I got a phone call this morning at 5:00 am that woke me up. Last night, I got into the hotel around 1:30 AM so I intentionally closed the hotel drapes, and turned off all alarms because I wanted to sleep in...at least until 8:00 am. It was my daughter Carmen on the line. She said: dad....and we began a wonderful conversation. I love listening to Carmen. I'm glad she called and woke me up. I couldn't fall asleep again, so I started to reflect on what God did last night. For all of you who watched on Adventist YouthTV, I have to tell you that the Spanish-American Seventh-day Adventist Church was packed. I'm estimating that we had anywhere from 800 - 1,000 people there. Every seat in the place was taken, extra chairs were brought out and placed in the aisles, youth were sitting on the floor and another group of young people were watching in the downstairs youth room via closed circuit TV. I'm glad I'm not the L.A. Fire Marshall. For that many young people to show up when this was NOT advertised, is a miracle indeed. You see, this Friday night gathering was NOT promoted, NOT a single flier was printed, NO brochure was mailed out, well...at least not in the traditional way. We used "Social Media". All we did was tell our "Friends" on Face Book, My Space, Adventist Youth Space.com, YouTube and our followers on Twitter. We had no idea how many young people would show up. Now, I have to give credit to Pastors Carlos Acosta, Manny Arteaga and others in the Los Angeles area who I heard had made announcements in their churches. But we had youth from Las Vegas Nevada, Florida, Utah, Texas, Ciudad Juarez Mexico, and all over California. When I approached the 30+ youth group from Las Vegas and asked how they had heard about this, they said: "Face Book!"
Thank God for Social Media! God blessed this gathering last night. The Lopez Brothers sang praises to God, The Praise Team led by Keren Arteaga provided an unforgettable worship experience with great singers and musicians, Milton Coronado and his artwork added a special element to the program, but then Pastor Jose Rojas delivered an inspiring and very moving message...he tore it up!!! God showed up last night.