Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m recording back home in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. And I’ve got three people with me here today that have been an absolute pleasure to work with here this past semester. I think most of you know, I and my team, we’ve been traveling, doing the war all over the country, everywhere from Texas to South Carolina. And boy, God has showed up and God has worked in many, many hearts. We’ve seen hundreds of young people come and 270 young people have trusted Jesus Christ alone as their Savior, which has honestly been worth everything here. And we’re thrilled with what God has done. But here today, what I wanted to do is I actually wanted to get some testimonies from the team members, because, you know, as much as you hear about me tell stories about this kid that came and this thing that happened, there’s a whole lot that’s happening in our hearts along the way. And there are lessons that God is teaching us about surrender, lessons that God is teaching us about dependence. And there’s plenty I could share that God taught me this semester, but I’d really like the team to go ahead and share a little bit of what was happening underneath the surface in our hearts. And so I think we’re going to have Jeremiah first share just what he’s thinking, what God taught him here this semester. Go ahead, Jeremiah.

So I think the biggest thing for me was just the simple fact that God’s will often exposes your weaknesses. And so when I joined the team, I knew God wanted me to do it. I just didn’t realize, obviously, what was going to happen, what was going on and stuff like that. But over the course of the months, I just saw that I was weaker than I actually thought I was before. you know and um that made me just realize how much more i needed god for essentially everything every aspect of traveling whether it’s the recruiting the war nights themselves even just talking to folks at church on a sunday morning wednesday night interacting with the youth group i needed god for all of that because i had nothing to give them really and then obviously when giving teens the gospel counseling them and things like that i had nothing to give them again And I would always, I just remember crying out to God saying, God, I have nothing to give this guy, this girl, whatever. Just show me how to help them, how to counsel them, whatever it was. And another big thing that I saw was just, it was really just encouraging to see even the teens, the surrender invitations. Whenever, you know, whether it was teens that came, visitors or teens from the youth group, it was awesome to see the teens who were excited about wanting to serve God, even if they didn’t know exactly what it meant for them long term. They knew that they wanted to serve God, and that was just a really big encouragement to me for sure. That’s great. That’s awesome. Jerry, do you have any stories you want to tell? So I remember last week, two weeks ago I should say, in Knoxville, Tennessee, this one guy, I think his name was Logan, I invited him in the lunchroom somewhere, and normally my attitude towards lunchroom was lunchroom kids don’t really come. That was just kind of my general thing. You get plenty of recruits but not a lot of people, but this guy came and he brought a friend with him. He only came on the final night. And so I was just praying the Lord would work in his heart. And I could tell he was, you know, he’s a good kid, but you could tell there’s some issues there, whatever. He had kind of an attitude problem, I think. And so he had a good time in the competitions and everything. And then we got to the cheering contest and all those things. He was totally into it. That was really exciting to see. And then the gospel preaching came. And I just remember, I knew, I knew for sure. I was like just praying that the Lord would really just work in his heart to pick him. I think, Mr. Boswell, you obviously raised your hands, whatever. He raised his hand the first time. No, sorry, he didn’t. He didn’t raise his hand that first time. But then you kind of just gave a little bit extra time because you saw that not many people raised their hand. And so I was just praying. I’m like, Lord, please just let him stand up. And in that very last second before you were going to close it out, he just stood up, went to the back. And that was really awesome. I remember just doing a little fist bump to myself. Just kind of really excited that he got up. And so that was just really encouraging to see how the gospel just can reach even to the people who are just really, you know, they don’t want to move, but the Holy Spirit is stronger than their emotional, you know, whatever.

So it’s just really great to see how the Holy Spirit works that way. Amen. Now, I know Jeremiah is not going to say this just because he doesn’t want to brag. But, you know, Jeremiah came in, and when he came in, you’ve got to understand, he came in about three weeks in. The Lord led in just a variety of different ways. And Jeremiah joined us and we did a super fast training time, like a day and a half of training. And before Jeremiah knew it, he was out there recruiting. I remember going out with him at that one school in San Antonio, the parking lot. And I could tell he was scared to death. Scariest day of my life. And then the next day they had lunchrooms and ROTCs all day and he got thrown right into it. But, you know, it’s been neat to me to watch the steady growth of faith in him and to see at the beginning, like you mentioned earlier, he was scared to death. It exposed his weakness. And for me, just observing, it was exciting to see in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he was feeling under it, under the spiritual battle. And just from the outward perspective, I don’t know all of what was going on in his heart, but to see him find the victory in the spiritual battle. Again, just so young people know, sometimes Satan literally just steps on your head when you’re out recruiting in the middle of a week. It’s like he does everything he can to discourage you, and it’s not like you’re in sin or anything, but he knows you’re a threat to his kingdom, and so he’ll just try to sit on you, and you don’t know what’s going on. You just feel discouraged, depressed, and I could tell he was under it. He told me a few times he was under it, And I remember there was a prayer meeting, and even shortly after that, the Lord just delivered. And really from that point forward, as much as he did an awesome job before that, it was just like an Elon Musk SpaceX rocket ship sailing towards the atmosphere, okay? And the second to last week, he got fifth place for my personal all-time recruiting records, and then the next week he broke that record. It was still fifth, but he broke that record too. And so I just want to tell you, young people, you might look at this and you might think, you know, man, there’s so many things I can’t do. Well, listen, there’s a spiritual battle. You need to understand your weakness and you need to step forward in faith anyway and let God change you and grow you. And so anyway, that’s some of what the Lord did there. That’s awesome, Jeremiah. Hannah, why don’t you go ahead and share a little bit of what God taught you here this semester?

