guy showed up and stopped us saying, “That was a miracle that just happened. You made a believer out of me that miracles can happen.”
The undercover police, who kept their identities, asked if he wanted a job for cleaning up some apartments.
He replied, “No. I have already gotten a job. While I was watching Sonny at work, the owner of those buildings was also watching what was going on. He hired me to help him clean up his buildings. He noticed that the guys were leaving the area and needed help to clean things up. That homeless guy watched me all day and God gave him a miracle.
This is the only gang that my King wanted me to see in New York. He is now sending me to New Jersey.