Global Teen Challenge (GTC) - Area Banquet and Huntsville Base

Please note Africa’s Regional Director for Global Teen Challenge
will be based in Huntsville beginning in 2010!
See also www.gtcafrica.com


T E E N   C H A L L E N G E
RELENTLESS LOVE BANQUET
G R E A T E R   H U N T S V I L L E
With Nicky Cruz (testimony below)

Jerry Nance, President, Global Teen Challenge
Robert Angles, Executive Director, Alabama Teen Challenge
The Alabama Teen Challenge Choir & Testimonies
Theme: Mark 13.10
Pictured: Evangelist Nicky Cruz – the subject of two Hollywood movies (testimony below)

Global Teen Challenge Banquet:
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Huntsville Marriott (Next to the Space Center)
6:30-7:00 Fellowship and Arrival
7:00-8:30 Dinner & Program
Tickets $25 inclusive (reservations)
www.gtcafrica.com

Note: Register after Sept. 20th at  banquet@teenchallenge.cc or online here.  Once registration exceeds 400, there will be a video venue with full banquet for the overflow crowd in the room directly next to the Marriott’s Ball Room.  People in the video venue will have first priority at the reception with Nicky Cruz immediately following the banquet.

Global Teen Challenge (GTC) is twenty-five thousand plus discipleship beds in seven regions counting ninety-two countries.  These are Great Commission ministries to the “least of these,” particularly addicts, free, with stunning success because of the transforming power of Jesus Christ.  At the Teen Challenge Relentless Love Banquet you will witness first hand living miracles: young people who are currently in Teen Challenge who have come out of unimaginable circumstances, backgrounds and addictions, and have been found by the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.

GTC Africa’s Regional Director will be based in Huntsville beginning in 2010. Representing over one thousand Teen Challenge discipleship beds and over one hundred and forty staff in twenty-seven African ministries, GTC Africa Regional Director Doug Wever was first a Teen Challenge director in 1987.  Having raised his family in Huntsville, Doug has recently been appointed a foreign missionary, and will commute from Huntsville beginning next year.  Doug began traveling to Africa regularly in 2001 while a Huntsville area pastor, and Doug’s Africa ministry has been featured in local and national press.

Alabama Teen Challenge carries the Teen Challenge ministries in this our great state, and provides virtually free residential discipleship to Alabamans in need with ministry through seven locations across the state.  Concurrently opening with the occasion of the Relentless Love Banquet, is a Teen Challenge Crisis Center right here in Huntsville serving North Alabama.

Nicky Cruz’ life has been the subject of two Hollywood movies, The Cross and the Switchblade (viewed by an estimated 50 million people in over 30 languages in 150 countries) , and the upcoming 2010 release, Run Baby Run:

Nicky was only 3-1/2 years old when his heart turned to stone. As one of 18 children born to witchcraft-practicing parents from Puerto Rico, bloodshed and mayhem were common occurrences in his life. He suffered severe physical and mental abuse at their hands, at one time being declared the "Son of Satan" by his mother while she was in a spiritual trance.

When he was 15, Nicky's father sent him to visit an older brother in New York. Nicky didn't stay with his brother long. Instead, full of anger and rage, he chose to make it on his own.

Tough, but lonely, by age 16 he became a member of the notorious Brooklyn street gang known as the Mau Maus (named after a bloodthirsty African tribe). Within six months he became their president. Cruz fearlessly ruled the streets as warlord of one of the gangs most dreaded by rivals and police. Lost in the cycle of drugs, alcohol, and brutal violence, his life took a tragic turn for the worse after a friend and fellow gang member was horribly stabbed and beaten and died in Nicky's arms.

As Cruz' reputation grew, so did his haunting nightmares. Arrested countless times, a court-ordered psychiatrist pronounced Nicky's fate as "headed to prison, the electric chair, and hell."

No authority figure could reach Cruz - until he met a skinny street-preacher named David Wilkerson. He disarmed Nicky - showing him something he'd never known before: Relentless love. His interest in the young thug was persistent. Nicky beat him up, spit on him and, on one occasion, seriously threatened his life, yet the love of God remained - stronger than any adversary Nicky had ever encountered.

Finally, Wilkerson's presentation of the gospel message and the love of Jesus melted the thick walls of his heart. Nicky received the forgiveness, love and new life that can only come through Jesus. Since then, he has dedicated that life to helping others find the same freedom. This was the birth of the ministry of Teen Challenge by God through David Wilkerson, and Nicky Cruz was one of the ministry’s first converts.

He reaches today's youth because they relate to his background, trust his peer authority, and respond to the message of hope he delivers with both passion and conviction. As one kid said after an outreach into his neighborhood, "All I knew was he was an O.G. (original gangster) and he was having this big meeting tonight."

For more details on the Area Banquest and coming GTC Huntsville-Based Operations please see www.gtcafrica.com and nickycruz.org