I think one of the biggest things that I came away from the semester with would just be how incapable I am in and of myself, but how humbled I am that God still wants to use me. This wasn’t my first time traveling, but it was easy maybe to go into it thinking, oh, I know how to do this. I can recruit. I can invite teens out. But just being confronted with myself again and just how much I can’t do. I can’t find teenagers on my own. I can’t convince them to come out to the war. I can’t convince them of their need to listen to the message and to respond to the invitation. But just when I got humble before the Lord and again said, God, I can’t do this. I need you to intervene. Just how much I saw God do and how exciting it was to see him work. But again, how humbled I was that he wanted to use me to do it. I had nothing to offer to this tour, to anything that the Lord wanted to do. but he delights in using our weakness in order to just bring forth his message of the gospel and really see these teenagers’ lives changed. And I think one thing as well is just how powerful the message of the gospel is, seeing these teens come in, their wacky appearances or their bad behavior, and just seeing them soften throughout the message and just break at the end, just come back broken, searching for what they know to be truth, for that love that they so desperately want, And just seeing the light come into their eyes for the first time as they realize that God loves them and he has a plan for their life. I think it’s just one of my favorite things about traveling is just seeing that connect in the teenagers’ minds, just how much that God does have for them and how much he loves them.

Thank you for that, Hannah. You know, I just need to say that Hannah has been a huge blessing to our family and to my children. She’s traveled along with us and taken great sacrifice, not only to come and be on the team and to go out recruiting and do everything involved with the war, but she’s also here these last several months poured her life into my children and really into our home, our family. She has a servant’s heart, and she loves my kids. And, you know, I have team members, and I would say most of them get along with my kids, but it’s different to have somebody that just gets along with your kids from somebody who genuinely loves them. And she homeschooled them. She sat on them at times when they needed it. She kept them going and really took a huge load off of my wife. It’s one thing to homeschool your kids, but then when you got in a trailer, you know, 42-foot trailer, you got kids trying to be homeschooled and then little kids that just want to play and babies that cry and diapers and all that stuff. And to have Hannah Long to be able to take that load off of my wife has been a huge blessing that I can’t even say enough about. All right, Joe. Can I use it? Yes, sir. Little Joe from Kokomo here. All right. Joe was on the team the full semester, and it was neat how God led him to be on the team, just clear leadership of the Spirit of God. But Joe was with me for the long haul from the ice-cold training in single-digit degrees, packing the truck and trailer, to driving all the way down to Texas together. I’m sure God taught you more than just how to drive a long distance there. Yeah. Why don’t you talk a little bit about what God did in your heart here? Yes, sir, definitely.

Starting at the very beginning, he just mentioned that we drove down from Wisconsin down to Texas, and we stopped at a church, and that night the pastor preached on James 4, being humble before God and submitting to God. And I’d say that was the theme of what I learned this tour, just total humbleness before God, realizing that without Him we can do nothing. With us, with men, it’s impossible, but with God, all things are possible. and just realizing that in and of myself, there’s nothing I can do to spiritually bless any of these people. Maybe I could go out and have fun and recruit some people and maybe even get some people to come, but only the Holy Spirit does work. Only the Holy Spirit convicts, and just realizing that I needed God so much. And it was very obvious throughout the whole tour how much I needed God. As Jeremiah said, just traveling does expose some of your weaknesses, And, but it also exposes how great God is. It shows you how great God is. And just through your weaknesses, God still uses you and he can do great things. And I just remember many, many times just coming to complete realization that God, without you, I can’t do it today. God, I need your help. I need you to open doors, things where you’re totally out of control, but we know you’re in control. So we’re asking you to do it. And we’re just going to step out in faith. And over and over again, time after time, we would step out in faith, and God would answer our prayer. God would open doors. God would lead us to the right teenagers to come out. Even in the preaching, we’d be praying for the ones that were listening to the gospel. There would be distractions or whatnot. We’d just be praying for Satan to be hindered, and he would, and the gospel would go forth with power. Many people would get saved once we were praying for. And it was just amazing to see that, you know, it was all God. It was none of us during the tour. God can do great things, and all he needs is someone that’s just surrendered to him. And it was just such an encouragement to me spiritually to know that God can use me in a great way. And it’s not about who I am. It’s not about being a special person or being a godly person even. It’s just being surrendered to God, humble, realizing that I need him. And he loves giving his grace. And there’s nothing like receiving God’s grace and seeing it in front of your own eyes.

