The decorated soldier and the preacher with a painful past

It was extraordinary to see retired war hero and a preacher with a painful past, working together to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Coachella Valley of California

General William G. “Jerry” Boykin, a retired three-star General, shared his testimony on the opening night of the Festival of Life Coachella Valley and then Mike MacIntosh told a hushed audience of about 12,000 people about how drugs had wrecked his early life.

“I was involved with LSD and one night a group of men took me into a room, put a bag over my head, and then I remember a gunshot going off,” said MacIntosh, who has been running these unique festivals for many years. “When I came around, I thought part of my head was blown away.”

He said that he was put in a county hospital for one week and then was an out patient the rest of time. It took two years before he began to accept that his face was “okay” after all.

“In that time, my wife Sandy had divorced me and my life was in a terrible mess,” he went on to say. “But then Jesus came into my life, saved and healed me, and we were re-married.”

With that, the crowd broke into applause and after the message, he made an altar call, and there was an amazing response. Mainly young people began running to the front to pray the sinner’s prayer with the preacher.

I estimated that about 2,000 decisions were made last night.

MacIntosh said, “Sandy and I were thrilled. It was heaven on earth. Saturday night should keep growing in attendance. I have been praying for lost souls in the valley for a year and my answered prayer of the many beautiful teenagers and young adults who gave their lives to Christ took on a new meaning. We are so happy we have seen Jesus work a miracle.”

He added, “We have 16,000 seats on the field and with bleachers and I was thinking that if 2000 people came we would have a start, but instead we had 8-10,000 people for the first evening. That is huge.”

A pastor, who attended the first night of the three-night festival, “This is the largest crowd of non-believing teenagers the church has ever gathered in the history of Coachella Valley.”

Joe Jordan who runs Jordan Outreach Ministries who attended a mini festival in Thermal said they had 300 decisions for Christ at the event, and hundreds are finding Christ at the mini festivals which feature free medical treatment, dental treatment, free food and clothing, as well as many clowns who share the Gospel with the mainly Hispanic people who come to these special events.

Before the evening festival began, I talked with General Boykin, a retired three-star General who served as the Commander of the Green Berets and was commander of Delta Force and served in Mogadishu, Somalia, about which the movie “Blackhawk Down” was about.

I asked him why he was speaking at the festival and he said, “I came down here to be with Mike MacIntosh at the festival and to speak for a few minutes to the audience about the importance of putting our trust in Jesus Christ through all situations and all times.”

He did just that and told the huge crowd, “I am one of those people who has lived through some very difficult circumstances during my years in the military. I've been shot, I've been hit with a mortar, I've seen men die and through all of that my faith has actually been strengthened not weakened and I have learned that in the most difficult of times there is only one way to go and that is to turn towards Christ for strength, for comfort, and for revival.”

Also during the evening, Grammy and Dove Award winning Third Day performed to an enthusiastic audience as did Jonathan and Sarah MacIntosh.

But the event was more than a concert; there were professional BMX exhibitions, a kid's zone, a village area, and much more.

Today, there is also a special kids’ show for the entire community with a special guest performer.

The Festival of Life continues tonight (April 10, 2010) with another message of hope and faith from Mike MacIntosh and then, as part of the evening multi-cultural night with Spanish artists Salvador headlining along with Ernesto D'Alessio (famous novella star) and Maria De Sol and Fermin IV (ex-singer of Control Machete).

So the preacher with a past and the retired war hero were a wonderful example of how God can use people from such different backgrounds to say that the age of miracles has not gone and so many are finding the life-changing salvation message that is transforming lives.

Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. danjuma1@aol.com.