Amen. Yeah, that’s for sure. That is for sure. Amen. Got any stories that stick out to you here from this semester? So many stories.

The very first week, there was a guy who was in the preaching, and Mr. Baza was preaching. There was a lot of distractions going on, and I was praying. I remember praying while Mr. Baza was preaching for the ones that were under the preaching, that they would hear the gospel, that they would be convicted. And finally, there was a hush in the ones that were listening, And the gospel definitely went forth with power. Many people stood up and went back in the invitation, but I just sensed that there was more that needed to be saved that did not go back in the invitation. And my heart really burned for them, and I was just really in desperation for them, just realizing the severeness if they didn’t get this settled before it was too late. And I was just praying while he was preaching, and then afterwards he had me come up and close. And I just told him, I said, listen, if some of y’all are fighting, If some of y’all Satan doesn’t want you to get saved, please don’t leave tonight. I didn’t push him, but I told him, you know, don’t leave tonight before coming up and talking to one of us about getting this settled. And this guy named Gio, he came up to me, great guy. And he told me, you know, he didn’t tell me why he wanted to get saved. He didn’t tell me, you know, he didn’t come up to me to get saved. He came up and told me why he was not going to get saved. And it was just a clear, just opened my eyes to see Satan was what Satan was saying to him. what Satan was telling him, why he should not accept Christ. And I said, hey, you want to talk about this? And we sat down, and I listened to him for a while, and we talked back and forth. And then finally he just broke, and he didn’t want to say yes to Satan anymore. And he accepted Christ. He depended on Christ alone to save him. And that was the very first week, and even this last week, as we were kind of going alongside my testimony, just realizing we need God so much, I was not feeling it going into the week. I didn’t think that we’d get many recruits, just the small town we were in. The chances of getting into the schools were just so slim. And I just remember praying to God and saying, God, I don’t deserve your grace, but Lord, I need it. I need you to open the doors. Lord, we need you. We cannot do it. We need you. If we’re going to have a good week this week, it’s going to be all you. And it was absolutely amazing, the recruiting. He already said Jeremiah broke the record or the fifth place record for the most recruits. We all had a lot of recruits. It was just, it was awesome. We had so many open doors that was just obvious God was opening the door. And people came from every place that we invited and people got saved. I think 26 people got saved that week. It was really just amazing to see God work. And coming into the week, we knew that we could not do it. But we just told God, you know, God, we’re just going to do your will. And we ask you to lead us and to open doors. And he did.

And it was an amazing week to close out the tour. Amen. Yeah, it sure was. You know, I remember on the first night I do those poll things and ask, you know, how many of you are from this grade or that grade? And I asked about the schools because we’ve gotten into two lunchrooms. And another one that we couldn’t get into the lunchroom was just an amazing parking lot dismissal recruiting. And I just asked how many. And they were from all three schools, like no doubt about it, clear pockets of people from those schools. and the Lord worked in hearts. Well, you know, it really has been a pleasure to work with Joe and Jeremiah and Hannah here this semester. It’s been a pleasure to see God grow them. These are folks that are just fun to be around, and yet they also know how to get a hold of God and say yes to Him. And it’s going to be hard to say goodbye. In fact, as of the time of the recording, we’re going to have our debrief meal tonight and really just talk through the whole semester and even just on an interpersonal level what God taught us. But, you know, young person, I just want to mention this. Many of you are probably in junior high or high school. I’m sure a number of you are out of high school and in college in a variety of different even colleges around the country. Maybe you’re not in college, but you’re out of high school. And I just want to say this. I am always looking for young people to travel on my teams. And I can take any young person during a spring semester. Young man is really what I’m looking for. young men who are really serious about serving God, who are willing to be completely surrendered to Him. They’re willing to be stretched. They’re willing to work hard, and they’re willing to walk up to strangers and say, hey, have you heard about the war? No, not the one in Ukraine and all that stuff. And if that’s something that interests you, send me an email, bobby at thegeneration.org. That’s B-O-B-B-Y at thegeneration.org. I’d love to consider it. And if you’re in college, Maybe you can take a semester off of college in order to travel with us. That’s what these guys have done. But we would love for the lessons that these guys learned to be lessons that you can learn. And you can’t learn this kind of thing in a classroom. You can hear about it. You can hear about it on a podcast, but there’s nothing like being in the trenches yourself and having to be desperate and seeing God come through and do the impossible. And this semester, just a couple statistics. the guys and Hannah recruited 4,340 young people. We had 890 come and hear the gospel, and 270 trusted Christ as their Savior, and 302 stood up and said they wanted to be completely surrendered to Jesus. And that’s thrilling. It’s thrilling what God is doing, and God is just getting started. You know, a lot of people are discouraged these days, thinking that, you know, God’s done working because of the pandemic and the Democrats and all that stuff, but I want you to know God is just getting started. And so as we always say here, really what’s the key? It’s being totally surrendered to God and totally dependent on his power to turn the world upside down with the gospel. Thanks for listening.